5 Editor’s Secrets to Help You Write Like a Pro

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This post, from Sonia Simone, originally appeared on her Remarkable Communication site on 9/10/07.

I do a lot of copyediting, both of books and advertising collateral. I’ll let you in on a secret that still surprises me, although I’ve seen it hundreds of times now. If you looked at the raw work of most professional writers, you’d be pretty underwhelmed.

Professional writers get work because they hit their deadlines, they stay on message, and they don’t throw too many tantrums. Some pros have a great writing voice or a superb style, but as often as not, that gets in the way. When you know that the best word is “prescient,” it’s hard to swallow when an account manager tells you the client won’t know what it means.

Professional writers rely on editors to fix their clunks. Like good gardeners, sensitive editors don’t hack away—we prune and gently shape. When we’ve done a great job, the page looks just like it did before, only better. It’s the page the writer intended to write.

Editing, like writing, takes time to learn. But here are five fixes I make with nearly every project. Learn to make them yourself and you’ll take your writing to a more professional, marketable, and persuasive level.

1. Sentences can only do one thing at a time.

Have you ever heard a four-year-old run out of breath before she can finish her thought? I edit a lot of sentences that work the same way. You need a noun, you need a verb, you might need an object. Give some serious thought to stopping right there.

Sentences are building blocks, not bungee cords; they’re not meant to be stretched to the limit. I’m not saying you necessarily want a Hemingway-esque series of clipped short sentences, but most writers benefit from dividing their longest sentences into shorter, more muscular ones.

2. Paragraphs can only do one thing at a time.

A paragraph supports a single idea. Construct complex arguments by combining simple ideas that follow logically. Every time you address a new idea, add a line break. Short paragraphs are the most readable; few should be more than three or four sentences long. This is more important if you’re writing for the Web.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes secrets #3-5, on Remarkable Communication.

#fridayflash: Women, Alone

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This week I’m cheating a bit by presenting the opening to my work-in-progress novel—though I’m using the expression "in progress" very loosely since I haven’t done any work on this in over a year.

I want to point out that the story doesn’t have an especially feminist bent, this isn’t man-hating lit. It’s more an exploration of how each sex (male vs. female) defines the other to some extent, and the possible impacts of removing one sex’s influence on the other. I got the idea one day after hearing someone say, yet again, that if women ran the world there would be no wars or crimes against humanity, and women everywhere would go around in sweatpants and ponytails. I disagree, and wanted to explore the reasons why.

The day all the men and boys vanished was otherwise unexceptional. There were no natural disasters to report, no curious lights in the sky, no extraterrestrial visitations. They were simply…gone. As the sun crawled across the surface of the Earth that morning, its indifferent rays sought out each empty bed and cot and filled them all with an unforgiving light.

All over the world, small, identical dramas played out in houses, flats, huts, tents, kibbutzim and hotel rooms. The length of time it took doubting wives and would-be wives to journey from disbelief to resignation betrayed the relative degree of their secret ambivalences. Resolute wives and lovers fared worse, having been certain they had no reason to hold back some small part of themselves against future abandonment.

The worst anguish was reserved for mothers, robbed as they were not only of their sons, but of the rallying support of family, friends and the general public that had always been the acknowledged due of these bereft, temporarily singular, creatures. When each utterly shattered, hysterical woman tumbled to the door of her neighbor, she was as likely to meet a maelstrom of horror matching her own as to collapse into the arms of a supportive caretaker. And what mother has not, for at least one brief second, harbored a dark wish to be rid of a colicky infant, screaming toddler, churlish adolescent, cruelly spiteful teenage daughter or failed son? The self-recriminations of mothers who knew such impulses had been fleeting and unintentional were no less intense than those of mothers who reacted to their losses with a flood of relief that was at once sickening and welcome to them.

The full scale of the situation wasn’t fully understood for several days, while fruitless searches were conducted and wary, halting intelligence trickled across borders. A handful of tribes and isolated nations maintain to this day they were unaffected, but the truth of the matter is known: at some point between the previous nightfall and the dawn of that inexplicable morning, every human male on Earth, from zygote to centenarian, disappeared and was never heard from again.

Following the initial storm of panicked calls, emails, tweets and reportage, a peculiar lull took over and life momentarily came to a standstill. News of the crisis remained unchanged, yet no other news seemed worthy of attention. Soon enough, the pull to routine asserted itself. The comfort of it both surprised and shamed the women.  They seemed not to realize that the pragmatism bred into them by centuries of vigilant, if subconscious, self-containment and self-denial constituted their most powerful survival skill. 
 

My Flower Heritage

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The last few days must be our burst of Indian summer. When the days like today turn cold and rainy it makes me appreciate those few warmer, sunny days. I spent one of those days cleaning off my flower beds. From year to year, I save my flower seed to use the next spring so the flower beds are the last yard work I do. Early on I potted every flower that wouldn’t make it through the winter and brought them inside. They are happily enjoying the indoor warmth in the south window upstairs.

I always hate to see the colors in my yard go from bright yellows, oranges, purple, and pinks to brown. Right now I have old fashion (Aunt Ethel) asters, a few hardy pansies and petunias trying to hang on. Many of my perennials have been given to me from a member of the family. I inherited being a flower lover. Just not the green thumb that goes with it. I don’t usually think about where I collected my start of flowers until someone takes a tour in the spring. This spring when a friend was visiting, I stopped to explain my asters came from Aunt Ethel Risner in Arkansas, my peonies by the clothes line poles were my mother’s plus her fern peony and white lilies with purple dots. An 80 year old Christmas Cactus that comes in during the winter belonged to a friend of my mother’s in Missouri. One large peony dates back to 1924 from my father’s parents yard in Montevallo, Missouri. His father set the a whole row out, and Dad brought a start to Iowa with us in 1961. The pussy willow, almond bush, old fashion roses and coriospis came from my mother in law. The day lilies came from friend, Gladys. My three small walnut trees and two persimmon trees are from Uncle Frandell Risner’s fall crops in Arkansas a few years back. That is just the top of the list of trees, flowers and bushes I have planted on our land. Some plants I actually bought myself. The ones, that started out as gifts, are now part of my heritage and will long be remember on my family tree just as much as my ability to use my imagination to write books.

Now I have to tell you about going international on ebay with book sales. My first attempt at using ebay was to auction off things. I was never very successful with that. When I self published my books I decided to try selling one of them in "fixed price" on ebay. "Christmas Traditions" has been selling there for a year now. When I published "A Promise Is A Promise" this summer, I wanted to try selling that book on ebay. First though, I emailed all the buyers of my first book to see if I could interest them in buying Promise from me without going through ebay. I did sell about half of my buyers a book. Made me more profit. Now that those buyers know that Promise is a series, they have gotten back to me to ask that I hurry up and get book two done

I’ve always put in an inventory of all my books and contact information with all my sales. The amount of the introductory fee is so small, I have considered this a good way to advertise. I can tell by the hit counter how many take a look at my books. In my ebay, I can see how many are watching my books sell. Some day I shall venture forth with a few more books to see if I can attract more buyers, but right now what attracts attention is the Amish books not my name as the author.

This last week I sold a book to a lady in Onterio Canada. That in itself was a thrill, but now I am opened up to sell all around the world. Since I have the first of both books on www.authonomy.com , I had a couple of writers from England interested in buying my books. Perhaps, they might find my books on ebay in their country and give them a try. Getting known takes time so I just have to be patient and see what happens next. I’ll keep you posted.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Twitter Tips From My Tweeps

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This post, from Alice Pope, originally appeared on her Alice’s CWIM Blog on 10/19/09.

Last week I was working on an article on Twitter for the SCBWI Bulletin and asked my Twitter followers to answer this question:
 

@alicepope: I’m writing an article on Twitter (aimed at writers and illustrators). What’s your best Twitter tip (in 140 characters or less, of course)?

In a matter of minutes my question had been retweeted several times and I’d gotten more than a dozen tips (from writers, editors, and other publishing professionals) which you’ll find below. This served as a great demonstration of how one’s Twitter community can be useful. I suggest you follow each of the wise tweeps who replied to me—and follow their advice as well.
 

  • @HeatherMcCorkle: Twitter tip: Never write anything you don’t want to read on the front page of the newspaper. Could hurt your career later!
     
  • @aliciapadron: tweet how you like to be tweeted
     
  • @GirlsSentAway: Follow 80/20 rule: 80% professional tweets, 20% to show your personality. Interact.
     
  • @EyeOnFlux: Avoid TMI (overly personal information). This begs the question: what DO most people use their Twitter accounts for? Professional? Personal? Should the two mix?
     
  • @glecharles: Be relevant, always add value and remember, it’s SOCIAL media, not just an alternative RSS feed.
     
  • @loniedwards: Tip: Download an add-on like tweetdeck to help sort. Especially during kidlit chats!
     
  • @KateMessner: Just aim to be a friendly, helpful human being online. It’s much better self-promotion than shouting about your book.
     
  • @Lynne_Griffin: I found this helpful “RT @EliseBlackwell @thefictiondesk “Be yourself, not your book.”
     
  • @RuthSpiro: My tip: Connect w/folks OUTSIDE the writing/publishing world; they don’t encounter authors daily, and think you’re really cool!
     
  • @wendy_mc: If you want your funny stuff to be retweeted, shorter tweets are better (leave room for your name)
     
  • @BrianKlems: Be honest in what you post, be it personal or promotional. If you wouldn’t read it, don’t post it.
     

Read the rest of the post, which features many more Twitter tips, on Alice’s CWIM Blog.

Ransom Stephens on The God Patent and the Future of Publishing

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This post, from Henry Baum, originally appeared on Self-Publishing Review on 7/28/09.

Ransom Stephens has written one of the best assessments of the future of publishing that you’re likely to read (found via Pod People).  Called Booking the Future, it needs to be read – more than once.  Here we talk about the ideas put forth in the article and the success of his digitally-published novel, The God Patent, which basically proves the thesis of his essay: the future of publishing is going to look very different than it does today. 

It will have many elements of self-publishing writ large.  As he says, “Though the role of publishing has not changed – connect readers to writers – the revolution will not be led by an established publisher.” The writers who are shunned by some in the lit business are actually the innovators.  Publishing is about to go very digital.

Self-Publishing Review: Your book, The God Patent, has 7200 reads and growing. How did that happen? What’s it take to become a Scribd phenomenon? Did you promote the book a lot or did it just sort of happen?

Ransom Stephens: It kinda blows me away, I’m not sure how it happened.

The whole problem is signal to noise – having your signal emerge from the noise. When I got word that “The iTunes for books” was about to open, it seemed like an opportunity to get above the noise. I didn’t know when it would happen and I didn’t know who would do it. I got everything ready and waited. Then that first day came, May 18, and I jumped on.

I’ve promoted the book pretty much the same way I would a book in print. I’ve handed out 1000 bookmarks at bookstores and literary events and set them in obvious spots where people use computers. I didn’t catch the irony of handing out bookmarks for an ebook until I was introduced at a reading and the MC said that my bookmarks must require understanding of quantum physics to make them work with the scribd e-ink.

I think the bookmarks were a waste of money. The trick with an e-book is to get links in front of people. I used email. By the end of the month, I’ll have sent email to everyone who I’ve ever sent email to or received email from (sans spammers), about 2000 people. A lot of my friends have forwarded my emails to their friends and, I think this is really the key: there are a few people who flat out LOVE my book and they are the best salespeople. They quote it on Facebook, put links all over and stuff. That’s gratifying. And it was weird when my neighbor asked me detailed questions about The God Patent. It’s set in the town where I live, and she had a lot of questions about what was modeled after what and that sort of thing.

As a public speaker, I’ve been able to “capitalize on the bad economy” by giving speeches to mainstream audiences, sometimes even for free (since there is so little work out there right now), based on topics and themes in The God Patent. For example, the woman physicist in the book, Emmy Nutter, is based on the Emmy Noether, the Einstein contemporary who I think made the greatest contribution to mathematical physics of anyone. Ever. I have a speech titled “The Fabric of Reality” that focuses on her work that I’ve given to Rotary Clubs, some new-age groups, a science café, and have pumped up The God Patent at each one.

Ultimately though, I don’t see how anything I’ve done can account for the success The God Patent has experienced at Scribd.

SPR: Do you think posting work online changes how writers approach the work. Did you write your book thinking about how the book would work on screen with the glare of a monitor, and not on paper? If not, would you approach your next book differently keeping the Scribd audience in mind?

 

Read the rest of the post on Self-Publishing Review.

Why Isn't This Working?

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This post, from Sharon Wildwind, originally appeared on the Poe’s Deadly Daughters blog on 10/13/09.

There comes a point when a chapter sits there and stares at you. The longer you stare at it, the longer it stares back. Some people call it writer’s block, but in fact, it may be more story block.

Granted, writers attempt to keep going under horrendous circumstances that have nothing to do with their story line. There comes a point where real life overtakes narrative. Writers have to stop writing while they work with health professionals, lawyers, spiritual advisors, or whomever the heck it takes to get through the crises.

On a less horrendous scale, we know the remedy list. Get more sleep. Exercise. Decrease stress. Eat more beans, steamed vegetables, and multi-grained carbohydrates. Drink less alcohol, caffeine, and sugar.

We also know the remedy list for the story. High public stakes, high private stakes, or both. (Donald Maass) Sufficient goal, motivation, and disaster for each major character in the scene. (Debra Dixon, Sherry Lewis, and others) Characters wanting something right away, even if it’s only a glass of water. (Kirt Vonnegut)

If we’re doing all that good stuff—or as much of it as we can accomplish in a given day—and the chapter still stares back at us, what next?

Change the point of view. Yes, your story may be in first person so all of the chapters have to be in Annabelle’s point of view, but as an exercise try writing from the point of view of anyone else in the scene, even the dog, cat or canary if you’re desperate. There a good chance that another character will spot the flaws.

Re-sequence. Right now Tyrone enters the scene after Annabelle says, “I’ve seen to it that Tyrone will never get promoted.” What happens if he comes in before she says it? Why would she still say what she said if he’s in the room? What if he comes in the split second after she says it, and neither she nor the reader are certain if he overheard what she said? The registered letter is delivered at the end of the scene. What happens if it’s delivered at the beginning? Or half-way through?
 

Read the rest of the post for more tips and advice on the Poe’s Deadly Daughters blog.

Publishing Is A Community Service

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This is a cross-posting from Guy LeCharles Gonzalez‘ Loudpoet site.

Only those who know nothing of the history of technology believe that a tecnology is entirely netural… Each technology has an agenda of its own. It is, as I have suggested, a metaphor waiting to unfold.

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

There’s a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing happening in publishing these days, both by those struggling to find solutions to the challenges the industry faces, and by various Joker-pundits who apparently “just want to see the world burn.” Demagogues and idealogues love the spotlight, and attention-seeking media outlets happily provide them a stage to stoke faux controversies over what’s not being done, or is being done wrong, yelling loudly about the inevitable end of publishing as we know it!

Personally, I’m pretty confident that the end is not near; in fact, I’m very optimistic that new generations of readers will continue to be served by ambitious authors, passionate publishers, and brazen booksellers for many years to come. The individual players and channels may will change, of course, but that’s neither new nor a bad thing.

Change is good, inevitable, and in publishing, very necessary.

For all the talk of publishing’s supposedly imminent demise, there are far too many passionate people working in and around the industry, at every level, to let that happen. And whether they realize it or not, it doesn’t matter if they’re working for one of the major publishers or an independent press, in senior management or as an editor, author or bookseller — there’s a wide and fertile common ground we all share and it’s best represented by the community we all serve: the readers.

Ultimately, it’s readers’ changing habits that are driving the fundamental changes in the publishing industry – everything from the types of books they’re reading to the formats they prefer reading them in – and as a result, it’s the current business model of most publishers that’s under stress, not the community service of publishing itself.

I’m in Frankfurt this week for Tools of Change and the Book Fair, and I’m particularly excited about the opportunity to see Cory Doctorow, Richard Nash, Dominique Raccah, and the Pecha Kucha presentations at the former; and to get a glimpse of the global publishing community, including this year’s guest of honor, China, at the latter. I’m also here on behalf of Digital Book World, meeting some of our Advisory Board and sponsors, and getting feedback on the exciting program we’ve put together for the event in January.

Among the hot publishing topics of the moment, the eBook debate is perhaps the most torrid, and a particularly annoying one when it’s treated like a zero-sum game — Print vs. eBooks in a Battle to the Death! Death!! DEATH!!! It’s also fraught with larger implications for both publishers and authors alike that too many pundits willfully overlook (while pushing their own self-serving agendas), like DRM, international rights, and unequal access to information and technology.

Publishers are also facing the difficult question of justifying their role in the supply chain when the Internet has cracked the playing field wide open, making verticality a more viable model than it’s ever been, and enabling savvy authors and small presses to outmaneuver their larger, more established competitors.

On the flight over I caught up on some reading, a one-two punch of the July/August issue of the Harvard Business Review, and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Postman’s must-read classic could easily have been written in 2009 about the current Internet era; many of his critiques of television apply doubly today, especially with regards to social media, and there are many interesting parallels to be made in the current “battle” of print vs. eBooks.

HBR’s “Managing in the New World” special issue offered a thorough and insightful look at what’s changed and what needs to change for businesses to survive in 2010 and beyond, noting that, “An organization that depends solely on its senior managers to deal with the challenges risks failure.”

Coupled with that statement, perhaps the most relevant article in the issue is Henry Mitzenberg’s “Rebuilding Companies as Communities“, which argues that in order to succeed in the future, companies have to become places “where people are committed to one another and their enterprise.”

Leadership at the center. A robust community requires a form of leadership quite different from the models that have it driving transformation from the top. Community leaders see themselves as being in the center, reaching out rather than down. They facilitate change, recognizing that much of it must be driven by others.

This week, I’ll be giving a lot of thought to what I can do to help move the industry forward in a community-centric direction, and I already have a few intriguing ideas that will unfold over the coming months.

What are some of the things you’re doing from your vantage point to serve the publishing industry’s community of readers?

My Online Booksbyfay Bookstore

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I’m proud to announce that I now have my very own Online Bookstore with a paypal account. Putting together a website is not fast or easy. Not every website I checked out would let me sell products. The website I have on tripod wouldn’t come up for those who tried to find me. Most of the time, I had trouble getting into the site. So recently I explored other websites, thinking that I would have to have one for personal and another for business. The website I found will allow me to do both in one place. So far I am able to gain access to the site. If readers of this blog can’t gain entry let me know.

 

 

The bookstore comes up on the first page with paypal buttons under each book and a description along side the book picture. Other pages contain my bio and favorite links, my accomplishments, an event calendar and hit counter, a blog and Book event pictures which will change from time to time. Do I have this website perfect? No, it needs work and picture will change from time to time. I thrilled that I now have my book inventory available to purchase.

At the very top, I made sure to include that I am a member of MyEntre.net’s Iowa Entrepreneuers and Small Business Owners Group. For me, that lends proof to the fact that I am who I say I am. A small, honest business owner. Besides, I’m proud to say I’m a member.

Hopefully, my site shows buyers a self published author that writes the kind of books she reads – wholesome, heartwarming, humorous, entertaining, suspenseful, exciting and hard to put down until the end. I stated that not one of my books will be rated X or graphically violent. Any member of the family can read them if the books are to their liking. In September, a middle school girl ask her mother to buy my Amish book – A Promise Is A Promise – for her. After talking to me, the girl’s mother bought the book. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear when the girl was done reading the book, the mother read it, too.

　

　

　

　

 

Http://www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com

Why You Should Steal Your Character's Shoes

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This post, from K.M. Weiland, originally appeared on the Show Some Character! blog on Jason Black’s Plot to Punctuation site on 10/9/09.

Have you ever struggled with a character who just wouldn’t come to life? Who seemed great in your head, but who just laid there like a dead fish once you put him on the page?

Maybe you need to steal his shoes.

It may be that the character has too many advantages. You may, as the saying goes, need to make things worse before the book can get better. I learned this lesson from a fantasy novel I critiqued once, although I believe the principle applies in any genre.

The novel in question was a pretty straightforward fantasy arc: hero has to brave a bunch of dangers in order to save the princess. Nothing wrong with that at all. But the hero was, well, too heroic.

He was terribly strong, with the strength of three ordinary men. He wielded an enormous sword that most men couldn’t even lift. He was an exceptional swordsman, having been trained by the best swordmaster in all the land.

Thus fully prepared, he set off to battle.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There is certainly a place in the world for hack-and-slash fantasy novels, where heroes with rippling muscles lay waste to armies of the enemy, then retire to the local tavern for a tankard of well-earned ale and a wench (not necessarily in that order). Plenty of books like that have sold plenty of copies.

However, the characterization in them is rather thin. And since this blog is all about characterization, let’s fix that.

This setup wasn’t very dramatic because the hero was too well matched to the task. His backstory eliminated any real challenge from his task. No challenge, no drama. The hero was such a bad-ass, right out of the gate, that of course we expect him to succeed. That’s boring. We need to saddle the hero with some misfortunes. We need to take him down a few pegs before we’ll have any interesting drama to work with.

We need, in other words, to steal his shoes. You can go two ways here:

Read the rest of the post on the Show Some Character! blog on Jason Black’s Plot to Punctuation site.

The Smoking Cannonball

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This post, from the 3G1B collective (Dennis Haritou, Jason Rice, Jonathan Evison and Jason Chambers), originally appeared on Three Guys One Book on 10/19/09.

3G1B has an ongoing conversation, the subject of which: "what the hell is going to happen to publishing in the future?" disturbs us all. This week we have invited Craig Nova to tell us what he thinks. Craig is the award winning author of 12 novels. His new novel, The Informer, will be released in January 2010.

CN: the first thing that comes to mind when I consider writers and the state of publishing is one of those science fiction movies from the fifties, you know, where some light is seen in the sky and then something like a smoking bowling ball lands someplace and then a couple of geeks get out of a pickup truck. They find a stick and poke the smoking bowling ball and say, "Welcome to California." Then a cobra shaped thing comes out and wastes the shit out of them with a death ray.

So, I think we are in the smoking bowling ball stage. Something has landed and we don’t know what it is. The best we can do is scratch our head and poke it with a stick.

By this I mean, we haven’t come to terms with the digital age, and the impact that this is going to have on publishing. And while it would be easy to say that we are only talking about Kindle, and books in digitized form, it is far, far more ominous than that. Ask an ex-independent book store owner about the impact of online shopping, which seemed pretty innocent in the beginning.

For instance, what about pricing and royalties? For some reason, a Kindle book is being priced at $9.99. Now, for writers there is a big difference between a ten percent royalty on a book of $25 and one at this price. Just as this might mean the end, altogether, of book stores. The economics seem to be driving it that way (after all, you can avoid cutting down a lot of trees, although I guess you still have to make plastic, but only once). So, that’s the simple part.

But it’s not that simple, if a writer’s chance of making a living, already precarious, is reduced even more. The downward pressure on a writer’s livelihood is a serious matter and I think writers are scared.

Where it gets complicated, and where writers and I would imagine publishers feel doubly uncomfortable is that if you don’t need books, that is physical items on a shelf, maybe you don’t need publishers. If the technology is there to make a book suitable for Kindle, and anyone can set up a website to sell it, and if there were some other web based method of letting people know about books (say this very website), where does the publisher fit?

Where, by the way, does an editor fit?

Is this the way it’s going to go?

And beyond that, will it be like the newspaper business, where more and more they are giving away content. Will writers have to do that, too, that is give away large pieces of a book to try to get people to read the last half. And if that is the case, what impact will that have on the way books are written?

Please understand: I am not saying I think this is the way things are going to go, but that this is the way one thinks when poking at that smoking bowling ball and seeing that sleek, metallic cobra head come out with that little hot spot there in front that begins to glow a little more intensely….

That’s one thing.

Another is seemingly more mundane, but in fact, more realistic. That is, what is happening to the American novel or novels altogether.

Read the rest of the post on Three Guys One Book.

Death of the Midlist

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In the mid 1990’s, most of the major New York publishers were bought by huge conglomerates—some of them foreign owned. Literary people were no longer in charge. They were replaced by the long knives accountants—bottom line bean counters extraordinary. I’ll never forget when one of these major publishers canceled the contracts of 100 new books. They told the authors to keep their advance; however, their books were not going to be published after all. At the same time, mid list authors—the ones whose books were selling ok but were not considered to be best sellers—were being dropped and their books were going out of print.

Blockbuster became the watch word. All marketing and editorial resources were to be directed toward the works by the known top selling authors. This created what I call the old warhorses. They were urged to pump out as many books as possible. When these authors began running out of creativity, the publishers began pairing them up with young turks destined to be the next generation of blockbuster authors. They shamelessly drew on the old warhorses’ reputation to pump up the volume of sales.

The downside of this was the elimination of publishing opportunities for many new authors. The output became predictable and lamentable. The long tail of the marketing curve (more on this in a later blog) was completely ignored. Many long-loved authors lost their forum.

The upside was the opportunity for medium and small publishers to grow and fill in the sudden vacuum in the book marketplace. It also opened up the market for canny self-publishers. For example, a mystery specialty bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ called The Poisoned Pen was concerned about the sudden disappearance of many midlist mysteries. They decided to buy up their rights and created their own publishing house, Poisoned Pen Press, which has become one of the top mystery publishers in America. They now take on many excellent unknown mystery writers.

How did the death of the midlist affect some of you?

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

Book Trends

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Bob Spear’s Book Trends blog, in which he explores the past, present and future of publishing, bookselling and authorship.

Publish A Book With Your Literary Tweets

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This post, from Polish author Nick Name, originally appeared on his Password Incorrect site on 10/15/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Have you ever thought of making an e-book with your literary tweets? If you still have doubts, consider this: you can easily do it yourself, you can do it without any cost, and you can use the book as a promotional tool.

A free cover for your Twitter bookHere are some tips based on my personal experience. Just make sure you’ve got a large coffee ready – and make your book happen!

How to collect content?

Twitter search is currently showing results from 9 recent days. Nobody will find your fantastic tweet if it’s 10 days old. 10 days means  “gone”.

It might be difficult even for you to collect your own Twitter stream. And here is a rescue: Tweetbook. It’s a wonderful web service, where you can make a pdf or xml file with your tweets (up to 3200). Having all of them in one editable document will make it really easy to select the golden ones – those you want in your book.

Tip: if you want to have a constant access to your tweets, you can subscribe to your Twitter profile’s feed. From now on all the updates will be collected in your RSS reader.

Where to publish?

There are a few really wonderful sites where authors can self-publish in addition to Smashwords or Manybooks. Feedbooks is my favourite one. Here is why:

:. creating a book is extremely easy. Just copy and paste a piece of text into blog-like fields. A very useful feature is the ability to structure a book on different levels: parts, chapters, sections. If you do so, the table of contents is clickable afterwards, which makes it easy to navigate through the book. This is a unique feature, I didn’t find it anywhere else

:. Feedbooks fully supports mobile reading. Major formats are ePub and mobi, which make a book friendly for reading on cellphones and eReaders. Having in mind that Twitter is being consumed mostly from the mobile web, it’s good to be there

:. apart from public domain books, there is a quickly growing section of original self-published books. Recently a new book list has started, 140 characters, with Twitter-based fiction. Just make sure you include “Twitter” as a tag for your book, and you’ll surely find yourself on the list.

What about a cover?

For many authors the book cover seems to be a killing problem. They can’t design it themselves, they don’t know any designer who would do it for free, and they’re afraid to ask. Well, there are at least three ways to deal with that:

:. every site for self-publishers shows a default cover. At Feedbooks there is additionally a title and author’s name shown on a cover, which is a really nice feature

:. you can choose from a collection of free covers I’ve prepared for self-published Twitter authors like myself

:. as soon as you have a selection of tweets made, you can use the brilliant Wordle word cloud generator to make a cover design for you. Read here how to do that.

How to benefit from a book?

As soon as your book is published, you can use it for promotional activities:

:. in addition to your current literary tweets, you can send a link to your book from time to time

:. show a book on your blog; you’re a published author, let everybody know it

:. share your book on other platforms, let it appear in as many places as possible. It’s a finished and lasting work, link to it from your profile on Posterous, Bebo, LiveJournal, even if you don’t use them frequently

:. if you want to try reaching a book agent or a publisher, having a published book is an asset. Sending an e-mail with a book attached (f.e. in pdf format) makes it more probable to draw attention

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: there’s a variance of opinion on this, but in the U.S. at least, most agents don’t want to receive unsolicited attachments of full manuscripts. However, you can always use your Twitter book to help build your readership and expand your author platform by sharing the book—or just excerpts from it—on your author website or blog]

:. your book is at the same time an easily accessible archive of your best tweets. Send them again, from time to time, there might be people who haven’t yet discovered how good you are. 

Note: if you’ve found this post useful, I would be grateful if you could just download my Twitter-fiction book, share it with your friends and leave a comment.

 

The Old, Mean, Re-formatting Blues

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After working on a computer everyday for more than 25 years, I usually feel pretty confident tackling software issues.  I’m a real, nuts and bolts kind of guy anyway, so fixing whatever comes up is really second nature for me.

Well, today I have to be honest – I’ve been laid pretty low by the need to reformat my first book manuscript for wide, e-book use.  Most of the problems I’m experiencing are my own creation. I only have myself to blame, so along with the mea culpas, I’ll share what has led me to the re-formatting blues, so you won’t need to go there yourself.

Sales of E-books, in a range of formats, have increased steadily at a rate eclipsing paper books consistently this year.  The growth figure I recently read in an interview with Smashwords founder, Mark Coker, is 58%.  58% is a number too large to ignore.  Now personally, I’ll probably never read more than a couple of pages online – I’m old school when it comes to pleasure reading.  But, as every writer should know, potential markets can’t be ignored if you intend to sell your books.  So, it’s time for the old guy to embrace some new ideas.

If you’re happily writing away and converting your documents to e-book-useable formats without a care, then you may only find this week’s column mildly entertaining.  If you’re like lots of other writers, pretty set in your work habits and the software you use, then read on…but don’t do as I’ve done. It’s not pretty.

Word Processors are Not Equal

I’ve been working with my trusty, old word processing program for more than 15 years now.  I really like it.  There aren’t any real bells or whistles to annoy or distract me, and for chapter-based writing, the organization has always been very workable.  I’m speaking of Word Perfect.  Now, I’m not a luddite – I keep it updated and use most of it’s rich feature set.  I produced my first book’s print design using it, short stories, articles for press and online media, pitch letters, advertising copy, business correspondence, and the results look good, and read well.  No problems at all.

I just didn’t see them coming.  MS Word is the preferred word processor in use today.  Believe it. For those who grew up in the Microsoft era, there has never really been any other choice.  I’ve always used MS products grudgingly.  I don’t like the cute icons, spinning symbols, or (what I consider) really arcane menu layouts and placements.  I like my basic WP, but all that has had to change.

When in Tome… 

E-book formats like MS Word files for conversion. Many of the E-book formats can be proprietary, and they usually include a wealth of flexibility in how their content may be read on screen.  This is a very important concept, which requires your manuscript to be quite a bit less “linear” than your print manuscript.  Herein lies the problem.  MS Word is set up to format documents — font, paragraph and chapter — using specific elements that are easily understood and translated by most E-Book software currently written.  To put it simply, Word Perfect just can’t get there from here. 

WP, like all word processors, has a wealth of included export algorithms designed for sharing documents among a group of different platforms and software.  It, unfortunately – at least with the current iteration — formats its documents in certain proprietary ways which, when exported to MS Word formats, or Rich-Text formats usually result in unexpected garbage characters, dropped characters, translation glitches and other hair-tearing excercises.

What You See is Not What You Want…

For example, after five separate attempts to upload my exported MS Word files to Smashwords with no success, I sent up a flare for some help.  Mark Coker, personally it turns out, took a look at what I had sent, then summed it up by saying – you’re trying to convert from WP – it really can’t be done.  Select, Cut and Paste the entire document into Notepad (386 pages in trade paperback format, 96KPlus words), supposedly stripping all formatting controls from the document, then import it into MS Word.  Good Luck.

I needed more than that.  I needed a transfusion. After downloading the simplest version of MS Word, with a 60 day trial period, I followed his direction. The document that resulted had gone from a tiny few typos and grammatical/punctuation errors, into a disaster of page-by-page close editing which will require many, many days of hard work.  Here are some of the highlights:

1.  Menus:
It took me two solid days to figure out that the normal menu commands such as Open, Select, Edit, Save, Save As, etc., were hidden under a cute, cartouche icon at the top left.  Like an idiot, I kept running my mouse over the top of the document/tool bar watching as a huge variety of item opened up, usually not what I was trying to find.  Go ahead, click the cute little icon – it won’t bite.  Watch out that you inadvertently leave the “home” page.  Beyond there be dragons.

2.  Redundancies
Unlike my trusty old WP, MS Word is full of command and applet redundancies – you’ll probably find what you want in several places, often at once!  It can get a little confusing.  I might actually have to find a “Dummies” book to learn how to use the program efficiently.  How embarassing! I hope I don’t see anyone I know at the book store.

3. Find & Replace
Probably my favorite function in word processors, after the ability to select and delete entire sections – dispatching all the awful blither into the ether with a single click.  When I saw the awful results of the file conversion from WP into MSW, I first had to stop my hands from shaking.  After a few deep breaths, I thought: No Biggie. I’ll use Find & Replace and deal with it all in a few short steps.  Wrong again.  MSW’s F&R, is not tense sensitive.  At least not in my copy, or with my limited grasp of it’s huge feature set. 

The conversion, among other things, turned all the leading quotation marks in the entire book, in every single instance of dialog, into capital “A”s.  OK, starting with the most numerous instance, I chose to replace the opening of each dialog sentence which began “I….  So I entered “AI” into the Find text box, and “I into the replace box. Click.

Ohmygod! Now every word in the entire manuscript with the letters “AI” OR “ai” in them have been changed to “I.  Like the word ag”In, for example, or the word r”In, or the word refr”In…you get the idea.  F&R had now become my bane, not my buddy.

The rest of the file contained several other cute instances of reformatting-introduced spelling and grammatical errors which has required very careful editing.  Another fun example: all M-dashes have suddenly become capital "B".  There are several more. It’s been more like a complete, page-by-page re-write.  I’m now finished with 20 chapters – only 10 more to go.  It’ll be a hard lesson, but when I’m finished, I’ll have something I should have had from step one any way: an unformatted version of my manuscript. 

Keep it Simple. Keep a copy.

It would have been a simple thing to rename the original, edited, re-written, ready for prime-time file to an easy-to-remember name that implied no formatting.  Instead, I went about my merry way, formatting my manuscript into publication format, including such absolute no-nos (for E-Books) such as drop caps, large bold chapter headings in different fonts, page numbering, footnotes with call-outs and more than three carriage returns to set off chapter headings, which an e-book file will interpret as a blank page! All of these must die for your E-book to live.

Always save an unformatted, current version of your book.  Be sure it also is set up to letter sized page, uses 12 point type and has a 1 ½" margin left and 1" margins all around.  This is what an agent will want to receive along with your pitch, should your desire to be an Indie Author become too much work. Just kidding.

I may not like Courier, but E-Books love Courier.

If you’re going to sell E-Book versions of your work, you’d better get on the band wagon. Like me, learn to love MS Word, Courier, and MS’ other designed for online text fonts. Resist the gnawing temptation to design a good-looking page in favor of a utilitarian ethic.  Learn to enjoy tickling the cute little icons and chasing down the menus.  It’s a new age of publishing and if you don’t learn the new strokes, you’ll sink!  But remember, once you’re in the water’s fine, or at least…wet.

Oh, I should probably add; I wrote the first draft of this article in Word Perfect. I guess some old habits are just too comfortable to change.

 

 

#fridayflash: Special Delivery

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Gears grinding, the sorely abused SUV careened through the four-way stop at full speed, forcing the half dozen cars in its wake to scatter like ants in the rain. From there it wove at top speed down 17th, scuffing too many bumpers and setting off too many car alarms to count.

It literally cut the corner at Holt Street, jumping across a small triangle of sidewalk to bypass a Mini Cooper that showed no signs of forward momentum—never mind that the light was red—, displacing a bus bench and adding yet another battle scar to its disfigured chassis.

From there it screamed down the alley behind Carver Avenue, sending trash cans and boxes of refuse flying like so many bowling pins, and frightening two dogs, a cat and several pigeons nearly to death. It barely slowed taking the turn out of the alley and onto 19th, though the engine’s squealing plea for a much-needed downshift was heard for blocks all around. Thus alerted to their impending doom, pedestrians and bicyclists fled before the primer-spotted terror as it sped toward the t-stop intersection up ahead, and the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows of the Mironi Brothers Bakery.

At one hundred feet, it held steady. At seventy-five, no change. At fifty the driver yanked the wheel hard to the left and stomped on the brake pedal, sending the rear tires into a smoking, sideways skid. The heap of metal, fiberglass, plastic and melting rubber plowed sideways into the loading zone, caromed off a parking meter and bounced to a stop.

The twentyish driver killed the engine and stepped out into the street, clipboard and pen in hand, head bobbing enthusiastically to whatever his iPod was piping into his cranium. He circled around to the sidewalk, entered the bakery and yanked one earbud loose.

“Yo!” he announced to the girl behind the counter. “Cake pickup for the Carruthers wedding.”