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17: 50 (25-24) mistakes of the fledgling fiction writer.

16 Friday May 2014

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17: 50 (25-24) mistakes of the fledgling fiction writer.

 

25-24: The weekly countdown continues to the biggest blunders to help you avoid them.

You have to sell yourself−even if you get a publishing deal, you will have to do this anyway, and lots of it. As you are waiting for those rejection letters to finish off papering your toilet, you need to start down the other path−self publishing. It is no longer just a vanity project; it is a legitimate way into a publishing deal and a fulfilling way to earn passive income. If you have managed to get thousands of people to like, potentially read, read, write reviews−you already have an audience.

 

25 Self-publishing is not a new innovation, Laurence Sterne−Tristram Shandy (1759), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum (1900). More recently Wool by Hugh Howey (2011) and you may have heard of the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy by E.L. James! − Which has now sold more copies on Amazon than Harry Potter! The list is endless, and one thing is for certain, if you don’t get it out there to the world to see, you have no chance.

Remember whatever self-publisher you use, you own the rights. So which one should you use? The obvious elephant in the room is Amazon, and I know a lot of people, especially in Britain don’t like to buy anything from Amazon, not even a ‘Will I Am’ facemask or a multiple Edwardian moustache kit−but they are the biggest platform and potentially give you a larger market. Their publishing arm, CreateSpace is relatively straightforward to use. You can do it yourself, or you pay them to do it in-house. I have used them twice and intend to use them at least one more time. Rather than get them to do it−I could have quite easily done it myself, I pay a friend, as it saves me huge amounts of time. If you are on a tight budget and you intend to put lots of work out, spend the time learning. One drawback for many people outside the US is an ITIN (International Tax Identification Number). You need this from The IRS or you will pay tax there and in your home country. To get this you need to send your passport off, and it can take 4-6 weeks, so you don’t want to be doing this when you are going abroad on holiday−Do this before your book is completely ready. I always produce hard copies and turn these into ebooks, you might only want the latter.

You decide what contract you sign. I won’t go into all these, but they are quite straightforward. You obviously don’t have to use Amazon; there are many others out there. Some of the ones I have heard good reports about are; Smashwords and Lulu. Others include Blurb and Authorhouse. A long time ago when I had very heavy work commitments I used Xlibris. Personally I found them expensive−remember everything you get them to do will cost you, including changing a few typos that were pointed out to me by readers. I also found they hassled me with phone calls a lot, to the stage I pretended to be out!

Googlebooks is on the rise and has fewer books listed than Amazon, so a search is more likely to find your book, but obviously not as much traffic as the Amazon Behemoth. 

I could go into a lot more detail, but to be honest it’s a bit boring and trainspottery−you’ve got the idea, it just boils down to some research and finding what best fits you. Ask yourself, ultimately what is your aim? That will determine to large extent which is the best for you.  

If you have written your book and you are happy with it, get it out there. I read some research the other day that said 95% of people that self-publish feel a sense of pride and achievement for getting to the final stage−what are the other 5% feeling, let’s hope it is no worse than indifference! Even if down the line you are not 100% happy, like Philip Pullman with his first book, you can always take it down and revamp it. At some point you do need to let it go and get it out, because a book is never finished, Henry James is testament to that… But, holding it in your hand, smelling it, touching it, taking it to bed−might just be the inspiration you need to climb the next mountain!

 

24 Social media:

 

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it?” -Erick Qualman, author of Socialnomics.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer – it is what the consumers tell each other it is.” Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit.

 

These three quotes sum up all you need to know and get your head around with social media.

 

The two questions I get asked most by people starting out in writing are not actually about writing: 1.How do I publicise my work to get sales? 2. How do I use social media effectively?

More so by older writers which are new to social media. The six which I use the most, and restrict myself to, are, in this order; Twitter, Goodreads, Google (Blogger & Blogspot), WordPress, LibraryThing and Facebook. There are many, many more obviously. I have website as well.

Twitter was one of the last for me to engage in, even though lots of friends badgered me to join. I knew it would be another activity that could take up huge amounts of my time. It’s also the one I find certain people still most reluctant to sign-up to. Their main fear is: ‘I don’t want to talk inane drivel, tell people my diet through photographic evidence or when I went to the toilet!’ This may sound risible but I can assure you it’s a true anxiety−the mundane ‘flash-tell’ of your life in 140 characters. The big mistake I made was not fully understanding the basics before I joined and consequently when people followed me−I did not reciprocate−big mistake, you want as much traffic to your feed as possible. If you don’t they will unfollow you pretty quickly, it can be a nihilistic world sometimes−but remember lots of people are on twitter for exactly the same reason as you−to raise their profile, connections and sales.

How are you going to connect to people? You need to use # for key words e.g. #writing #reading #illuminatinghalloweensocks, this will direct your tweet to those areas and @ for specific addresses e.g. @thewritingIMP @b0ringtweets (Which is an amusing ironic site that highlights some of the aforementioned drivel that some fear). When I started following this site 13K followed him, now he has 200K. Which just shows; there’s nothing better than a personal recommendation! 

Buffering−not something you might find in Lars Von Trier film (well you might!). But a way of staggering your tweets over a few days, so Twitter does not take over all your waking hours. There are many of these, they are quite straightforward to use and you just feed them directly into your own twitter address. This is also useful because if you consider Twitter to be like walking down a High Street, and every window to be an individual tweet, you not only have to be passing the shops to look in, but you have to actually look in as well. Not everybody will be walking past your shop continually. Buffering is also great for exposure in foreign countries−tweet while you sleep.

Don’t just bombard people with pleads to buy your work, they will tire of you very quickly. One thing I did that has gone down well is quotes from the two books I have put out recently in my own name; these are often re-tweeted by others. Re-tweet interesting stuff you read, put links into other sites about anything you find compelling. Attach photos to your tweets−research shows people are much more likely to notice them. Do not feel the compulsion to tweet incessantly; you are not a 24-hour news agency! Excessive Tweeting Syndrome (ETS) is not a psychologically recognised syndrome yet, but it will be, and you heard it here first at: @thewritingIMP #ETSETS! Don’t buy bundles of thousands of followers for a few dollars, unless you want thousands of virtual reality followers in a computer office in the Philippines! Build slowly by following people you are genuinely interested in, and vice versa.

There are many plug-ins, upgrades and apps you can buy that will assist you, but do some research before you shell out any money−I advise you buy an advanced buffer app. There are many Kindle accessories ‘to boost your sales.’ If they sound too good to be true… well, they are.

I have a friend who runs the media for the Sharp Project (@sharpproject) in Manchester, England, which is like a mini BBC with associated small start-up technology companies. He was telling me that when he first engaged with twitter for many months they only had about 200 follows and the number stubbornly did not move, within a couple of weeks they had jumped to 3K, and from this several substantial contacts were obtained.

Social media reminds me of that Malcolm Gladwell book ‘Blink.’ The third chapter is about a car salesman who never dismisses people due to their appearance. He gets a yearly sale of a Lexus to a farmer, that initially turned up scrofulous and unkempt, other salespeople were not interested in the agriculturalist! You never know where the break you need might come from. From this blog last week I was contacted for an interview from a much bigger blog. Don’t make the mistake I made initially and turn down any exposure because you are too busy writing.

Goodreads, were you are probably reading this now−so there is little mileage explaining to the converted. For a writer this is the best site by a long way; sales, exposure, contact, friends, blog, giveaways, flags, comments, book recommendations, fans and much more. You need to be on here and visible.  

Google sites: The main reason you need to be on here is there is an enormous algorithmic monster in a stalactited server-cave somewhere under Iceland that is putting everything whizzing around on the inter-web through its consciousness−it feeds of it and gets bigger by the second. You need to be as high up on the Google search to get exposure. Two important rules are, produce at least 300 words and add as many relevant tags. Even if not that many people view your work there you are rising up the Goggle rankings, and keeping the all-seeing lonely monster alive.

WordPress I do because it offers more applications, especially for statistics. As you are aware there are many other sites, which you may prefer. But Goodreads and Google should be top of your list.

LibraryThing I use for ebook givaways (Goodreads for hard copies), again there are many of these friendly helpful sites. The advantage of giving ebooks away is it will save you a lot of money when you are trying to get reviews. People often prefer a pdf version of books, so that costs you absolutely nothing.  This site offers an Author profile as well.

Facebook: I am not a big fan of Facebook. I don’t do much on this site, but feed other sites into it. You may have a differing view; I know a lot of authors (and artists) love it. I have my own personal Facebook, which I avoid as much as possible as it can suck precious time away.−“Distracted from distraction by distraction” as T S Eliot once said as he was being distracted.  

 

You have to play the percentages game when it comes to the Social Mediarati. There are four main factors that are going to put you off more productive writing; time−finding enough of it, rejection from publishing houses (no one likes rejection however resilient they claim to be), The Critical Devil eating away at you−the little destructive bastard, and social media. Great if you love it, some people love selling themselves and their work, and not just the nihilistic. It can be hard work coming up with new innovative ways to do this, but remember if you are doing social media you are not writing your next great opus−find a happy balance.

Books are word of mouth. Ask yourself, how many times have you read a review and then gone out and purchased that book? Now, compare that to a close friend raving about a book. That’s why you have to start small and build, and that’s why you have to make social media your friend!

 

I apologise for this weeks’ long blog, but I wanted to get the social media stuff out of the way over just one week. If you feel like you have been on a busman’s holiday while sucking eggs with your grandma next to you, as you sightsee in your own neighbourhood−apologies once again−if that is you, you will have no problems with the medium. When I reluctantly started out on Twitter I asked my tech-savvy friends the most moronic questions−hopefully this has answered some of them for the novices, at least given you a gentle nudge−you will need to do some research, there is plenty of information out there−you soon get the hang of it. For Twitter substitute nearly all social media.

On a personal note, I really don’t want to see you with a picture of your cat/s. It’s great you have one, but if I want to see it, I’ll ask. Why not share a photo of yourself, even if you are just auditioning for the next Catfish series!  

Well done for getting this far, the sticker and Edwardian moustache kit are in the post.

@thewritingIMP   www.ianmpindar.com

Ian M Pindar’s latest books, under his real name are: ‘Hoofing It’ and ‘Hoofed,’ the first and second novels in The Robert Knight Series and are on special offer http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Ian+M+Pindar  He has another three novels out this year. 

13: 50 mistakes of the fledgling fiction writer. (36-33)

19 Saturday Apr 2014

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36-33: The countdown continues to the biggest blunders.

I grew up in the Westside of Hull. When I was young it was a thriving fishing port−the third biggest in Britain. The City divided down the middle by the river that gives it its name. This clear delineation also roughly sections the city into which Rugby League team they support−Rugby League−think chess with muscles, it is not so much a sport but part of the religious National Curriculum there. When I was eleven my Dad took me to see ‘our’ team−there was no choice, believe me. It would be like being brought up a Palestinian Muslim, and saying to your parents, ‘You know what, mum, dad, I might give Judaism a go!’ If the game was sometimes gladiatorial, the old wooden stand−The Threepenny, where I was plonked at the front was the proletariats’ congressional area; quite a lot of the amassed were trawler men. I did not know which to watch, the ‘hard men’ on the pitch, or the ones in the stand and their colourful industrial critic of the players and officials! Since that first day, I have not stopped following them. I know a lot about the team – ‘Hull FC’. I wrote a novel set in Hull and part of the book revolved around ‘my team.’ What I realised as I started researching players and games, was my memory was not as clear as I perceived it to be, and I had either forgotten some detail or remembered it incorrectly. So what’s the point Ian? Research is the point, even if you think you know it, double check it, and not just with Wikipedia−the Wikipedians are not always correct. ‘Do the Math’… and not just the singular, ‘Do the Maths’. More on research later. Let the countdown commence…

36. Not producing a synopsis, treatment and blurb. Do these as soon as you finish the first draft of your book, it will need several attempts and will not get easier the longer you leave it−you learnt that in school. The blurb on the back is like producing a poem; you need to whittle it down until succinct and catchy. The convention is to write it in the third person present. The reader should be asking themselves questions, you are trying to create a mood, intrigue and a feeling of desire to make them want to read the entire book. Write your synopsis first, this can give the plot away, it is a narrative summary of the novel (and anything else that you think is essential) – this is important as when you are writing to publishers they will nearly always ask for a synopsis. There is sometimes confusion between a synopsis−less than 3 pages and a treatment, which can go on for ever; this is more frequently used for pitching films.

35 Lack of a sense of place. I dislike over-prescription of places−we are all members of the global village, we know what most places look like, we have visited them through screens if not first hand, but when you are reading a novel you want to feel as though you are there, getting lost and having to unfortunately shake yourself back to reality. Great novels draw you in without you even noticing, you travel with the characters. More recently I remember being crouched in a ditch at the side of a field being attacked by a Stuka in Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’, wandering France as Jean-Baptise Grenouille in Patrick Suskind’s ‘Perfume’, on board the Beagle with Sym Covington in Roger McDonalds, ‘Darwin’s Shooter’, I could go on. This is one of the reasons we love certain books, but not the only one, obviously. Draw your reader in slowly, evoke a sense of place subtly, ‘the ripe mangoes on the stall were swarming with flies.’ So much is shown without telling: it’s hot, tropical, unhygienic, populous, the fruit has not been sold, etc, etc. The reader is taking a first few steps with you, the narrator, into the market. A sense of place is not just location, but time as well. Sense of place is important in all novels but especially so in crime and detective fiction. 

34. Not enough research.It is not just technical books and historical novels that need research. This is where your Writers’ Group comes in handy; the vast amount of experience within the collective, especially the elders is invaluable−not everything shows up on Google! Just the other week a writer read a piece and several members directed him to Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth and John Niven−the latter being me, and more specifically: ‘Kill Your Friends’ which is in my top15 (soon to be made into a film−read it before, the use of a negative character that makes you want to turn the page is breath-taking− it was recommended by two friends, I had quick glance at it before I was about to go out and buy a weighty weekend paper, I did not stop reading for eleven hours, and I would not have even got up if my bladder and stomach had not poked me to do so−I exaggerate not). I tried making a Top 10, and it was so hard I settled on a Top 15. The fact the writer in question had never heard of John Niven, emphasis my point. Interesting in his following book, ‘Single White Male’ he obviously did a lot of research on literature, but used it sparingly.

Research to see how original your idea is, you could argue that is better not to do research, ignorance is bliss, isn’t one vampire book much similar to other vampire book? You will get compared to others, people like to pigeon hole, don’t you compare yourself to others, that’s arrogant−no one likes a show-off, and chances are you are not as good as them anyway.

33 Information dump: You have done a load of research, you’re feeling quite pleased with yourself, the temptation is to dump lots of it into the novel, you are not writing a non-fiction book, you will slow your narrative down and bore lots of your readers. Good examples of how to do this are A M Homes’ ‘May We be forgiven.’ The main protagonist is a Nixon scholar; the relevant facts are slipped in throughout and are related to the story-line. David Mitchell’s ‘Ghostwritten’ which has plenty of technical detail without going over the top−this for me is a better book than his ‘Cloud Atlas’, and John Green’s ‘The Fault in our Stars’, which could have had lots more detail about cancer, but it’s the human emotions that are paramount to the book.

See you all next week…and remember, sport is not war, unless you live in Hull, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, London, Istanbul, Buenos Aires…

Both my latest books: ‘Hoofing It’ and ‘Hoofed,’ the first and second novels in The Robert Knight Series and are FREE on Amazon Kindle this weekend 19-21 April. YES FREE!

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@thewritingIMP   www.ianmpindar.com

8: What, more social media! I just want to write.

07 Friday Mar 2014

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 You have to build the brand, like it or not.

Blogging: Another area I was reluctant to engage in. I had two main concerns, what would I write about and would it not take inordinate amounts of time. If you have read much of these machinations and musings the first one is obvious. But it took a lot of prodding and poking to get me going. A couple of months ago at the Writers’ Group I attend−if you don’t, get yourself to one now. Three separate people asked me different questions about self-publishing and social media−that coupled with one friend saying, ‘people starting out really don’t know this stuff.’ The second point, it does not take that much time as you are writing about stuff you know.

Try and write at least 300 words because most search engines will pick up this length and longer much better. As a rule I never write less than 700 and more than a 1,000−less is more. Put key words in that will be picked up. Put the blog on more than one site. I use WordPress and Goodreads. Goodreads is better for me because I am writing about fiction, and a Goodreads author. Last week I had 500 views on the site compared to 65 on WordPress. I chose WordPress as it has more advanced features, stats, archiving, links, etc. Some other bloggers prefer others, googles sites (Blogger & Blogspot) have their search engine backing it up−again it is down to research and the area you are blogging in. I set off with the intention of having 300 readers, so I have exceeded my own realistic expectations. Plan a brief outline of the first 5-10 blogs. Like planning your work, jot ideas down when you have them. It is important that you tag your blog to potentially increase your audience. If your blog one week includes a famous person like Stephen King or JK Rowling tag those or anything that might increase traffic.

Giveaways: These are useful for books. If someone enters your giveaway they are interested in your work, you are starting to build a fan base. People are delighted to receive a signed book with a personal message through the post. I also personally put other stuff in as well; a letter of thanks/congratulations/what I am doing next, personalised book marks and A4 signed front cover artwork. I give hard copy books away on Goodreads. Word of caution here, this can be expensive. Ultimately you are after reviews, but for me to send a book to the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand it costs nearly £10, this is on top of the price of the book! Goodreads allows you to see the entrants, this can be useful as you can gift an ebook to them in exchange for a review−if they are genuinely interested ‘friend’ them.

I use LibraryThing for ebooks, for me this is much cheaper and gives me a greater exposure to the North American market. I buy the winners an e-voucher, usually from Amazon, send them it via email, they could in theory buy a Will I Am facemask or a Paris Hilton shoe horn with the money, but no one ever has−although the Edwardian moustache kit looks ticklingly tempting. Some people have entered multiple giveaways and have now won both my books, so I send them personally signed front cover artwork in return for both reviews. I never give away more than 20 ebooks as this can be quite time consuming to administer.

Email lists: What both of the above allow you to do is build up email lists. Put emails into different contact groups. I don’t like to get a group email that I am one of hundreds on, very impersonal−might just be me?

Goodreads: I think this is the best reading/writing site, but has just been bought by Amazon! If you want to register as an author you have to star rate at least 50 books, which does not take very long and enjoyable. If you are not intending to register as an author, only put books on you actually love, as the site will then recommend other books you will equally love.

There are many other great sites and it depends on your audience. Wattpad is great for a younger audience and like many sites you can put weekly extracts of a book up, even as you write it and gain interest that way. There are lots of chat rooms and groups that are useful for tips and advice−I very rarely use them as I have so many other social media tasks to do. Facebook we all know about. Keep your personal and writing sites separate. I don’t use my writing one that much, but I feed other areas into it directly, so I don’t feel I have to.

You do start to see the rewards for your hard work. The other day I had several contacts from readers to say how much they loved my books−one said he was so inspired by reading about Thailand, him and a friend booked a trip there to visit the same places I had wrote about−something that surprised me. And although literature does not thrive by praise alone, nor be totally diminished by criticism−the former helps you to carry on and gives you a lift some days.

So enough, let’s get Californian for a moment: climb onto your chair (elevate) and shout (project externally): “build a presence: build a brand: build sales*.” Did you do it in a Kirk Douglas Spartacus tone−Let’s face it, you didn’t do it−but you’ve got the idea−make social media your friend. At least adopt it.

Hopefully over the last two weeks you have picked up a tip or two which may help you succeed better, rather than doing it by default like I did.  

 

*:build happiness (optional)

Starting next week (and some more to come): 50 common mistakes of the fledgling fiction writer.

@thewritingIMP   www.ianmpindar.com

Ian M Pindar’s latest books, under his real name are: ‘Hoofing It’ and ‘Hoofed,’ the first and second novels in The Robert Knight Series and are out now and on special offer. He has another three novels out this year.