A while ago I did a post on Internet Billboards.
Recently I was talking with a writing buddy, and he asked, "I've on Facebook, now what the hell am I supposed to do with it?"
Like I always do, I made an analogy.
If you're making furniture, one of the tools you'll need is a tack hammer. The average Joe doesn't own a tack hammer, and doesn't need a tack hammer, because it's a specialized tool for a specific job.
Sure, a tack hammer can be probably be used for other applications. But it's used best by someone who understands what it should be used for. Don't buy one if you have no idea why you need it, because if you don't know why you need it, you won't use it properly.
MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and many other billboards, are tack hammers. Specific tools for specific purposes.
And let me be 100% clear here that the specific purpose of billboards isn't to sell books.
Facebook isn't going to get you on the bestseller list. Yet many writers feel they need a Facebook page, so they set one up and then wonder what the hell the point is.
The point of these billboards is twofold.
First, it enlarges your Internet footprint. The more places you are, the more people are likely to find you.
Second, it makes it easier for people to stay connected to you. The more you remain in the forefront of people's minds, the better off your brand is.
As a writer, you are both a spokesperson and a product. Your book is also a product, but effective salesmanship is about selling you as much as it is about selling your book.
The majority of people who buy your book won't know you. But the Internet has shown that the number of people who can know you has increased tremendously.
For the first time in history, the distance between author and reader is a simple mouse click.
It is to a writer's advantage to befriend as many folks as possible, because you are the product as much as your books are.
But just owning the tack hammer doesn't mean you can automatically build furniture.
In order to enlarge your Internet footprint, broaden brand awareness and name recognition, and keep connected with people, you have to put in some time.
As I've said before, people are looking for two things on the net: information and entertainment. Your billboards should provide both.
But social interaction is also a form of entertainment. And it's a powerful one. I know, because it works on me, so I'm sure it works on others.
Last week, I got a Facebook recommendation to befriend Gary Brandner. Gary is a horror writer (he wrote The Howling, among many other great novels) and I have a dozen of his books on my shelf.
I hadn't thought about Mr. Brandner in years, but seeing that recommendation made me befriend him, and that led to me writing him a short email saying how much I enjoyed his work. That led to him kindly responding to my email, which made me feel all happy and fanboyish. So I wrote back, telling him which books of his I owned, asking if I missed any.
Gary mentioned one I missed. I went out and bought it.
All because of Facebook.
I'm sure this happens a lot. Knowing about an author and enjoying his books often leads to sales. But actually hearing directly from an author is even more powerful.
That means you have to do more than just post some pics and stories on your billboards. It means making an effort to communicate and correspond.
Answering messages, leaving comments, replying to email, befriending people, keeping your billboards updated, staying current, initiating contact; these are all effective ways to wield that tack hammer.
So wield away.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Writer As Spendthrift
There are a lot of people who want to separate a writer from her money.
Let's face it; getting published is a goal for many people, but it's such a difficult goal to attain it borders on being a dream.
Dreams don't normally come true. But people will pay big bucks to keep the dream alive.
This morning I'm teaching a one day class at the College of Dupage called "How to Get Published." (Oddly enough, I'm filling in for another teacher who, to my knowledge, has published very little.)
It's an adult eduction class, only a few hours long, and costs less than fifty bucks.
For the students, it's a good deal. I know a lot about the biz, and am good at sharing what I know.
But I am a notable exception. Many writing teachers have never been published by a major house. Many don't have agents.
Yet every college has writing teachers who are willing to take your money and teach you theory they've never practiced.
The bookshelves are crammed full of books about how to write killer query letters and bestsellers. But I only know a handful out of hundreds that were actually written by bestselling authors.
Pick up a writing magazine, or surf the Internet, and you'll find many things to spend money on besides classes and how-to books.
Freelance editors. Book doctors. Fee charging agents. Vanity presses. Self-publishing. Contests. Seminars. Conferences. Conventions.
Joe's advice: Writers are supposed to make money, not spend money.
Unfortunately, because writing is such a hard business to break into, many feel that if they spend some money on the aforementioned things, they'll better their odds.
In practically all cases, no. And you are not the exception to this rule. Trust me.
Today, my students are going to get their money's worth in the first 30 seconds of class, when I tell them:
DON'T SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING TO GET PUBLISHED.
I do add that there are a few small exceptions. Taking a writing class or two isn't a waste of money if the teacher is an industry pro. You can learn a lot from industry pros. But many of these pros also have tips on their website that are 100% free.
All writers should own copies of Stephen King's On Writing, David Morrell's Lessons From A Lifetime or Writing, and a few notable others.
Conferences and conventions are a great place to meet agents, editors, and peers, and networking is just as important in this biz as in any other.
But even these exceptions come with warnings.
If you're taking a bunch of writing classes, chances are you're wasting your time and money. You could be writing instead, and joining a writing group will make you a better writer without costing a penny. There is probably a writers group already at your local library, bookstore, or college. Ask. If there isn't one, start one.
Owning too many how-to books means you're spending too much time reading about writing instead of actually writing.
I know many folks with procrastinitis. They cloak themselves in the trappings of all things literary, spends scads of money pursuing their dream, fantasizing about it constantly. Yet they rarely sit their ass in the chair and write.
If you're going to more than two conventions a year and you aren't published yet you're chasing a dream, not a goal.
As for the other things I mentioned:
Don't enter contests you have to pay for. If your story is good enough to win, it's good enough to sell.
Don't ever pay anyone to help you edit, fix, or rewrite your prose. Learn to do it yourself. I don't know a single author published by a major house who had paid help.
Don't pay an agent anything, ever. Agents don't need to have any sort of license or accreditation, and bad ones abound. For a list of good ones, visit www.aar-online.org.
Don't pay to have your work published. Why not? Visit your local bookstore. Look around. None of the authors on those shelves paid to have their books published. If you pay to be published, you won't be on those shelves.
Since I'm fond of analogies, here's a good one:
When you're learning how to walk, you don't take classes. You don't read how-to books. You don't pay experts to help you, or do it for you.
You just keep falling until you learn on your own.
It's the same thing with writing.
I just saved you fifty bucks. Or perhaps a heck of a lot more.
You can show your appreciation by buying a bunch of my books. Because there is one thing that all writers should spend money on, and that's supporting each other. If you're writing fiction, and you haven't read at least a hundred novels, you haven't learned enough about craft to succeed.
And if you're curious as to what other bon mots I'll toss out in class today, here's a list of Joe Konrath quotes on writing, publishing, and marketing, free of charge:
There's a word for a writer who never gives up... published.
Before you make the key, study the lock.
People would rather fight to the death to defend their beliefs than sit down quietly and question them.
It's about what you have to offer, not what you have to sell.
You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than landing a publishing deal. But if you really want to get hit by lightning, you can improve your odds.
No one is entitled to anything.
What are the last ten books you bought, and what made you buy them? Use those techniques to sell your books to other people. Do what works on you.
Hard work trumps talent. Persistence trumps inspiration. Humility trumps ego.
Praise is like candy. We love it, but it isn't good for us. You can only improve by being told what's wrong.
Your book is your child. You can't recognize its shortcomings, any more than a proud parent can consider their child dumb and ugly.
The experts don't know everything, and they might not know what's right for you.
Fate is a future you didn't try hard enough to change.
Anyone looking for you can find you. Get them to find you when they're looking for something else.
Life gives you wonderful opportunities to conquer fears, learn skills, and master techniques. "I can't" shouldn't be synonymous with "I don't want to."
People seek out two things: information and entertainment. Offer them freely, and they'll find you.
The Internet isn't temporary. What you post today can lead people to you decades from now.
Writing is a profession. Act professional.
Always follow the advice of an editor, even if you don't agree, because then your book becomes our book. A editor will fight harder to champion our book.
No one said it would be fair, fun, or easy. But it is worthwhile.
We're all in the same boat. Start rowing.
If you can quit, quit. If you can't quit, stop complaining--this is what you chose.
There are a lot of things that happen beyond your control. Your goals should be within your control.
Just because something is publishable doesn't mean it will get published.
Write when you can. Finish what your start. Edit what you finish. Submit what you've edited. Repeat.
The most successful people on the planet have one thing in common: nothing can stop them. Don't expect to reach your goals without sacrificing things that are important to you. You can't be both happy and ambitious.
Being your own best advocate is about understanding how people react to you.
Fake confidence, and real confidence follows.
Maybe you can't win. But you sure as hell can try.
It's your name on your book cover. It's your responsibility to sell your book. If it flops, your publisher will still be in business, but you won't.
Always have two hands reaching out. One, for your next goal. The other, to help people get to where you're at.
If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.
If you're not in love with the sound of your own voice, how can you expect anyone else to ever be?
Knowing you're not original is the first step in becoming unique.
And if one of those doesn't get me into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations sometime before I die, when I do die I'm going to haunt the Bartlett family...
Let's face it; getting published is a goal for many people, but it's such a difficult goal to attain it borders on being a dream.
Dreams don't normally come true. But people will pay big bucks to keep the dream alive.
This morning I'm teaching a one day class at the College of Dupage called "How to Get Published." (Oddly enough, I'm filling in for another teacher who, to my knowledge, has published very little.)
It's an adult eduction class, only a few hours long, and costs less than fifty bucks.
For the students, it's a good deal. I know a lot about the biz, and am good at sharing what I know.
But I am a notable exception. Many writing teachers have never been published by a major house. Many don't have agents.
Yet every college has writing teachers who are willing to take your money and teach you theory they've never practiced.
The bookshelves are crammed full of books about how to write killer query letters and bestsellers. But I only know a handful out of hundreds that were actually written by bestselling authors.
Pick up a writing magazine, or surf the Internet, and you'll find many things to spend money on besides classes and how-to books.
Freelance editors. Book doctors. Fee charging agents. Vanity presses. Self-publishing. Contests. Seminars. Conferences. Conventions.
Joe's advice: Writers are supposed to make money, not spend money.
Unfortunately, because writing is such a hard business to break into, many feel that if they spend some money on the aforementioned things, they'll better their odds.
In practically all cases, no. And you are not the exception to this rule. Trust me.
Today, my students are going to get their money's worth in the first 30 seconds of class, when I tell them:
DON'T SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING TO GET PUBLISHED.
I do add that there are a few small exceptions. Taking a writing class or two isn't a waste of money if the teacher is an industry pro. You can learn a lot from industry pros. But many of these pros also have tips on their website that are 100% free.
All writers should own copies of Stephen King's On Writing, David Morrell's Lessons From A Lifetime or Writing, and a few notable others.
Conferences and conventions are a great place to meet agents, editors, and peers, and networking is just as important in this biz as in any other.
But even these exceptions come with warnings.
If you're taking a bunch of writing classes, chances are you're wasting your time and money. You could be writing instead, and joining a writing group will make you a better writer without costing a penny. There is probably a writers group already at your local library, bookstore, or college. Ask. If there isn't one, start one.
Owning too many how-to books means you're spending too much time reading about writing instead of actually writing.
I know many folks with procrastinitis. They cloak themselves in the trappings of all things literary, spends scads of money pursuing their dream, fantasizing about it constantly. Yet they rarely sit their ass in the chair and write.
If you're going to more than two conventions a year and you aren't published yet you're chasing a dream, not a goal.
As for the other things I mentioned:
Don't enter contests you have to pay for. If your story is good enough to win, it's good enough to sell.
Don't ever pay anyone to help you edit, fix, or rewrite your prose. Learn to do it yourself. I don't know a single author published by a major house who had paid help.
Don't pay an agent anything, ever. Agents don't need to have any sort of license or accreditation, and bad ones abound. For a list of good ones, visit www.aar-online.org.
Don't pay to have your work published. Why not? Visit your local bookstore. Look around. None of the authors on those shelves paid to have their books published. If you pay to be published, you won't be on those shelves.
Since I'm fond of analogies, here's a good one:
When you're learning how to walk, you don't take classes. You don't read how-to books. You don't pay experts to help you, or do it for you.
You just keep falling until you learn on your own.
It's the same thing with writing.
I just saved you fifty bucks. Or perhaps a heck of a lot more.
You can show your appreciation by buying a bunch of my books. Because there is one thing that all writers should spend money on, and that's supporting each other. If you're writing fiction, and you haven't read at least a hundred novels, you haven't learned enough about craft to succeed.
And if you're curious as to what other bon mots I'll toss out in class today, here's a list of Joe Konrath quotes on writing, publishing, and marketing, free of charge:
There's a word for a writer who never gives up... published.
Before you make the key, study the lock.
People would rather fight to the death to defend their beliefs than sit down quietly and question them.
It's about what you have to offer, not what you have to sell.
You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than landing a publishing deal. But if you really want to get hit by lightning, you can improve your odds.
No one is entitled to anything.
What are the last ten books you bought, and what made you buy them? Use those techniques to sell your books to other people. Do what works on you.
Hard work trumps talent. Persistence trumps inspiration. Humility trumps ego.
Praise is like candy. We love it, but it isn't good for us. You can only improve by being told what's wrong.
Your book is your child. You can't recognize its shortcomings, any more than a proud parent can consider their child dumb and ugly.
The experts don't know everything, and they might not know what's right for you.
Fate is a future you didn't try hard enough to change.
Anyone looking for you can find you. Get them to find you when they're looking for something else.
Life gives you wonderful opportunities to conquer fears, learn skills, and master techniques. "I can't" shouldn't be synonymous with "I don't want to."
People seek out two things: information and entertainment. Offer them freely, and they'll find you.
The Internet isn't temporary. What you post today can lead people to you decades from now.
Writing is a profession. Act professional.
Always follow the advice of an editor, even if you don't agree, because then your book becomes our book. A editor will fight harder to champion our book.
No one said it would be fair, fun, or easy. But it is worthwhile.
We're all in the same boat. Start rowing.
If you can quit, quit. If you can't quit, stop complaining--this is what you chose.
There are a lot of things that happen beyond your control. Your goals should be within your control.
Just because something is publishable doesn't mean it will get published.
Write when you can. Finish what your start. Edit what you finish. Submit what you've edited. Repeat.
The most successful people on the planet have one thing in common: nothing can stop them. Don't expect to reach your goals without sacrificing things that are important to you. You can't be both happy and ambitious.
Being your own best advocate is about understanding how people react to you.
Fake confidence, and real confidence follows.
Maybe you can't win. But you sure as hell can try.
It's your name on your book cover. It's your responsibility to sell your book. If it flops, your publisher will still be in business, but you won't.
Always have two hands reaching out. One, for your next goal. The other, to help people get to where you're at.
If you can't be smart or funny, be brief.
If you're not in love with the sound of your own voice, how can you expect anyone else to ever be?
Knowing you're not original is the first step in becoming unique.
And if one of those doesn't get me into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations sometime before I die, when I do die I'm going to haunt the Bartlett family...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
How To Get Published
There have been hundreds of books on how to get published. Here's my condensed version:
1. Write When You Can - Find the time to write, even if you have to give up other things to do so. And know who your audience is, and as much about that audience as possible, before you write your first word.
2. Finish What You Start - Turn off your internal editor until you finish that first draft, and get to the ending no matter how much you think it sucks.
3. Edit What You Finish - Rewrite, add, cut, and polish. Then give it to others to read, consider their suggestions, and keep repeating the process until you've got something your peers, and you, consider decent.
Here's a critique sheet to help you out. http://www.jakonrath.com/critsheet.pdf.
4. Submit What You Edit - Since you know your audience, you should know who reps/publishes your type of story. And don't get hung up on writing the perfect query letter. The writing sells the writing, not the query letter. All a query needs is a two sentence description of the book (mention setting, genre, and a bestselling similar work by another author), some praise for the recipient, and a thank you.
5. Repeat
That's all. Now stop sweating the process and go do it.
If you have any questions, put them in the comments section of this thread. Or if you want my undivided attention, visit me in person.
For everyone in the St. Louis MO vicinity, I'll be in town Jan 16 and 17.
Friday, Jan 16 - ST. CHARLES CITY-COUNTY LIBRARY FOUNDATION, MO
Joe will be doing a presentation 7pm - 9pm. Details at http://www.stchlibrary.org.
Saturday, Jan 17 - BIG SLEEP BOOKS, ST. LOUIS
Joe will be doing a signing at this wonderful mystery bookstore, 1pm - 2:30pm. www.bigsleepbooks.com
Feel free to spread the word and come see me. The library event has a cash bar. How cool is that? Naturally, books will be available at both locations, and besides dishing out wisdom I'll be giving away some free cool stuff.
Hope to see some of you there.
1. Write When You Can - Find the time to write, even if you have to give up other things to do so. And know who your audience is, and as much about that audience as possible, before you write your first word.
2. Finish What You Start - Turn off your internal editor until you finish that first draft, and get to the ending no matter how much you think it sucks.
3. Edit What You Finish - Rewrite, add, cut, and polish. Then give it to others to read, consider their suggestions, and keep repeating the process until you've got something your peers, and you, consider decent.
Here's a critique sheet to help you out. http://www.jakonrath.com/critsheet.pdf.
4. Submit What You Edit - Since you know your audience, you should know who reps/publishes your type of story. And don't get hung up on writing the perfect query letter. The writing sells the writing, not the query letter. All a query needs is a two sentence description of the book (mention setting, genre, and a bestselling similar work by another author), some praise for the recipient, and a thank you.
5. Repeat
That's all. Now stop sweating the process and go do it.
If you have any questions, put them in the comments section of this thread. Or if you want my undivided attention, visit me in person.
For everyone in the St. Louis MO vicinity, I'll be in town Jan 16 and 17.
Friday, Jan 16 - ST. CHARLES CITY-COUNTY LIBRARY FOUNDATION, MO
Joe will be doing a presentation 7pm - 9pm. Details at http://www.stchlibrary.org.
Saturday, Jan 17 - BIG SLEEP BOOKS, ST. LOUIS
Joe will be doing a signing at this wonderful mystery bookstore, 1pm - 2:30pm. www.bigsleepbooks.com
Feel free to spread the word and come see me. The library event has a cash bar. How cool is that? Naturally, books will be available at both locations, and besides dishing out wisdom I'll be giving away some free cool stuff.
Hope to see some of you there.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Hail, Caesar
The Roman emperors realized that the way to win favor with the public was to give them what they wanted.
On the surface, this seems counter-intuitive, or even just plain wrong. It would seem that kings and dictators who rule with an iron fist would be able to stay in control and get more done through fear.
And yet, every Caesar built grand public buildings and held fabulous spectacles, all to keep their subjects docile by making them happy.
Now here comes the writing analogy.
How often, in your writing, do you write whatever the hell you want to write without any care at all for your audience?
When we start out, we're all 100% self-indulgent. We have huge egos that demand we put our brilliant words on paper. Of course other people will love them as much as we do. Of course they'll sell by the millions.
And then, as we head down the road to publication, we start to learn things. We learn about craft and form, and that narratives have structure and genres. We learn about editing and polishing, and how cutting and adding and getting input from others makes our work better. And eventually, if we make it far enough, we learn about marketing and selling.
We aren't really artists. We're emperors. Because, like those emperors, we start out doing whatever we desire. But we come to realize that if we want to keep being emperors, the key is to sell as much of our work as possible. And that means giving the people what they want.
I've said, ad nauseum, that before you create a key, study the lock. Know who the audience is, and who the buyer is, before you even write the first word of a story.
But if you want to make people happy, and keep them buying your work (or visiting your blog, or downloading your freebies, or entering your contests, or attending your appearances) you have to know more than just the genre and prospective publisher. It's very easy to say, "I'm writing a mystery because a lot of people buy mysteries and a lot of houses publish mysteries so I've figured out the lock before I make the key" and still be way off the mark in terms of success.
So how do you figure out what people want?
Readers of this blog know that people seek two things from writers: information and entertainment. The specific kind of information and entertainment, however, is mostly subjective, and often hard to guess.
So here are some hints.
1. Look Inward. We all start out trying to please ourselves, and this might actually end up being helpful. If you think something is funny, chances are other people do as well. So while you're attempting to please your audience, remember what works on you. What books do you like to read? Why do you enjoy them? What are the last five books you've bought and why?
The more you understand yourself, the better you'll understand others.
2. Look Outward. Read as much as you can. Join a writers group and critique others. Figure out what works, what doesn't, and come up with reasons why.
You shouldn't write in a genre you aren't well-read in. You shouldn't submit a story to a magazine unless you've read several issues cover to cover. Every time you write, you aren't reinventing the wheel. You're simply putting a new spin on the wheel. Figure out how the wheel works, then you can spin it accordingly.
3. Get Feedback. There are a few jokes I tell that NEVER get a laugh, even though I think they're funny.
A story, or a speech, or a blog, isn't a monologue. It is an exchange, and involves at least one other person. Pay attention to how that person responds. With a blog or a speech, you can get feedback quickly. With a story, you have to solicit it.
Seek out peers, and trade manuscripts with them to critique. Pay attention to agents and editors--they're on your side and want to make the story better. Find as many beta readers as you can, and be ready to ask them questions about what is and isn't working.
4. Respect Your Audience. Once you learn who your audience is, and what they want, it is your job to never let them down. Ways to let them down include:
Once you fall in love with your own voice, you get bestselleritis. If you're a bestseller, this disease won't do you much harm. You can keep writing long-winded, self-important, unrealistic crap that's a shell of your early work, and because people are creatures of habit they'll keep buying it--although you can expect them to voice their disapproval on Amazon.com.
But if you're a new writer, and you expect people to bend over and accept your writing simply because you think it's good enough--that's a career killer.
In fact, it's wise to never believe your own hype, at any stage of your career.
Ultimately, we're entertainers. We're the people who play sax on street corners for pocket change. The more people we entertain, the more money we get. So remember to take requests...
On the surface, this seems counter-intuitive, or even just plain wrong. It would seem that kings and dictators who rule with an iron fist would be able to stay in control and get more done through fear.
And yet, every Caesar built grand public buildings and held fabulous spectacles, all to keep their subjects docile by making them happy.
Now here comes the writing analogy.
How often, in your writing, do you write whatever the hell you want to write without any care at all for your audience?
When we start out, we're all 100% self-indulgent. We have huge egos that demand we put our brilliant words on paper. Of course other people will love them as much as we do. Of course they'll sell by the millions.
And then, as we head down the road to publication, we start to learn things. We learn about craft and form, and that narratives have structure and genres. We learn about editing and polishing, and how cutting and adding and getting input from others makes our work better. And eventually, if we make it far enough, we learn about marketing and selling.
We aren't really artists. We're emperors. Because, like those emperors, we start out doing whatever we desire. But we come to realize that if we want to keep being emperors, the key is to sell as much of our work as possible. And that means giving the people what they want.
I've said, ad nauseum, that before you create a key, study the lock. Know who the audience is, and who the buyer is, before you even write the first word of a story.
But if you want to make people happy, and keep them buying your work (or visiting your blog, or downloading your freebies, or entering your contests, or attending your appearances) you have to know more than just the genre and prospective publisher. It's very easy to say, "I'm writing a mystery because a lot of people buy mysteries and a lot of houses publish mysteries so I've figured out the lock before I make the key" and still be way off the mark in terms of success.
So how do you figure out what people want?
Readers of this blog know that people seek two things from writers: information and entertainment. The specific kind of information and entertainment, however, is mostly subjective, and often hard to guess.
So here are some hints.
1. Look Inward. We all start out trying to please ourselves, and this might actually end up being helpful. If you think something is funny, chances are other people do as well. So while you're attempting to please your audience, remember what works on you. What books do you like to read? Why do you enjoy them? What are the last five books you've bought and why?
The more you understand yourself, the better you'll understand others.
2. Look Outward. Read as much as you can. Join a writers group and critique others. Figure out what works, what doesn't, and come up with reasons why.
You shouldn't write in a genre you aren't well-read in. You shouldn't submit a story to a magazine unless you've read several issues cover to cover. Every time you write, you aren't reinventing the wheel. You're simply putting a new spin on the wheel. Figure out how the wheel works, then you can spin it accordingly.
3. Get Feedback. There are a few jokes I tell that NEVER get a laugh, even though I think they're funny.
A story, or a speech, or a blog, isn't a monologue. It is an exchange, and involves at least one other person. Pay attention to how that person responds. With a blog or a speech, you can get feedback quickly. With a story, you have to solicit it.
Seek out peers, and trade manuscripts with them to critique. Pay attention to agents and editors--they're on your side and want to make the story better. Find as many beta readers as you can, and be ready to ask them questions about what is and isn't working.
4. Respect Your Audience. Once you learn who your audience is, and what they want, it is your job to never let them down. Ways to let them down include:
- Talking down to them
- Talking over their heads
- An unsatisfying ending
- Making your characters do uncharacteristic things
- Too many coincidences
- Unfunny humor
- Poor or confusing structure
- Unrealistic romance
- Gratuitous anything
- Self-indulgence
Once you fall in love with your own voice, you get bestselleritis. If you're a bestseller, this disease won't do you much harm. You can keep writing long-winded, self-important, unrealistic crap that's a shell of your early work, and because people are creatures of habit they'll keep buying it--although you can expect them to voice their disapproval on Amazon.com.
But if you're a new writer, and you expect people to bend over and accept your writing simply because you think it's good enough--that's a career killer.
In fact, it's wise to never believe your own hype, at any stage of your career.
Ultimately, we're entertainers. We're the people who play sax on street corners for pocket change. The more people we entertain, the more money we get. So remember to take requests...
Monday, January 05, 2009
Becoming Cyber-Effective
It's been said that 50% of all advertising is effective, and the other 50% isn't. But the problem is that no one can guess which 50% is which.
While it's a tidy little axiom that makes excuses for why ad campaigns fail to generate expected results, it's still a little off.
In my last post, I talked about things that writers have no control over, and a few things they do.
One of the things you do have a measure of control over is your Internet presence.
Brand-building and name-recognition are important for authors. Once we sell a novel to a publisher, we have to sell it to readers. If they like the book, they become brand-loyal, and we become an automatic purchase.
For that to happen, readers first have to know a book exists, then they have to read it, and finally, they have to like it enough to buy the next one.
Publishing, as a model, functions very much like an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. There are a certain number of items for consumption, and personal taste and quality dictate which items move the fastest.
Of course the most important aspect--getting on the table in the first place--plays the biggest role. The bigger the quantity, the more restaurants a food appears in, the more it will be consumed.
We writers don't have much control over how big our print runs are, or how wide our distribution is. That wonderful food that buffet-goers might love to devour must be available first. Sadly, most books don't get big print runs and distribution, which limits the amount of people they can reach.
Writers have some control over a book's quality, but who likes the book and wants to keep reading the author is largely subjective, and also beyond a writer's control.
So how can a writer brand themselves when distribution and quality are crapshoots?
They can follow advertising's lead, and discover on their own what people want and what works by conducting studies, comparison, and analyzing data.
Here are some tools and I use and ways I measure my cyber-effectiveness.
What I Want to Know - Do people like my writing?
Tools Used- Email, personal appearances, message boards, blog comments, reviews.
How I Know How I'm Doing - Fan email can be an indicator of how well people are responding to your book. In this day and age, if someone emails you about your writing, this is a huge coup. It isn't like a reader can press a button embedded in a book and immediately contact an author. So those who do this have a compulsion to do so, which implies passion. To read a book and like it so much that one logs onto the Internet, Googles an author, and writes them a personal message, is a powerful indicator of how much that book affected them.
Frequency of email depends on distribution/print run, naturally, but it also can measure a book's effectiveness. Divide your print run by the number of people who contact you.
You can also browse Amazon.com, GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, and many other sites where readers post reviews. Got a lot of reviews that you didn't directly solicit? Then your book is striking a chord.
If you have any sort of crowd at a signing or appearance, your writing is important to people.
If people are discussing your books in a forum, listserv, Yahoo Group, or message board, that indicates passion, and passion in one person often means passion in many, which indicates you're doing something right.
If I divide my sales by the number of people who somehow reach me or talk about me, I get around ten to fifteen percent feedback.
This is high. But the number is skewed. Much of the feedback comes from people who have read several of my titles, and may contact me/review me after each title. But if you know you've sold ten thousand books, and you've only gotten two hundred people offering feedback, you should know that your writing isn't as effective as it could be.
Remember that being contacted is it's own form of distribution. The more places/easier it is to contact/review you, the more you're going to be contacted/reviewed.
Beside email and this blog, I make it easy for people to find me using the many billboards and social networking sites I've listed in the sidebar. I have a forum, and use polls on my website, and maintain Facebook and MySpace pages, doing all I can to facilitate feedback.
If people aren't contacting you, make it easier for them to do so, and make sure both your writing and persona encourages it.
What I Want to Know - Are people finding me on the net?
Tools Used - Hit counters, download trackers, social networking.
How I Know How I'm Doing - First of all, content is king. People on the Internet are looking for two things, information and entertainment. As a writer, you're uniquely suited to provide both.
The more you provide, the more Googleable you become. The words I'm writing right now will be searchable a decade from now, still drawing people to this post. Some drawn here will read, some readers will seek out my books, some of those people will become fans, and some of those fans will become buyers. It's a trickle down effect, but it works.
You control your content. If you're a blogger, are you blogging about something people are interested in? Timely topics may get hits in the short run, but universal topics tend to keep finding viewers long after they've been posted.
This blog has its share of both timely and universal posts. Newbie writers come here from around the world, as evidenced by my Feedjit Live Traffic Map widget in the sidebar. This widget shows me, at a glance, how universal my posts are.
For a more specific demographic breakdown, I use Statcounter.com, which lets me know who is visiting and how long they stay, among other valuable info. I can see what topics generate the most hits.
My website has many free downloads. By offering books (entertainment) for free, I'm basically like a buffet restaurant that offers free samples--a certain percentage will like the sample, then come in and eat.
I use bfnsoftware.com to track my downloads. People have downloaded about twenty thousand copies of my ebooks since I began tracking. A huge number? No. But these books keep attracting new visitors, and creating new fans, with no real ongoing effort on my part.
Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, among many other social networking sites, allow you to reach out to people, and vice versa. The reason I have a lot of online "friends" on these sites is because I put in the time to find them. The higher your friend count, the more people you can potentially reach with announcements.
But like your website and blog, this is all about content. What you have to offer dictates how many people on these sites will care when you do have an announcement like a signing, new book release, or contest.
If they really like you, you become prominently displayed on their social networking page. This is free advertising, leading others to you.
What I Want to Know - Are people linking to me on the net?
Tools Used - Other blogs and websites, search engine rankings, Google Alerts, link exchanges.
How I Know How I'm Doing - When writers ask me about blogs, or MySpace, or websites, they think these are magic bullets and all they must do is open an account for the traffic to come pouring in and name-recognition to blossom.
Well, no. As I've mentioned many times, you have to give people what they want if you want them to visit, and they want information and entertainment. You also have to make an effort trying to find these people.
If you're just starting out, one thing to do is visit popular sites, contribute information and entertainment, and offer a link back to your site. Say something smart or funny on another person's blog or message board, and people will check your profile, and your site, and if they like what they see they'll bookmark you or link to you.
If you're already established, offer content to other sites for free. Guest blogging, doing interviews, and providing short stories are all ways to spread name-recognition.
One of the ways to judge if people are talking about you (rather than to you) is by using marketleap.com. This free site allows you to check your search engine saturation, and how many other sites link to you.
Technorati.com, Digg.com, Delicious, and other social bookmarking sites allow people to point you out to even more people. Making it easy for folks to bookmark you, link to you, subscribe to your feed, or tell others about you, means more people will find you. Hence the two new widgets you see on the bottom of this post.
I've set up Google Alerts for JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn. This isn't out of vanity. It's so I can see what I'm doing that is important enough for people to mention. If you Google Alert yourself and you don't get any hits for several days, you aren't doing enough online. I average 4 to 10 alerts a day. That's more than many authors, not nearly as many as some. How do I know? You can set up Google Alerts to search for any term, including your peers' names. Marketleap.com allows the same thing.
You should NEVER compare yourself to other authors when it comes to things out of your control: advances, print runs, publicity, awards, reviews, etc. But you can and should see how effective your branding and name-recognition techniques are compared to theirs. Not for bragging rights, but as a learning tool.
I know I've written an effective blog post if a lot of people link to it and comment. The more people who link to you, the more traffic you get. It isn't by chance that both my blog and website have lots of links.
Links not only bring in traffic, they also raise your search engine ranking. Remember that your ultimate goal is to become known to complete strangers. The more places you appear, in person and in cyberspace, the better your chances at being discovered, read, and bought.
Sales are not the only indicator of how well we're doing as writers. They're just one statistic. While sales may be the ultimate goal, and that goal may be influenced by factors beyond your control (like print run, distribution, and publisher marketing dollars), you can and should be influencing the other statistics I mentioned here.
You can write a book, cross your fingers, and hope your publisher pushes it.
You can write a book, cross your fingers, and hope it magically catches on with the public.
Or you can write a book and put in the time to make people aware of your book, which will perhaps influence how well it catches on with the public, and maybe even prompt your publisher into pushing it.
Landing a book deal is luck. Becoming a bestseller is luck. Getting 50,000 hits on Google when someone searches for your name is hard work.
Becoming cyber-effective is within your control. All it takes is time, savvy, and attention to content. And as writers, you should be paying attention to content in the first place.
While it's a tidy little axiom that makes excuses for why ad campaigns fail to generate expected results, it's still a little off.
In my last post, I talked about things that writers have no control over, and a few things they do.
One of the things you do have a measure of control over is your Internet presence.
Brand-building and name-recognition are important for authors. Once we sell a novel to a publisher, we have to sell it to readers. If they like the book, they become brand-loyal, and we become an automatic purchase.
For that to happen, readers first have to know a book exists, then they have to read it, and finally, they have to like it enough to buy the next one.
Publishing, as a model, functions very much like an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. There are a certain number of items for consumption, and personal taste and quality dictate which items move the fastest.
Of course the most important aspect--getting on the table in the first place--plays the biggest role. The bigger the quantity, the more restaurants a food appears in, the more it will be consumed.
We writers don't have much control over how big our print runs are, or how wide our distribution is. That wonderful food that buffet-goers might love to devour must be available first. Sadly, most books don't get big print runs and distribution, which limits the amount of people they can reach.
Writers have some control over a book's quality, but who likes the book and wants to keep reading the author is largely subjective, and also beyond a writer's control.
So how can a writer brand themselves when distribution and quality are crapshoots?
They can follow advertising's lead, and discover on their own what people want and what works by conducting studies, comparison, and analyzing data.
Here are some tools and I use and ways I measure my cyber-effectiveness.
What I Want to Know - Do people like my writing?
Tools Used- Email, personal appearances, message boards, blog comments, reviews.
How I Know How I'm Doing - Fan email can be an indicator of how well people are responding to your book. In this day and age, if someone emails you about your writing, this is a huge coup. It isn't like a reader can press a button embedded in a book and immediately contact an author. So those who do this have a compulsion to do so, which implies passion. To read a book and like it so much that one logs onto the Internet, Googles an author, and writes them a personal message, is a powerful indicator of how much that book affected them.
Frequency of email depends on distribution/print run, naturally, but it also can measure a book's effectiveness. Divide your print run by the number of people who contact you.
You can also browse Amazon.com, GoodReads.com, Shelfari.com, and many other sites where readers post reviews. Got a lot of reviews that you didn't directly solicit? Then your book is striking a chord.
If you have any sort of crowd at a signing or appearance, your writing is important to people.
If people are discussing your books in a forum, listserv, Yahoo Group, or message board, that indicates passion, and passion in one person often means passion in many, which indicates you're doing something right.
If I divide my sales by the number of people who somehow reach me or talk about me, I get around ten to fifteen percent feedback.
This is high. But the number is skewed. Much of the feedback comes from people who have read several of my titles, and may contact me/review me after each title. But if you know you've sold ten thousand books, and you've only gotten two hundred people offering feedback, you should know that your writing isn't as effective as it could be.
Remember that being contacted is it's own form of distribution. The more places/easier it is to contact/review you, the more you're going to be contacted/reviewed.
Beside email and this blog, I make it easy for people to find me using the many billboards and social networking sites I've listed in the sidebar. I have a forum, and use polls on my website, and maintain Facebook and MySpace pages, doing all I can to facilitate feedback.
If people aren't contacting you, make it easier for them to do so, and make sure both your writing and persona encourages it.
What I Want to Know - Are people finding me on the net?
Tools Used - Hit counters, download trackers, social networking.
How I Know How I'm Doing - First of all, content is king. People on the Internet are looking for two things, information and entertainment. As a writer, you're uniquely suited to provide both.
The more you provide, the more Googleable you become. The words I'm writing right now will be searchable a decade from now, still drawing people to this post. Some drawn here will read, some readers will seek out my books, some of those people will become fans, and some of those fans will become buyers. It's a trickle down effect, but it works.
You control your content. If you're a blogger, are you blogging about something people are interested in? Timely topics may get hits in the short run, but universal topics tend to keep finding viewers long after they've been posted.
This blog has its share of both timely and universal posts. Newbie writers come here from around the world, as evidenced by my Feedjit Live Traffic Map widget in the sidebar. This widget shows me, at a glance, how universal my posts are.
For a more specific demographic breakdown, I use Statcounter.com, which lets me know who is visiting and how long they stay, among other valuable info. I can see what topics generate the most hits.
My website has many free downloads. By offering books (entertainment) for free, I'm basically like a buffet restaurant that offers free samples--a certain percentage will like the sample, then come in and eat.
I use bfnsoftware.com to track my downloads. People have downloaded about twenty thousand copies of my ebooks since I began tracking. A huge number? No. But these books keep attracting new visitors, and creating new fans, with no real ongoing effort on my part.
Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, among many other social networking sites, allow you to reach out to people, and vice versa. The reason I have a lot of online "friends" on these sites is because I put in the time to find them. The higher your friend count, the more people you can potentially reach with announcements.
But like your website and blog, this is all about content. What you have to offer dictates how many people on these sites will care when you do have an announcement like a signing, new book release, or contest.
If they really like you, you become prominently displayed on their social networking page. This is free advertising, leading others to you.
What I Want to Know - Are people linking to me on the net?
Tools Used - Other blogs and websites, search engine rankings, Google Alerts, link exchanges.
How I Know How I'm Doing - When writers ask me about blogs, or MySpace, or websites, they think these are magic bullets and all they must do is open an account for the traffic to come pouring in and name-recognition to blossom.
Well, no. As I've mentioned many times, you have to give people what they want if you want them to visit, and they want information and entertainment. You also have to make an effort trying to find these people.
If you're just starting out, one thing to do is visit popular sites, contribute information and entertainment, and offer a link back to your site. Say something smart or funny on another person's blog or message board, and people will check your profile, and your site, and if they like what they see they'll bookmark you or link to you.
If you're already established, offer content to other sites for free. Guest blogging, doing interviews, and providing short stories are all ways to spread name-recognition.
One of the ways to judge if people are talking about you (rather than to you) is by using marketleap.com. This free site allows you to check your search engine saturation, and how many other sites link to you.
Technorati.com, Digg.com, Delicious, and other social bookmarking sites allow people to point you out to even more people. Making it easy for folks to bookmark you, link to you, subscribe to your feed, or tell others about you, means more people will find you. Hence the two new widgets you see on the bottom of this post.
I've set up Google Alerts for JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn. This isn't out of vanity. It's so I can see what I'm doing that is important enough for people to mention. If you Google Alert yourself and you don't get any hits for several days, you aren't doing enough online. I average 4 to 10 alerts a day. That's more than many authors, not nearly as many as some. How do I know? You can set up Google Alerts to search for any term, including your peers' names. Marketleap.com allows the same thing.
You should NEVER compare yourself to other authors when it comes to things out of your control: advances, print runs, publicity, awards, reviews, etc. But you can and should see how effective your branding and name-recognition techniques are compared to theirs. Not for bragging rights, but as a learning tool.
I know I've written an effective blog post if a lot of people link to it and comment. The more people who link to you, the more traffic you get. It isn't by chance that both my blog and website have lots of links.
Links not only bring in traffic, they also raise your search engine ranking. Remember that your ultimate goal is to become known to complete strangers. The more places you appear, in person and in cyberspace, the better your chances at being discovered, read, and bought.
Sales are not the only indicator of how well we're doing as writers. They're just one statistic. While sales may be the ultimate goal, and that goal may be influenced by factors beyond your control (like print run, distribution, and publisher marketing dollars), you can and should be influencing the other statistics I mentioned here.
You can write a book, cross your fingers, and hope your publisher pushes it.
You can write a book, cross your fingers, and hope it magically catches on with the public.
Or you can write a book and put in the time to make people aware of your book, which will perhaps influence how well it catches on with the public, and maybe even prompt your publisher into pushing it.
Landing a book deal is luck. Becoming a bestseller is luck. Getting 50,000 hits on Google when someone searches for your name is hard work.
Becoming cyber-effective is within your control. All it takes is time, savvy, and attention to content. And as writers, you should be paying attention to content in the first place.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Control Freak
I've harped on this in other posts, but I don't believe I've devoted a whole post to it.
In a nutshell: Only set goals you can control.
As writers, a lot of things are beyond our control. Getting an agent, selling a book or story, landing on a bestseller list, winning awards--these all rely on varying degrees of luck, right place/right time, and the support and efforts of many other people.
Because of this, writers tend to be let down a lot. When you get a rejection, lose an award, or don't sell as many books as you'd like, it's natural to get depressed.
But you shouldn't get angry, or sad, or offended. Because it makes no sense to get upset over things you don't have control over.
There's a direct correlation between dreams and disappointments. Hope is a four letter word.
Writing is all about putting yourself out there. Chefs cook food to be consumed. We string together words to be read. Having readers is half the equation.
But we really don't have much control over who reads us.
We can search for an agent, search for a publisher, search for readers. But we can't make any of them like our writing.
Because of this, we get rejections, and bad reviews, and unimpressive sales, and the resultant disappointment. This makes it hard to keep on keeping on, when the acceptance we desire is 100% out of our control.
So the secret to happiness in the writing biz is about controlling what you can.
The first thing you have control over is your work. What you write about, and how much time and effort you spend writing it, is all up to you. This is a goal you can reach.
While you can't make an agent or publisher accept your work, you can seek out agents and publishers with queries, at conferences, and through recommendations of other writers. These are all within your power, and attainable goals.
You don't have control over distribution or sales, but you can devote time to branding and seeking out fans. This won't land you on the bestseller list, but every book you help to sell is a goal you had control over.
On this first day of 2009, take a good look at your goals. Which are attainable on your own? And which require luck?
We all need luck. But your goals should be based on your hard work and efforts, not on gambling.
Concentrate on what you can do, and do it to the best of your ability. If luck smiles on you, great. If not, keep at it--unless your goal is to feel sorry for yourself. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy that writers tend to excel at.
In a nutshell: Only set goals you can control.
As writers, a lot of things are beyond our control. Getting an agent, selling a book or story, landing on a bestseller list, winning awards--these all rely on varying degrees of luck, right place/right time, and the support and efforts of many other people.
Because of this, writers tend to be let down a lot. When you get a rejection, lose an award, or don't sell as many books as you'd like, it's natural to get depressed.
But you shouldn't get angry, or sad, or offended. Because it makes no sense to get upset over things you don't have control over.
There's a direct correlation between dreams and disappointments. Hope is a four letter word.
Writing is all about putting yourself out there. Chefs cook food to be consumed. We string together words to be read. Having readers is half the equation.
But we really don't have much control over who reads us.
We can search for an agent, search for a publisher, search for readers. But we can't make any of them like our writing.
Because of this, we get rejections, and bad reviews, and unimpressive sales, and the resultant disappointment. This makes it hard to keep on keeping on, when the acceptance we desire is 100% out of our control.
So the secret to happiness in the writing biz is about controlling what you can.
The first thing you have control over is your work. What you write about, and how much time and effort you spend writing it, is all up to you. This is a goal you can reach.
While you can't make an agent or publisher accept your work, you can seek out agents and publishers with queries, at conferences, and through recommendations of other writers. These are all within your power, and attainable goals.
You don't have control over distribution or sales, but you can devote time to branding and seeking out fans. This won't land you on the bestseller list, but every book you help to sell is a goal you had control over.
On this first day of 2009, take a good look at your goals. Which are attainable on your own? And which require luck?
We all need luck. But your goals should be based on your hard work and efforts, not on gambling.
Concentrate on what you can do, and do it to the best of your ability. If luck smiles on you, great. If not, keep at it--unless your goal is to feel sorry for yourself. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy that writers tend to excel at.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Resolutions For Writers 2009
Every December I do a post about resolutions for writers, and every year I add more of them.
2006
Newbie Writer Resolutions
2006
Newbie Writer Resolutions
- I will start/finish the damn book
- I will always have at least three stories on submission, while working on a fourth
- I will attend at least one writer's conference, and introduce myself to agents, editors, and other writers
- I will subscribe to the magazines I submit to
- I will join a critique group. If one doesn't exist, I will start one at the local bookstore or library
- I will finish every story I start
- I will listen to criticism
- I will create/update my website
- I will master the query process and find an agent
- I'll quit procrastinating in the form of research, outlines, synopses, taking classes, reading how-to books, talking about writing, and actually write something
- I will refuse to get discouraged, because I know JA Konrath wrote 9 novels, received almost 500 rejections, and penned over 1 million words before he sold a thing--and I'm a lot more talented than that guy
Professional Writer Resolutions
- I will keep my website updated
- I will keep up with my blog
- I will schedule bookstore signings, and while at the bookstore I'll meet and greet the customers rather than sit dejected in the corner
- I will send out a newsletter, emphasizing what I have to offer rather than what I have for sale, and I won't send out more than four a year
- I will learn to speak in public, even if I think I already know how
- I will make selling my books my responsibility, not my publisher's
- I will stay in touch with my fans
- I will contact local libraries, and tell them I'm available for speaking engagements
- I will attend as many writing conferences as I can afford
- I will spend a large portion of my advance on self-promotion
- I will help out other writers
- I will not get jealous, will never compare myself to my peers, and will cleanse my soul of envy
- I will be accessible, amiable, and enthusiastic
- I will do one thing every day to self-promote
- I will always remember where I came from
2007
- Keep an Open Mind. It's easier to defend your position than seriously consider new ways of thinking. But there is no innovation, no evolution, no "next big thing" unless someone thinks differently. Be that someone.
- Look Inward. We tend to write for ourselves. But for some reason we don't market for ourselves. Figure out what sort of marketing works on you; that's the type of marketing you should be trying. You should always know why you're doing what you're doing, and what results are acceptable to you.
- Find Your Own Way. Advice is cheap, and the Internet abounds with people telling you how to do things. Question everything. The only advice you should take is the advice that makes sense to you. And if it doesn't work, don't be afraid to ditch it.
- Set Attainable Goals. Saying you'll find an agent, or sell 30,000 books, isn't attainable, because it involves things out of your control. Saying you'll query 50 agents next month, or do signings at 20 bookstores, is within your power and fully attainable.
- Enjoy the Ride. John Lennon said that life is what happens while you're busy planning other things. Writing isn't about the destination; it's about the journey. If you aren't enjoying the process, why are you doing it?
- Help Each Other. One hand should always be reaching up for your next goal. The other should be reaching down to help others get where you're at. We're all in the same boat. Start passing out oars.
2008
I Will Use Anger As Fuel. We all know that this is a hard business. Luck plays a huge part. Rejection is part of the job. Things happen beyond our control, and we can get screwed.
It's impossible not to dwell on it when we're wronged. But rather than vent or stew or rage against the world and everyone in it, we should use that anger and the energy it provides for productive things.
The next time you get bad news, resolve to use that pain to drive your work. Show fate that when it pushes you, you push right back. By writing. By querying. By marketing.
I Will Abandon My Comfort Zone. The only difference between routine and rut is spelling.
As a writer, you are part artist and part businessman.
Great artists take chances.
Successful businessmen take chances.
This means doing things you're afraid of, and things you hate, and things you've never tried before.
If, in 2008, you don't fail at something, you weren't trying hard enough.
I Will Feed My Addiction. Life is busy. There are always things you can and should be doing, and your writing career often comes second.
So make it come first.
Right now, you're reading A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. Not A Newbie's Guide to Leading a Content and Balanced Life.
You want to get published and stay published? That means making writing a priority. That means making sacrifices. A sacrifice involves choosing one thing over another.
If you can't devote the time, energy, and money it takes to pursue this career, go do something else.
I Will Never Be Satisfied. Think the last resolution was extreme? This one really separates the die-hards from the hobbyists.
While an overwhelming sense of peace and enlightenment sounds pretty nice, I wouldn't want to hire a bunch of Zen masters to build an addition on my house.
Satisfaction and contentment are great for your personal life. In your professional life, once you start accepting the way things are, you stop trying.
No one is going to hand you anything in this business. You have to be smart, be good, work hard, and get lucky.
Every time you get published, you got lucky. Don't take it for granted.
When something bad happens, it should make you work harder. But when something good happens, you can't believe you earned it. Because it isn't true. You aren't entitled to this career. No one is.
Yes, you should celebrate successes. Sure, you should enjoy good things when they happen. Smile and laugh and feel warm and fuzzy whenever you finish a story or make a sale or reach a goal.
But remember that happiness isn't productive. Mankind's greatest accomplishments are all tales of struggle, hardship, sacrifice, work, and effort. You won't do any of those things if you're satisfied with the status quo.
Who do you want on your team? The kid who plays for fun? Or the kid who plays to win?
If you want this to be your year, you know which kid you have to be.
2009
This year I'm only going to add one resolution to this growing list, but if you're writing for a living, or trying to write for a living, it's an important one.
I won't blame anyone for anything.
It's tempting to look at the many problems that arise in this business and start pointing fingers. This is a slippery slope, and no good can come from it.
Do agents, editors, and publishers make mistakes? Of course.
You make mistakes too.
Hindsight is 20/20, so we can all look at things that didn't go our way and fantasize about how things should have gone.
But blaming others, or yourself, is dwelling on the past. What's done is done, and being bitter isn't going to help your career.So try to learn from misfortune, forgive yourself and others, and make 2009 a blameless year.
Now quit reading blogs and get some writing done.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Writing: The Temporary Career
I'm not going to name names in this post. Partly because it would be mean. Partly because I'm only speculating on the reasons why, and have no real proof.
But I still wanted to talk about something that's rampant in the word of publishing. It's also rampant in other media like radio, TV, movies, and music.
It's Where Are They Now Syndrome.
The scariest thing about WATNS is how quickly it seems to occur. When my first novel, Whiskey Sour, was published in 2004, I did as much self-promotion as I could. Going to writing conventions, signing at bookstores and libraries, I met dozens of writers who also had new books out. Some were debut authors, like me. Some were veterans who seemed like they'd be around forever.
But here it is, a scant four and a half years later, and I can name more than thirty of these authors who didn't publish anything in the past year, and in some cases the past two years.
This boggles my mind.
While everyone is aware of the transitory nature of fame (it's particularly noticeable in Hollywood where A list actors fade into B list actors, and B list actors sometimes have a huge hit that makes them A list) I actually never thought it applied to writers as well.
Well, it does. With one major difference. When you're considered a B list author, you can't even give your work away. There's no straight-to-DVD or movie-of-the-week option like there is for actors who used to be Somebody. There are some smaller presses, yes. And while a lot of them are terrific, their lack of major distribution dollars means even smaller numbers for writers who once were published by the major houses, which means the major houses will be even less likely to give these writers another shot.
In thinking about this phenomenon, I was tempted to rationalize why so-and-so hasn't had a book deal in a while. Yes, numbers follow authors. But maybe there are other reasons too.
Perhaps some authors decided they just didn't want to write anymore. Perhaps some veered off into different territory and couldn't find a home for it. Perhaps some wanted to write, but were out of ideas. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances like sickness, or some personal or family tragedy. Perhaps some simply take a very long time to write a book. Perhaps work or some other aspect of real life got in the way.
Perhaps.
And yet, knowing what a struggle it is to find an agent and get published, it seems odd that so many writers--writers I did signings with only four years ago--would let anything prevent them from writing. This profession requires dedication and sticktoitivness, and the lessons learned early on in the career when rejections are plentiful tend to make a person battle-hardened. Writers, as a species, don't tend to give up easily.
Which makes WATNS all the more troubling.
There are writers who had the brass ring, and want to have it again, but for whatever reason can't seem to grasp it.
Battle-hardened does not equal bullet-proof.
It's tempting to blame the industry, which is flawed for many reasons. A book's success is often a self-fulfilling prophecy; big promotional dollars leads to more orders leads to more sales. Do bestsellers really sell so well because of name recognition, or because when you're at an airport or drugstore and want to buy a book you only have the choice of a dozen titles? If a lessor name writer was given wider distribution, naturally they would sell more books. Yet few are given this push.
But I also personally know a few authors who did get that big push. In some cases, six and seven figure advances and corresponding marketing dollars. And here it is, a few years later, and those books are already out of print.
It's tempting to blame the writer, for producing lackluster work, or failing to self-promote, or being difficult to work with. And yet I've read many out-of-print novels that I believe are just as good or even better than books in their thirtieth printing by name authors who do very little self-promotion. I also know a few successful authors who are real jerks, and that hasn't seemed to hurt their careers.
There's a mentality that once you land a deal with a major house, you're set. But the fact is (and get ready for the kick in the groin) the majority of people who get a major deal wind up as WATHS statistics.
I can look at my extensive personal library, and 90% of those books are out of print, and 60% of those authors haven't published anything in years.
Landing a major deal, in most cases, doesn't signal the start of a longtime career. For many, it's the beginning of the end.
I can guess what many regular readers of my blog are thinking. Okay Joe, now that you've presented the problem, tell us what we can do to fix it like you always do.
Well, frightening as it is, this is one problem I can't fix.
I'd love to be able to point a finger and conclusively say, "This is why she's still being published, and this is why he isn't." But I can't. There are no traits or commonalities that can accurately predict success or failure.
After a certain level of competency is reached, who gets published and who doesn't is pretty much based on luck. This is true for newbies, and remains true for writers who have been in the biz for years.
All we can do is persevere, and keep writing and self-promoting and doing our damnedest to survive. Because, depressingly enough, this career is more about survival than success.
But, as I've been saying for years, the harder you try, the luckier you seem to get.
So if anyone with WATNS is reading this, remember that giving up isn't an option. Yes, you've gotten some bad breaks. Yes, this business is woefully unfair. Yes, it doesn't make any sense at all. But the same dedication that got you published that first time must be used to get you published again.
I know we all believe that once you "make it" there is no longer any struggle, the fears go away, and the opportunities are boundless.
But the truth is the struggle never ends, the fears are always there, and every opportunity that comes along should be appreciated as the gift it actually is.
So the rules, for newbie and pro alike, are the same.
1. Write the best book you can.
2. Try your best to get it into the hands of as many people as possible.
3. Repeat.
That's all we can do. Beyond that, it's all luck.
Just don't forget rule 3. The longer I'm in this business, the more I think it's the one that separates the haves from the have nots.
Now quit your whining and get to work.
But I still wanted to talk about something that's rampant in the word of publishing. It's also rampant in other media like radio, TV, movies, and music.
It's Where Are They Now Syndrome.
The scariest thing about WATNS is how quickly it seems to occur. When my first novel, Whiskey Sour, was published in 2004, I did as much self-promotion as I could. Going to writing conventions, signing at bookstores and libraries, I met dozens of writers who also had new books out. Some were debut authors, like me. Some were veterans who seemed like they'd be around forever.
But here it is, a scant four and a half years later, and I can name more than thirty of these authors who didn't publish anything in the past year, and in some cases the past two years.
This boggles my mind.
While everyone is aware of the transitory nature of fame (it's particularly noticeable in Hollywood where A list actors fade into B list actors, and B list actors sometimes have a huge hit that makes them A list) I actually never thought it applied to writers as well.
Well, it does. With one major difference. When you're considered a B list author, you can't even give your work away. There's no straight-to-DVD or movie-of-the-week option like there is for actors who used to be Somebody. There are some smaller presses, yes. And while a lot of them are terrific, their lack of major distribution dollars means even smaller numbers for writers who once were published by the major houses, which means the major houses will be even less likely to give these writers another shot.
In thinking about this phenomenon, I was tempted to rationalize why so-and-so hasn't had a book deal in a while. Yes, numbers follow authors. But maybe there are other reasons too.
Perhaps some authors decided they just didn't want to write anymore. Perhaps some veered off into different territory and couldn't find a home for it. Perhaps some wanted to write, but were out of ideas. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances like sickness, or some personal or family tragedy. Perhaps some simply take a very long time to write a book. Perhaps work or some other aspect of real life got in the way.
Perhaps.
And yet, knowing what a struggle it is to find an agent and get published, it seems odd that so many writers--writers I did signings with only four years ago--would let anything prevent them from writing. This profession requires dedication and sticktoitivness, and the lessons learned early on in the career when rejections are plentiful tend to make a person battle-hardened. Writers, as a species, don't tend to give up easily.
Which makes WATNS all the more troubling.
There are writers who had the brass ring, and want to have it again, but for whatever reason can't seem to grasp it.
Battle-hardened does not equal bullet-proof.
It's tempting to blame the industry, which is flawed for many reasons. A book's success is often a self-fulfilling prophecy; big promotional dollars leads to more orders leads to more sales. Do bestsellers really sell so well because of name recognition, or because when you're at an airport or drugstore and want to buy a book you only have the choice of a dozen titles? If a lessor name writer was given wider distribution, naturally they would sell more books. Yet few are given this push.
But I also personally know a few authors who did get that big push. In some cases, six and seven figure advances and corresponding marketing dollars. And here it is, a few years later, and those books are already out of print.
It's tempting to blame the writer, for producing lackluster work, or failing to self-promote, or being difficult to work with. And yet I've read many out-of-print novels that I believe are just as good or even better than books in their thirtieth printing by name authors who do very little self-promotion. I also know a few successful authors who are real jerks, and that hasn't seemed to hurt their careers.
There's a mentality that once you land a deal with a major house, you're set. But the fact is (and get ready for the kick in the groin) the majority of people who get a major deal wind up as WATHS statistics.
I can look at my extensive personal library, and 90% of those books are out of print, and 60% of those authors haven't published anything in years.
Landing a major deal, in most cases, doesn't signal the start of a longtime career. For many, it's the beginning of the end.
I can guess what many regular readers of my blog are thinking. Okay Joe, now that you've presented the problem, tell us what we can do to fix it like you always do.
Well, frightening as it is, this is one problem I can't fix.
I'd love to be able to point a finger and conclusively say, "This is why she's still being published, and this is why he isn't." But I can't. There are no traits or commonalities that can accurately predict success or failure.
After a certain level of competency is reached, who gets published and who doesn't is pretty much based on luck. This is true for newbies, and remains true for writers who have been in the biz for years.
All we can do is persevere, and keep writing and self-promoting and doing our damnedest to survive. Because, depressingly enough, this career is more about survival than success.
But, as I've been saying for years, the harder you try, the luckier you seem to get.
So if anyone with WATNS is reading this, remember that giving up isn't an option. Yes, you've gotten some bad breaks. Yes, this business is woefully unfair. Yes, it doesn't make any sense at all. But the same dedication that got you published that first time must be used to get you published again.
I know we all believe that once you "make it" there is no longer any struggle, the fears go away, and the opportunities are boundless.
But the truth is the struggle never ends, the fears are always there, and every opportunity that comes along should be appreciated as the gift it actually is.
So the rules, for newbie and pro alike, are the same.
1. Write the best book you can.
2. Try your best to get it into the hands of as many people as possible.
3. Repeat.
That's all we can do. Beyond that, it's all luck.
Just don't forget rule 3. The longer I'm in this business, the more I think it's the one that separates the haves from the have nots.
Now quit your whining and get to work.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Just Plotting Along
Whenever I teach I'm asked by newbies how to write that boring middle section of the book, the part between the electrifying opening and the dramatic conclusion.
"You mean the plot?" I always reply.
Sayings and axioms abound about plotting, and I'll paraphrase a few here. Elmore Leonard said the famous "Don't write the parts people skip."
Other oft-heard quotes are, "Write a great beginning and a great ending and string them as close together as possible" and "Chase your characters up a tree, then throw rocks at them."
Ellery Queen and Raymond Chandler are credited with variations on "When things get boring toward the middle, kill somebody" and "When it slows down have two men burst into the room with guns."
All of these sort of touch on the central idea of plotting, namely, conflict. But none are really helpful except in the most general sense.
So here's what I do.
1. Give the characters at least two goals. A story goal, and a personal goal.
In my Jack Daniels series, the story goal is for Jack to catch the bad guy. Her personal goals are fixing her relationships and getting a good night's sleep.
There's something inherent in the human brain that desires order and completion. We want to fit all the puzzle pieces together and live happily ever after. So the first step on this journey is deciding where to go. This is the first stitch on the way to completing the quilt, and it gets the reader's attention and makes them subconsciously want to see it through to the satisfying conclusion.
2. Don't reveal everything at once.
It's natural, once you have a great idea, to want to spill everything immediately. But suspense, and reader interest, is piqued by the opposite--only give a little at a time. Ask questions, but don't answer them until later.
Questions keep the pages turning. The obvious question, "What happens next?" is what both your characters and your readers should be thinking.
In my book Afraid, both the reader and the main characters have no idea what is attacking the town until the second act; all they get are glimpses and pieces. Figuring things out is a lot more satisfying than being spoon fed.
3. Prevent the characters from reaching their goals.
The boring middle part of the book shouldn't be boring at all. This is the part where the author really gets to antagonize his main characters, heaping more and more conflict on them.
What is the absolute worst thing that can happen to your character? Make it happen. What will be impossible for them to overcome? Do it.
Along with being genetically wired to desire completion and order, we also like there to be a struggle before all is well. Adversity, conflict, and tragedy allow for admirable human attributes such as courage, love, and perseverance to blossom. We like winners, especially underdog winners. So heap on the abuse.
4. Subtext is subtext.
Sure, you may have an important theme to the work. Yes, you may love the written word and want to be as eloquent as possible. Of course you want to explore human nature, make the reader think about deep issues, and create realistic characters with complex motivations.
But don't do any of that at the expense of the story, dammit.
A story, in it's purest form, is: "Here's a mess, clean it up."
We're storytellers. Not charactertellers. Not themetellers. Not poets. The goal of a story is to present a problem, then solve the problem.
Are there exceptions? Sure.
But don't base your career on an exception.
We've been a species of storytellers as long as we've had a written history, and probably longer. The Epic of Gilgamesh is over 5000 years old, but the basic formula still remains the same.
Here's a mess, clean it up.
But Joe, you want me to follow a formula? Aren't formulas cliche and derivative and the work of hacks?
Not if you do a good job.
My wife hates going to the movies with me, because I always whisper to her what is going to happen next. It's not that the movies are the work of hacks. It's just that the more you understand about the storytelling process, the better you can predict it.
Of course, once you're able to predict it, you can do the unpredictable.
This isn't about muses or inspiration or magic or creativity. It's more like architecture than art. Yes, you can be dynamic and expressive and imaginative, but there are still rules.
Learn the rules.
"You mean the plot?" I always reply.
Sayings and axioms abound about plotting, and I'll paraphrase a few here. Elmore Leonard said the famous "Don't write the parts people skip."
Other oft-heard quotes are, "Write a great beginning and a great ending and string them as close together as possible" and "Chase your characters up a tree, then throw rocks at them."
Ellery Queen and Raymond Chandler are credited with variations on "When things get boring toward the middle, kill somebody" and "When it slows down have two men burst into the room with guns."
All of these sort of touch on the central idea of plotting, namely, conflict. But none are really helpful except in the most general sense.
So here's what I do.
1. Give the characters at least two goals. A story goal, and a personal goal.
In my Jack Daniels series, the story goal is for Jack to catch the bad guy. Her personal goals are fixing her relationships and getting a good night's sleep.
There's something inherent in the human brain that desires order and completion. We want to fit all the puzzle pieces together and live happily ever after. So the first step on this journey is deciding where to go. This is the first stitch on the way to completing the quilt, and it gets the reader's attention and makes them subconsciously want to see it through to the satisfying conclusion.
2. Don't reveal everything at once.
It's natural, once you have a great idea, to want to spill everything immediately. But suspense, and reader interest, is piqued by the opposite--only give a little at a time. Ask questions, but don't answer them until later.
Questions keep the pages turning. The obvious question, "What happens next?" is what both your characters and your readers should be thinking.
In my book Afraid, both the reader and the main characters have no idea what is attacking the town until the second act; all they get are glimpses and pieces. Figuring things out is a lot more satisfying than being spoon fed.
3. Prevent the characters from reaching their goals.
The boring middle part of the book shouldn't be boring at all. This is the part where the author really gets to antagonize his main characters, heaping more and more conflict on them.
What is the absolute worst thing that can happen to your character? Make it happen. What will be impossible for them to overcome? Do it.
Along with being genetically wired to desire completion and order, we also like there to be a struggle before all is well. Adversity, conflict, and tragedy allow for admirable human attributes such as courage, love, and perseverance to blossom. We like winners, especially underdog winners. So heap on the abuse.
4. Subtext is subtext.
Sure, you may have an important theme to the work. Yes, you may love the written word and want to be as eloquent as possible. Of course you want to explore human nature, make the reader think about deep issues, and create realistic characters with complex motivations.
But don't do any of that at the expense of the story, dammit.
A story, in it's purest form, is: "Here's a mess, clean it up."
We're storytellers. Not charactertellers. Not themetellers. Not poets. The goal of a story is to present a problem, then solve the problem.
Are there exceptions? Sure.
But don't base your career on an exception.
We've been a species of storytellers as long as we've had a written history, and probably longer. The Epic of Gilgamesh is over 5000 years old, but the basic formula still remains the same.
Here's a mess, clean it up.
But Joe, you want me to follow a formula? Aren't formulas cliche and derivative and the work of hacks?
Not if you do a good job.
My wife hates going to the movies with me, because I always whisper to her what is going to happen next. It's not that the movies are the work of hacks. It's just that the more you understand about the storytelling process, the better you can predict it.
Of course, once you're able to predict it, you can do the unpredictable.
This isn't about muses or inspiration or magic or creativity. It's more like architecture than art. Yes, you can be dynamic and expressive and imaginative, but there are still rules.
Learn the rules.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Discipline
If you're a writer, there are many hurdles to overcome.
You have to commit to writing whenever you can, and then bludgeoning that prose into the best it can be.
Then you have to diligently search for an agent, and for a publisher (or several agents and publishers, as few writers stick with one.)
You must seek out new markets while maintaining relationships with old ones.
You have to keep in touch with the public through online social networks and face-to-face.
You must battle criticism, self-doubt, and apathy, and stay current with industry happenings.
And all the while, your only true boss is you.
So unless you have a great deal of self-control and determination, you will undoubtedly slack off once and a while.
A few weeks probably won't hurt. A few months won't help. A year or longer and you'll be rebuilding your career from the ground up.
Not an easy task for writers. There are so many failures for so few successes, and not many ways to truly measure the impact of your efforts. This means that success or failure is largely arbitrary, based on your personal goals, And those goals can change. This can result in lesser efforts, which almost always yield lesser results.
So how do you maintain the discipline required to succeed? Especially when success seems so elusive?
1. Set Goals. The only goals worth setting are those you have control over. Getting published or becoming a bestseller are not goals. Those are dreams. Goals are sending out ten queries in December and writing five pages a day. These are doable, and the first step to keeping on track.
2. Make Time. All the goals in the world won't mean anything unless your prioritize them. That will probably mean sacrificing other things to devote yourself to your goals.
3. Regiment. Any long-term goal requires determination, implementation, and repetition. We don't have to force ourselves to do things we love. And while we may love some aspects of writing, there are certainly things we don't enjoy. You are your own boss, and your boss has to be a hard-ass.
4. Reward. The more realistic goals you make and shoot for, the more productive you'll become. When you do reach a goal, celebrate by rewarding yourself. It might be with something simple, like a cup of coffee when you finish two pages, or something big, like a trip to Paris when you finish the book. But all work and no play is a sure way to burn out.
5. Heal. You'll have setbacks, guaranteed. And these setbacks may make you want to ditch your goals, your regimen, and the whole silly business. There are many ways to overcome adversity, such as ignoring it, working through it, commiserating with friends, mourning, reflecting, and reinventing yourself. But, ultimately, the only thing that heals wounds is time, so forgive yourself if it takes a while to get back on the horse. And if you never do get back on, this wasn't the career for you in the first place.
If you choose to write (or if writing chose you) then you have to be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. If you settle for less, your expectations will be met. Demand more from yourself.
The winners are the ones who never gave up. Be a winner.
Now get back to work.
You have to commit to writing whenever you can, and then bludgeoning that prose into the best it can be.
Then you have to diligently search for an agent, and for a publisher (or several agents and publishers, as few writers stick with one.)
You must seek out new markets while maintaining relationships with old ones.
You have to keep in touch with the public through online social networks and face-to-face.
You must battle criticism, self-doubt, and apathy, and stay current with industry happenings.
And all the while, your only true boss is you.
So unless you have a great deal of self-control and determination, you will undoubtedly slack off once and a while.
A few weeks probably won't hurt. A few months won't help. A year or longer and you'll be rebuilding your career from the ground up.
Not an easy task for writers. There are so many failures for so few successes, and not many ways to truly measure the impact of your efforts. This means that success or failure is largely arbitrary, based on your personal goals, And those goals can change. This can result in lesser efforts, which almost always yield lesser results.
So how do you maintain the discipline required to succeed? Especially when success seems so elusive?
1. Set Goals. The only goals worth setting are those you have control over. Getting published or becoming a bestseller are not goals. Those are dreams. Goals are sending out ten queries in December and writing five pages a day. These are doable, and the first step to keeping on track.
2. Make Time. All the goals in the world won't mean anything unless your prioritize them. That will probably mean sacrificing other things to devote yourself to your goals.
3. Regiment. Any long-term goal requires determination, implementation, and repetition. We don't have to force ourselves to do things we love. And while we may love some aspects of writing, there are certainly things we don't enjoy. You are your own boss, and your boss has to be a hard-ass.
4. Reward. The more realistic goals you make and shoot for, the more productive you'll become. When you do reach a goal, celebrate by rewarding yourself. It might be with something simple, like a cup of coffee when you finish two pages, or something big, like a trip to Paris when you finish the book. But all work and no play is a sure way to burn out.
5. Heal. You'll have setbacks, guaranteed. And these setbacks may make you want to ditch your goals, your regimen, and the whole silly business. There are many ways to overcome adversity, such as ignoring it, working through it, commiserating with friends, mourning, reflecting, and reinventing yourself. But, ultimately, the only thing that heals wounds is time, so forgive yourself if it takes a while to get back on the horse. And if you never do get back on, this wasn't the career for you in the first place.
If you choose to write (or if writing chose you) then you have to be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. If you settle for less, your expectations will be met. Demand more from yourself.
The winners are the ones who never gave up. Be a winner.
Now get back to work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
