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This week I'm totally jazzed to host my agent, Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg. She's one of the new breed of agents at the cutting-edge literary agency, Foreword Literary, founded by "Agent Savant" Laurie McLean.

Pam represents the book I wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide. I can't tell you how great it's been to have somebody savvy (and kick-ass) in our corner shepherding the book through all its various stages and lifting much of the stress off our shoulders.

Bu-bu-but, say the more tech-savvy among you...

...do I even need a literary agent in the digital age?

Agents aren't going anywhere. But their role is changing.

"I think there will be much more partnership, much more like celebrity and sports agents, having to look at a much wider range of things that we do.…retainers, tapered commission, an a la carte menu for authors where agent will do some of their books, not all of their books." ...Agent Andrew Lownie

The most up-to-date agents not only represent their clients' work to traditional publishers (and keep them safe from bad contracts that don't allow them to indie publish as well.) They also give advice and aid in self-publishing.

Kristin Nelson, the super-agent who has propelled the careers of hybrid superstars like Hugh Howey and Barbara Freethy, has formed a self-publishing wing of her agency called NLA Digital, which she's eager to point out is NOT a publisher. This quote is also from Porter Anderson's blog.

"Our author clients do not grant us rights. They maintain full control of their rights and intellectual property. However, what we do offer is a platform that fully supports them in an endeavor to indie publish." ...Agent Kristin Nelson

That means NLA clients are self-publishing, but they have access to the top professional editors, designers, formatters, and publicists as well as the benefit of Kristen's industry savvy and clout guiding their careers.

Foreword Literary has launched a similar project, called Fast Foreword, which helped us self-publish How to Be a Writer in the E-Age when our small publisher, MWiDP had to close its doors.

(BTW, the head of MWiDP, Mark Williams, "Mr. International" is very ill, and has been airlifted from the African village where he was volunteering to a hospital in the UK. After a blood transfusion, he is on the mend, but I hope you'll send him healing thoughts and prayers.)

Our book was selling steadily, we both have big platforms, and Catherine Ryan Hyde is one of the top-selling novelists on Amazon, so Pam was willing to take us on. 

But we're the exception to the rule. Mostly Fast Foreword publishes shorter works that can't be placed with traditional publishers because of rigid trad-pub word count rules. (Submission guidelines on the Foreword Literary website.)

It's true that a handful of superstars have gone from self-publishing to landing huge traditional contracts—but again, they are the exceptions. The reason you've heard names like Amanda Hocking and Hugh Howey is their kind of success is rare, which makes them news.

Pam wants authors to understand what agents can and can't do for them in this new publishing world, and when it's a good idea to query and when it isn't.

Here's my take-away from what she's been telling me:

If you think you want a traditional or "hybrid" career, you should start by querying, not by self-publishing. Or query with a different book from the one you self-published.  

Yes, three years ago we were being told "the ebook is the new query", but that was back when Amazon's algorithms gave cheap indie books the same weight in calculating the bestseller lists as they did the big name, expensive trad titles. AND when the Big 5 weren't selling their backlists for 99c apiece through Bookbub. 

This industry is going through turn-on-a-dime changes right now. What I tell you today may not be true next week.

That's why you need to make sure you're querying an agent who keeps up. It's also a good idea to run any agent contract by an expert in contract law to make sure you're not signing with somebody who wants a piece of everything you publish for the rest of your life and your children's lives. Yeah. It happens. Be careful out there.

But even a cutting-edge agent has an eye on the traditional publishing world (which isn't going away, and we should be glad of it.) This means she's not going to take on a book that publishers won't buy. And she won't invest her time in something that has already been in the marketplace and failed to sell. Yes, even ebooks can become "shopworn."

Agents only take on what they think will grab the interest of the editors they know. They'll only choose a self-publishing route after they've tried the traditional one, and their self-publishing departments are usually reserved for authors who are already clients.

Like anybody else, agents can make mistakes. Sometimes they misjudge what editors will buy. Agents often fall in love with a book that goes on submission for years and doesn't find a home.

That's heartbreaking to the agent as well as the author.

But now, savvy agents can help clients self-publish when the big publishers won't take a risk—or have suddenly decided they won't publish anything but Steampunk Bigfoot erotica set in Oz for the next two years—or whatever the marketing department has deemed the "next big thing."

But as publishing's rules change, so do query rules. So Pam, take it away—

…Anne

Ch…Ch…Changes in Agent Submissions

by Pamela Van Hylckama Vlieg

I’ve been an agent for two years. I came in right at the start of the digital revolution.

I love that small presses and self-publishing create so many chances for authors. Whether you’re a debut author or a seasoned vet your world is wide open and there’s a myriad of ways you can make money creating the art you love.

I’m not a New York City agent. My husband is a manager at Yahoo. Tech rules our world. At Foreword Literary we strive to attract and manage hybrid authors. Of course we have authors that are interested in traditional only and that is still how we make the bulk of our income but we are committed to learning and kicking some major ass in digital.

Agents are evolving. We’re no longer the gatekeepers placed high atop Mt. Olympus peering down at the plebs of the written word deigning to take a look at your pittance of a novel.

I love this. I’m a helicopter mom in real life and I enjoy helicoptering my clients. I want to be involved in every aspect of your career (even if it’s stuff I don’t take/get my 15% on) so that together we can guide you to your goals in a timely manner.

Now that I’ve declared my love for all new cool things, here are 6 things that seriously drive me batty.

6 Mistakes New Authors Make When Dealing with Agents in Today's Marketplace 

1) Mistaking an Agent for a Publicist

When an author self-publishes badly and then writes me asking me to sign them so that I can market their book, I can't help.

I’m not a publicist and even though we do have an in-house publicist at Foreword that’s not what she’s for.

If you want to self-publish you have to think of it as a business. Rarely does cranking out a book, not having it edited, and not having a professional cover work for anyone.

You can’t just sling your book on the internet plate like a side of bacon and expect it to fly off the proverbial shelves. There is work involved and that work is not my job. (Unless you are already my client and then I make it my job.)

2) Submitting to an Agent and a Small Press at the Same Time

You submitted to me at the same time you submitted to a small press and you come back three days after I asked to look at your manuscript and tell me you have an offer of publication from Otters R Awesome Press.

I don’t have a staff of fifteen to read that fast. I’ve never heard of that press so I’m not going to read you before I read the other people that have been waiting.

Upon looking at that press I see they have predatory deals, no distribution other than that you can secure for yourself, and their covers look like they were made in Paint by my four-year-old.

All of that is fine if you that is what you want from your publishing journey. Just don’t expect me to sign you. You’ve effectively taken my work out of my hands and done it for me and I didn’t get a shot to see if I can do better.

3) Asking an Agent to Negotiate Foreign Rights for a Non-Client.

You’ve self-published and sold a few thousand copies. You now want me to do your foreign rights but have no plans to give me a book at some point in the future that I can sell.

I don’t do foreign rights. We have agency partners that do that for me.

I can’t help you here. You don’t want me to be your business partner in any way so an agent is not what you want. You want a foreign rights specialist. (Some agencies have these but they are generally for their own clients.)

4) Self-Publishing Because Your Book isn't Right for Me.

You reply to my passing on your material saying you will just self-publish.

That’s fine, but I worry: are you doing it for the right reason? Are you doing it because you believe in your book and you want to make a real go of it getting the editing help you need and a good cover...or is it because you’re getting rejected because you haven’t put the time and effort needed into creating a novel.

(Note from Anne: Self publishing because of a few rejections isn't wise if you'd prefer to have representation. Agents and editors reject books for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your book. Often rejections mean exactly what they say: this isn't right for that particular agent at this particular time.  For more on this, read Ruth Harris's post 11 Reasons Why Writers Get Rejected.  Ruth was an editor at several Big Five houses, so she knows what those meetings are like.) 

5) Self-Publishing a Book that's on Submission

I’ve signed you as a client! Yay! Then we go on sub to the Big Five publishers on the first round and you freak out over a few rejections. And self-publish the book.

Ouch!

You need to tell me first so I can pull the book off of submission. The editors reading the manuscript are not going to be happy with me.

Also this makes me have less faith in your motives. Do you really want traditional publishing? I have to reevaluate our relationship and decide whether we should go on together.

Trust and communication are key. I work hard for my clients. I expect them to work hard too. That means communicating and exercising patience.

6) Being Ambivalent about Whether you Really Want an Agent

If you want to publish yourself or only work with small presses that you can submit to on your own then…you don’t need me!

You need an entertainment lawyer to look over your offered contracts. Not an agent.

If you want someone who is available to brainstorm with you, or as contacts in the industry, or will fight for you like a mama bear, and you want to traditionally publish then you need me.

And I need you.

I do this job because I love it. I take 15% of the books I sell for you that you’ve given me to sell for you.

I don’t take 15% of your short stories or things you self-publish (unless you need my assistance in self-publishing).

I work at least 10 hours a day, seven days a week. I’m writing this on Saturday morning and when I’m done here I have a nonfiction book proposal to write and ready for Monday morning.

If I get done with that proposal today I’ll read queries and submissions. I think I deserve my 15%, which let us be honest doesn’t even amount to a living for a new agent. I’d break it down to what I made an hour this past year but I don’t want to depress myself (or you).

I love books, reading, and authors. I love that authors have choices. I love that those choices don’t have to include me. I’m not afraid of losing my job. I’m not afraid of big publishing going away. I’m excited for the change and want to meet it head on.

EFF YEAH REVOLUTION!

To read more about Pam you can follow her on Twitter or read her bio and submission guidelines on Foreword’s website.

What about you, Scriveners? Are you still hoping to "land" an agent? Did you self-publish hoping an agent would take you on afterward (I know 1000s of authors have been doing that, alas.) Do you hope for a "hybrid" career at some point? Do you have any questions for Pam? She's generously offered to reply to questions today and tomorrow.


WE HAVE A WINNER!! THE WINNER  OF LAST WEEK'S "DE-LURKER" CONTEST IS CORDIA PEARSON, who was selected by a random number generator at Random.org. So CORDIA, just send me your email address to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com, and I will gift you a copy of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE from Amazon. 

BOOK OF THE WEEK

It's HERE: the new, improved, deluxe version of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE: a Self Help Guide now published by Fast Foreword.

NOT JUST FOR INDIES: It's full of advice from NYT bestseller Catherine Ryan Hyde (and moi). There's a step-by-step guide to blogging, and self-help guidance for dealing with social media overload. Lots more on how to deal with rejection, bad critiques and troll reviews—as well as how to query, how to decide the right publishing path for you, and how to market without spamming. It's all in there! Do you know who the Big 5 are? What agent-assisted self-publishing is? How to tell if your book is ready to publish? We've got the answers!

You can pick it up for only $2.99 at Amazon US, and the equivalent at Amazon UK, Amazon CA, and all the other Amazons around the world! (Paper version to follow in about 6 weeks)

"Their prose is easy to read, warm, worldly, honest...instantly we are welcomed into their fold, and serious subjects (encompassing our dreams and livelihoods) become fun."...Joanna Celeste

"I so wish there had been a book like this back when I first started….The moment I started to read 'How to be a Writer in the E-Age' I knew it was a winner in every sense. The information is not only valuable to new authors, it's relevant to published authors." ...Ryan Field 

~

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

The Golden Quill Awards: Entry fee $15. Two categories: Short fiction/memoir (1000 words) and Poetry (40 lines max) $750 1st prize, $400 2nd prize in each category. Sponsored by the SLO Nightwriters and the Central Coast Writers Conference. Entries accepted from April 1-June 30th.

Writers' Village International Short Fiction Award. Entry fee £15. This is a biggie. Stories in English up to 3000 words in any genre from anywhere in the world. £3000 First Prize. Judges include iconic mystery author Lawrence Block and Whitbread & Orange short-lister Jill Dawson. £4500 ($7200) in total prizes. The top 50 contestants also get a free critique of their stories. Deadline June 30th.

The 11th Yeovil International Literary Prize now open for entries  Prize categories for novels, short fiction, poetry. Entry fee £11 for novels. 1st prize £1000. Deadline May 31st.

Flash Prose Contest $15 ENTRY FEE. WriterAdvice seeks flash fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction running 750 words or less. Enlighten, dazzle, and delight us. Finalists receive responses from all judges. First Place earns $200; Second Place earns $100; Third Place earns $50; Honorable Mentions will also be published. Deadline April 18th.

GLIMMER TRAIN FAMILY MATTERS CONTEST $1500 prize, plus publication in Glimmer Train Stories, plus 20 copies. $15 ENTRY FEE. They're looking for stories about families of all configurations. It's fine to draw on real experiences, but the work must read like fiction. Maximum word count: 12,000. Any shorter lengths are welcome. Deadline March 31.

14th “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest for Middle Grade fiction. FREE! This is a recurring online contest with a different genre each time, with agent judges. Submit the first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of contemporary middle grade fiction. Prizes are agent critiques and a free subscription to Writer's Market. Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc. Deadline is March 18.

First: many thanks to Indies Unlimited, which named this blog to its 10 Blogs and Websites Every Indie Should Know. If you're an indie, or thinking of going indie (self-publishing or small-press), do follow them for great tips and news from a very savvy team of writers.

Most writers these days know a good book isn't enough to get you successfully published. Any agent, editor, or book reviewer is going to Google you first—often before they'll even read to the end of your query. Certainly before they request a partial or a book to review.

What comes up on that Google search can make the difference between getting an agent, publisher and reviews—or languishing in obscurity.

Yes, of course it's possible to become a successful author without an online presence, the same way it's possible to get hired for a corporate job if you write your resume on parchment and send it by carrier pigeon.

But your chances are a whole lot better if you conform to established standards.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how authors spend too much time doing meaningless busy work trying to "build platform." 

But I didn't say authors can ignore social media entirely. Social media is our most important tool for getting our books discovered.

Being on social media takes you out of the confines of your own backyard and puts you into the global marketplace. It makes the difference between hawking your book on a local street corner and getting it in front of millions of readers all over the world.

Thing is: we need to learn to use this tool effectively.

Unfortunately, a lot of marketers don't seem to know how to do that, so they bully authors into wasting a huge amount of time playing meaningless number games.

Understandably, some authors are getting annoyed. Last week, much-lauded literary author Benjamin Anastas quit Twitter and vented in an eloquent blogpost. It got a lot of cyberink and sparked some interesting pieces by Jane Friedman and Porter Anderson.

Mr. Anastas voiced his many quarrels with Twitter, most of which boiled down to: Twitter is no good for selling books, and therefore a waste of time.

Thing is, he's right on the first point, but not on the second.

To me, it sounded like somebody saying he was going to get rid of his phone because it's not good for selling aluminum siding to strangers who are just sitting down to dinner.

Mr. Anastas is a smart man, so I suspect the problem is he was never told what Twitter is really for. (Maybe because his marketing department doesn't know either.)

So...ta-da!

Here is the big secret about Twitter: 

• Notice I did not say anything about telling strangers what you had for lunch. 
• Or hammering them with "buy my book" messages. 
• Or Tweeting endless snippets of text from your opus. (I know marketers love that, but it's so overdone it's all just noise to most of us.) 

Sale extended! 99 cents for three hilarious mysteries. Thanks everybody, for keeping it in the top 50 in comic fiction on Amazon for five weeks!

Available on Amazon US, NOOK, and Amazon UK

"The Best Revenge, Ghost Writers in the Sky and Sherwood Limited are hysterical. Anne Allen will keep you laughing throughout, but in the meantime she dabbles her fingers in some topics worth some serious thought: sexism, weightism, lechery, murder, duplicity, homelessness & poverty to name a few. If you love to laugh, you'll like these three books. If you love to think, ponder AND laugh, be ready to fall in love"... C.S. Perryess

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) The Alice Munro Short Fiction Contest. Entry fee $25 adult, $10 Teen. $2000 (Canadian) in prizes. 5000 words or less, unpubished work. More info at Alice Munro Festival Short Story Competition Deadline August 1.

2) Quirk Books "Looking for Love" contest. They offer a $10,000 prize for the best quirky love story of 50,000 words or more. Visit the Quirk Books website to download the entry form or for further information. Quirk Books was founded in 2002 and publishes around 25 books each year. Their bestselling titles include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Entries close October 1.

3)  The Huffington Post's Huffpo50 is now publishing short fiction!   The rules: You must be 50 or older to enter. Writers can submit only one story per year, and all pieces must be 5,000 words or less. Send your original submissions, as well as your contact details, to 50fiction@huffingtonpost.com.

4) COMPOSE Literary Journal. Submissions are open for their Fall 2013 issue.  This prestigious journal was founded by Suzannah Windsor, of Write it Sideways, and she's put together an amazing editorial staff. They are looking for art and photography as well as poems, literary short fiction, novel excerpts and essays. Must not be previously published (that includes anything that has appeared on your blog.)

We love your comments! If you can't get through Blogger's hoop-jumping, send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I'll post it personally.

Authors are getting hammered with more and more demands on our time. We get escalating pressure to blog more! tweet more!! send more newsletters!!! churn out 12 books a year!!!! And don't query unless your Klout rating is as high as Justin Beiber's !!!!!

It's making us all feel as if what we do is never enough, as Nathan Bransford lamented last week.

"It never feels like there are enough hours in the day, or days in the weeks, or weeks in the months, or months in the year. Time slips away, and with it a chance to accomplish something or edge closer to your dream. Social media only adds to the pressure. 

People are completing novels and making New York Times bestseller lists and curing cancer while juggling on a unicycle and it all looks so effortless and who needs sleep anyway??"

I’ve addressed the problem myself in my post Why Are We Running as Fast As We Can to Stay in the Same Place? 

Porter Anderson of Writing on the Ether responded to Nathan with a post of his own, where he said,

“Remember the early XM Radio slogan? ‘Everything. All The Time.’ Are we really going to be able to sustain this?”

No. We aren’t.

We are creative human beings, not machines, and creativity is subject to departure without notice, leaving depression and anxiety in its wake. In succumbing to the pressure, we are abusing ourselves—risking physical and mental illness. Plus we’re increasing the pressure on all our colleagues by appearing to be that magic “unicyclist” Nathan talks about.

Thing is: A lot of the pressure comes from misinformation  and old news.

The online world reinvents itself at least every two years, and the creaky old publishing business has a hard time keeping up. They’ve jumped on the social media party train, but unfortunately, they sometimes jump on the caboose instead of the engine.

A lot of the things publicists and marketers are asking authors to do are time-wasters that have been overused, are no longer relevant, or have no impact on sales.

If you’re in a master/slave relationship with an agent or publisher, you may be forced to do this stuff.  But you can be excused for slipping a link to this post into your next email.

And if you’re an indie, you can ignore it all and do what actually works. (And please, stop trying to manipulate your fellow authors into doing this stuff for you.)

Right now what works is having lots of sales and freebies and—if you can afford it—advertising them on vetted newsletters like Bookbub. E-Reader News Daily or EBookBargainsUK. But next week it will probably be something different. This business is changing by the nanosecond.

The only thing that can be counted on to enhance your visibility as a writer is to interact with readers in a real, honest, and generous way on the social media platform of your choice, as Hugh Howey has showed us. He said he focused on the readers he already had instead of trolling the universe for more. When you create the kind of goodwill and loyal fan base he has, word of mouth spreads news of your books. That way you get those "1000 true fans" instead of amassing pointless lists of numbers.

Here’s stuff that doesn’t work, wastes time, and could lead to serious burnout:

1) Racking up 1000s of Twitter followers  

The only followers that matter are the ones who read your books and blogposts and interact with you. Any others are meaningless.

I’m amazed at all the spam I get offering to sell me followers. A "follower" whose identity has been obtained by fraud and sold is not going to be a willing customer.

Buying thousands of Twitter followers and calling it a “platform” is like renting a lot of empty safety deposit boxes and saying you’re rich.

And paying somebody to send out a stream of tweets saying "buy my book" to a bunch of strangers is pointless, too. I don't know anybody who has ever bought a book because they were ordered to in a tweet by a stranger.

An author with fifty engaged fans on Twitter is going to be far more effective than one with a thousand detached strangers, all of whom are purchased and/or are other authors racking up follower numbers, too.

Another thing that publicists and marketers love that will not gain you any readers: automating Tweets, especially auto-responds that say “buy my book, minion!” and asking your Tweeps to do your marketing for you. Auto-responses to a follow usually get an auto-unfollow, and publicists who insist you put one on your Twitter account are clueless.

2) Madly promoting your "Like" page on Facebook

People actually pay for ads on Facebook and give prizes to readers in order to get more "likes" for an author page. But a post on an author “like” page will only get a dozen or so views now—unless you pay extra fees—and you’re not allowed to interact on other pages or groups unless you have a personal page as well. This means a "like" page is far less important than it used to be.

It's probably a good idea to have an author "like" page so you have a Facebook presence—like having an ad in the Yellow Pages—but the number of "likes" has no impact on book sales. (Ditto Amazon author page "likes".)

A personal Facebook page is much more useful, but if you sign up for a personal page, you open a whole new worm-can. You're at the mercy of malevolent fellow authors who mark your blog links as “spam” in order to get you put into FB jail and block people from visiting your blog. There are no humans at FB to contact to report this kind of abuse. Believe me. I have sent at least two complaining emails a week to dozens of addresses. I have never had a response, and they still block this blog as spam.

At the same time, Facebook encourages real spammers, scammers and gamers who try to trick you into giving the personal information of all your friends so they can sell it to marketers.

And as far as privacy goes—you might as well live in a picture window like an Amsterdam hooker. (NSA, eat your heart out: Facebook has been invading our privacy for years in ways governments can only dream about.)

For me, Facebook is only useful to network with other writers in the various FB writing groups and to announce freebie and sale days on pages like Free Kindle and Nook Deals , 99 Cent Kindle Deals. (There are hundreds of these. It’s kind of a crapshoot which ones will work.)

Requiring an author to have a certain number of Facebook likes/friends is even more pointless than the Twitter-follower thing, since you have to pay to have any of these people see your posts.

NOTE: These days I think a writer can do much better finding readers on a smaller social network like RedRoom, SheWrites, or myWANA—sites where both readers and writers congregate and you can engage with people. (Goodreads can be good too, but they have a bully problem, and I find it incredibly hard to navigate.)

Even simply commenting regularly on blogs like this one can help form community and get your name out there. If I see a new book by somebody who's commented on my blog, or Kristen's or Nathan's—yeah, you bet I'm going to check it out. Much more than if I get a notice of a book launch from one of my 600 "friends" on Facebook.

3) Amassing a huge list of email addresses for a newsletter

I’ve resisted the pressure to start up a newsletter. I do send a private email to a few selected friends to announce new blogposts, but that’s it. That’s because I hate newsletters. They’re mostly rehashed content from blogs or websites and chest-beating self-praise.

A lot of spam-blocker programers seem to feel the same way, because most spam-blockers will block anything sent to more than ten addresses.

So I was so glad to run across a post from marketing guru Jon Morrow last week called "Why You Shouldn't Create a Newsletter."

“Newsletters are so 2005” is the way he put it. He says blogs are much more effective, and it’s annoying overkill to have both.

He says, “publishing [used to be] a one-way street. You wrote a newsletter, article, or white paper, sent it to your readers, and they either read it or ignored it. End of story.With social media though, communication now flows both ways. 

Yes, we still publish information, but now our readers respond back to us, leaving comments, sharing with their friends, and linking to us from their own blogs and websites. It’s a complete game changer. 

Rather than publishing an article you like and hoping your readers enjoy it, now you know what they think within a matter of minutes. You can also compare the response to different articles to see what your readers enjoy most.” 

He also points out that blogposts can be tweeted and shared with thousands, instead of forwarded to one person (if you’re lucky.)

In other words: newsletters are old news.

And as for sending them out to everybody who has ever commented on your blog or emailed you: just don’t. No matter how much your marketing department hammers you to do it. Not only is it likely to end up in a spam folder, but mass-marketing to people who are not your fans only annoys them.

Establish an enticing blog and enable email subscriptions to blog updates. It's more interactive and up-to-date than a newsletter and accomplishes the same goal.

4) Participating in expensive, grueling blog tours

I’m not against blog tours. My sales spike when I visit other blogs. And a professional blog tour organizer can be hugely valuable in helping you target blogs where your potential readers congregate.

But those big, month-long “blog tours” are usually too expensive to be cost-effective and often create an unpleasant experience for authors and bloggers alike.

Part of the problem is that the publicist or marketer who sends you on the “tour” is making money, and the tour host is making money—but the bloggers you visit aren’t making a dime. These are the people who are doing the actual work of reading, reviewing and interviewing. It can make for an unbalanced relationship that can cause bad feelings on both sides.

I know for a fact that many blog tour organizers do not do their homework, because they’re always writing asking me to review books.

Um, see any book reviews around here?

Ebooks do not have to be marketed like pbooks with a big splashy launch and a “tour”. You can build readership slowly, since e-retailers have infinite shelf space and your book won’t be returned if it doesn’t make huge sales in its first month.

That means the blog-till-you-drop $2000 blog tour is idiotic.

Instead, you can guest blog once or twice a month throughout the year. And instead of paying somebody to find the bloggers—who may be burned out by the time you show up—network with book bloggers in your genre yourself. Read their reviews and interviews and comment on them. Devoting a few minutes a day to “blog touring” instead of an intense, soul-crushing month will bring you better rewards.

Or visit five or six blogs at the time of your launch instead of fifty. A blog tour service that’s very affordable and allows for small tours is Black, White, and Read Tours, which was formed by three book bloggers who only charge a small amount for their time and have respectful relationships with the bloggers you’ll visit.

5) Blogging every day

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how I feel about frantic, frequent blog-posting. I’m an advocate of Slow Blogging. You can read about the Slow Blog Manifesto here.

Advice to blog every day comes from the Jurassic days of the Weblog, when there were maybe 10,000 of them, not uncountable billions. Your readers can’t keep up. Bloggers who blog every day are likely to 1) Blather-blog, because they run out of things to say 2) Burn themselves out. 3) Have no time to write new books 4) Annoy readers with too many notifications of new posts.

I’m so grateful to bloggers who only have one or two great posts a month. I can enjoy their work instead of tearing through it or feeling guilty I'm skipping it.

A blog is the best place to establish a Web presence, build platform and interact with readers, but you can do that with weekly or bi-weekly posts.

Remember readers have lives. And chances are very good they don’t revolve around you.

6) Blog hopping

Blog Hops are big in the indie author community and can be fun. They're a good way for newbies to meet and network with other writers and get some blog followers when you're starting out.

But when you're a working, publishing author, a blog hop can be a huge time suck that offers little reward. They generally don't reach readers—just other authors, who are not your best audience.

"Hops" often involve a big prize like an iPad to be given in some contest that involves Tweeting frantically and making lots of comments on dozens of blogs. Everybody contributes a chunk of cash and some blocked author with nothing to do but Tweet and comment for a week gets an iPad.

Nice for the blocked author. Pointless for everybody else.

On the other hand, getting together with fellow authors in your genre to do a joint sale or promotion can be very successful, as I found out teaming up with other members of the "Official Chick Lit Group" on Facebook. We all posted an ad for the promo on our blogs, but didn't have to hop around to every blog or write timewasting posts and identical, inane comments. A much better use of everybody's time.

7) Worrying about your Klout, PeerIndex or other social media rating

Social media ranking systems like Klout and PeerIndex show one thing: how much time you spend on the Internet instead of writing books. If you're dealing with marketers who are in love with numbers for their own sake, I hereby bestow a rank of 10 million ARA points on each of you.

When somebody puts you down for not having a Klout rating over 80, just roll your eyes and say "Klout is so over. I have 10 million ARA points." Then get out the smelling salts. Big, meaningless numbers make these people swoon.

THIS WEEK'S BOOK DEAL

My publisher has made the Camilla box set ridiculously cheap for beach season. 

99 cents for three hilarious mysteries!

Available on Amazon US, NOOK, and Amazon UK

"The Best Revenge, Ghost Writers in the Sky and Sherwood Limited are hysterical. Anne Allen will keep you laughing throughout, but in the meantime she dabbles her fingers in some topics worth some serious thought: sexism, weightism, lechery, murder, duplicity, homelessness & poverty to name a few. If you love to laugh, you'll like these three books. If you love to think, ponder AND laugh, be ready to fall in love"... C.S. Perryess

And if you want to read more of my deathless prose, I'll be visiting Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog on Monday, June 17, to talk about what inspired my latest Camilla mystery, No Place Like Home.

I spend a lot of time here telling writers how and why to use social media, but I don’t often address the dangers. Yeah, they exist. I don’t know why, but otherwise sensible people can morph into irrational brutes when they’ve got their fingers on a keyboard and a connection to the Interwebz.

Bad behavior abounds in all social media. In an article in the NYT last week, Henry Alford said Twitter can be like "a crowded barroom that bristles with a certain kind of white male rage...marked by a hostility toward anything poetic or naïve."

The easy anonymity of the Interwebz is usually blamed for the nastiness—and I admit things have felt safer here since I disabled anonymous comments—but I think the most egregious abuses spring from something far more dangerous: mob mentality. A gang of self-righteously indignant “groupthinkers” can do more damage than one lone anonymouse, even a sociopathic one.

"Groupthink" is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values.” It's also known as “the hive mind.”

Writers new to social media need to be aware that anybody can become a target of one of these groups—often people who have done nothing wrong—and we all need to be careful not to jump into online dogpiles of crazy, no matter how righteous the cause appears to be.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to be sucked into mob behavior. Somebody says something that doesn’t conform to the majority opinion in a forum or comment thread and suddenly you’re part of a frenzied mob going after Mr. or Ms. Nonconformist with the digital version of torches and pitchforks.

I’ve seen Twitter version called “Twitchforks” —great word.

If you’ve ever become part of one of those mobs, you probably felt awful later. And if you’ve been the victim, you know their power to hurt, especially if the crazy invades your real home and affects your health and livelihood.

It happened to me in 2011. I endured a month-long barrage of threats and insults after somebody misunderstood one of my blogposts. I got hit with real world consequences: panic attacks, disordered sleep and stress-related illness. I thought I was taking it in stride, but the trauma of a death threat stays with you.

Thing is: most of the people who attacked me thought they were doing good. I've even made friends with some of them since.

Wanting to belong to a group is an instinct older than humanity. We were tribal animals before we walked upright. A recent study shows monkeys will go along with the crowd even if it means eating yucky food.

So it’s natural to carry our instinct to form tribes into the world of social media. Joining an online group can give us a warm, supportive feeling of community. It can make us feel welcome in the alien environment of cyberspace. Other members can teach and help each other on the road to success.

But the same instinct that urges us to help each other can be misdirected to do terrible harm. Especially if we’re led to believe our actions are sanctioned—or required—by the tribe. An us/them mentality can make people do unspeakable things in the name of protecting their own.

A minor, but significant attack by a cybermob with Twitchforks happened recently at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. A bunch of agents, objecting to a keynote speech by author Barry Eisler, set off a swarm of nasty Twitter barbs against Mr. Eisler during his presentation.

The incident reverberated through the book community and serves as an embarrassing example of how even respected professionals can morph into a mob through the magic of the Internet.

Another more disturbing mob attack happened when superstar author Anne Rice had an over-the-top reaction to a bad review on Facebook and sent her fans to attack the reviewer—a young UK blogger with fewer than 100 readers. Rice's hordes called the reviewer obscene names and pelted her blog with classy comments like "I hope you get herpes." Kayleigh, the blogger, took the barrage of anger with grace. (I'll bet she got a lot more followers out of this.)

But I'm sure most of those commenters thought they were doing good in defending their idol.

When a group of people band together, they can be an unstoppable force. As Margaret Mead said,

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world.”

Unfortunately, that needs a corollary:

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of misguided people to devolve into a mindless, bloodthirsty mob.”

That hive/gang mind that can do so much good can also be one of the most dangerous forces in the universe. It can make people do things they’d never dream of doing as individuals.

The hive mind is what powers pogroms, gang rapes, witch hunts, lynchings, war and genocide.

There’s a reason some of the most horrifying SciFi villains are semi-human creatures that share an unreasoning, destructive mind: like The Borg on Star Trek and Dr. Who’s Daleks.

I’ve seen dozens of good people attacked by gangs on social media in the past year or so. Usually for unverified infractions of murky rules. I’m not sure the people who sent me death threats even knew what I was supposed to have done. (I’m still not clear on that myself.) They only knew somebody told them the hive was under attack, and I was the designated villain.

Plus they were getting a rush from their own smug, self-righteous rage.

It’s that rage-induced high and feeling of superiority that is probably at the root of the problem. Anger management specialists tell us that self-righteous rage can trigger brain chemicals that mimic the high of cocaine. And it’s just as addictive. The angrier people are, the better they feel, so they feed their rage, often with unsubstantiated rumors their rational mind would recognize as lies. It’s why radio-ranters and conspiracy theorists are so popular.

Unfortunately a lot of those rage addicts feed their habit on the Interwebz.

Jaron Lanier, one of the early pioneers in Internet technology, has preached against this phenomenon for years. He has long warned people of what he calls “digital barbarism.” He sees terrible danger in “instant twitchy social networks which are designed to create mass action. “

And they get twitchier all the time. Look how one tweet in April nearly crashed the Stock Market.

In an interview with Ron Rosenbaum in the Smithsonian magazine in January, Jaron Lanier said,

“This is the thing that continues to scare me. You see in history the capacity of people to congeal—like social lasers of cruelty. That capacity is constant.”

For more on this, Lanier has a new book coming out this week, Who Owns the Future?

I saw one of those lasers aimed at an Internet friend this week. She was a much less high-profile target than Barry Eisler, so the “social laser” could get away with a lot more cruelty. She was erroneously accused of piracy (a buzz-word guaranteed to set the hive-mind swarming.) The accuser didn’t deal with her directly. Instead he tweeted a call for the hive to attack. The victim was humiliated and castigated by dozens of authors (some of whom I know to be otherwise sensible individuals.) One rage-fueled smugster even posted the home address where the accused author lives with her disabled child.

The victim had the sense to call the FBI. Which is what I should have done when the crazies started sending me photos of my house and telling me they were armed and they’d “get me.”

She and I join the hundreds—probably thousands—who have had our homes and families targeted by mindless attacks by various branches of the online book community. Yes, these people are our fellow writers, readers, and reviewers. And I'm sure they all think they're doing good.

• I saw it happen last year to a bestselling author who nearly lost a major national award because of a similar army of cyber-jihadists, feeding on rage fuelled by misinformation.
• There was a Goodreads group of bullies/antibullies (all the same at this point) who attacked each other last summer by posting addresses and photos of their children.
• A similar vigilante attack was waged against a disabled veteran who set up a book sharing site that was accused of piracy.
• And later the people who were swept up in the anti-piracy mob were targeted with attack-swarms of one-star “reviews” on Amazon and Goodreads.

Terrorizing victims and their families in their homes seems to be a pattern with the booky hive-mind. As is the fake review attack.

Posting addresses and photos of family seems to come from a twisted misunderstanding of what used to be done to silence anonymous trolls—stemming from the outing of hatemongers like “Violentacrez”, who terrorized Reddit a few years ago. Some clever person discovered his real name and residence and posted them online to keep the troll from continuing to pollute the site with anonymous hate speech.

But somehow these literary vigilantes don’t see how that’s different from posting the personal addresses and family details of a fellow author or reviewer who is NOT anonymous in the first place.

Talk about unclear on the concept…

But hey, nobody ever accused the Hive Mind of being smart. Ever tried to reason with a swarm of bees?

The other weapon of choice of the book hive is equally stupid and clueless. Wielding one-star reviews as weapons to assault the author’s character undermines the whole literary community by rendering customer reviews worthless.

Mind you, these cyber-militias claim to be standing up for the “integrity” of the writing community. They think writing fake, libelous “reviews” of books they haven’t read is a great way to show how honorable they are.

Come to think of it, those bees look pretty smart and reasonable in comparison.

So what can we do about cyber-gangs?

Nobody can stop groupthink-bullying on the Interwebz, but you can do your part by refusing to participate.

1) Check facts. Before you join in a cyber-attack sparked by a tweet or a FB post or other online call to jihad, read real news sources, not garbled hysteria from other members of the frenzied tribe.

2) Take a breath: Five seconds in; five seconds out. This will bring down your heart rate and give you time to remember that you have not, in actuality, been assimilated by the Borg.

3) Remember why you’re on social media in the first place. Are you here to alienate all potential readers who favor a different publishing path from yours, hate prologues, or prefer LeStat to Edward Cullen? Or are you here to make friends you hope will buy your books some day?

4) Consider what Joe Konrath said in his post about the attacks on Eisler:

The Internet is forever. Things you say will always be there to come back and bite you.”

And they WILL bite you. Especially if you—

• Participate in snark attacks or throw “Twitchforks”
• Denigrate the review process with fake 1&2 star "reviews" 
• Spread unsubstantiated, harmful rumors
• Sabotage a fellow author’s livelihood
• Threaten a person’s life and/or family
• Make personal attacks on reviewers

That initial rush of smug rage will subside. You’ll be left with nothing but a damaged reputation and digital egg on your face like those agents at Pike’s Peak.

5) Listen to the wise words of Porter Anderson, from his April 26th Writing on the Ether post:

“I recommend we create a little code for our community. ‘Pikes Peak.’ As in ‘Remember Pikes Peak’. If we see a conversation, a presentation, a thread online starting to spiral out of control, maybe if we remember Pikes Peak it will help us recall a sequence of negative emotions and reactions that we really don’t need to revisit.”

How can we avoid becoming gang victims?

You can’t. Not entirely. Barry Eisler’s speech was anything but incendiary. The accused “pirate” was actually promoting her favorite authors' work. I was attacked for writing a piece on my own blog to help fellow Boomers who aren't Web savvy. I admit I was naïve. But we’re all naïve about something.

However there are some things I could have done.

1) Contact law enforcement if your safety is threatened. The FBI has a hotline to report cybercrimes.

2) Delete out-of-control threads in your own blog before rage escalates. If a thread on your own blog gets out of hand, or a bunch of commenters gang up on another, just hit the little trash can icon. I used to think it was better to hang in there—and it probably was in the case of the Anne Rice fan attack—but when things get nasty on your blog, it can reflect on you. A lot of the stuff that made people most angry at me were things other people said in the blog thread, which were later attributed to me in the subsequent game of blog telephone.

3) But don’t delete messages and comments that are actually criminal. At least save a screen shot. You may need them for evidence. (I made this mistake. I thought deleting them from my computer would delete them from my mind. Doesn't work that way.)

4) Stay away from gang-infested forums and websites. Any forum that projects a them/us mentality can be dangerous. For some reason, the oldest forums seem to be plagued with the most groupthink and snark. A whole lot of writers no longer feel safe at Absolute Write, so I’ve stopped recommending them. Ditto the Amazon Forums (the Kindleboards tend to be a bit more civilized, but don’t expect many warm fuzzies.) Reddit could be toxic in the days of Violenticrez. I don't know if it has improved. I’ve also heard some Goodreads groups can get pretty nasty, but I belong to some great ones.

5) Look for community at moderated, helpful forums like Kristen Lamb's WANAtribe,  Nathan Bransford’s forums, CritiqueCircle.com and SheWrites. (If you know of more good ones, do let us know in the comments.) I’ve left all the LinkedIn writing groups I belonged to because of idiots taking over the threads to stage one-on-one combat (and the misguided guys who think it's a dating site) but I haven’t seen overt gang activity. Maybe some of you know some good groups there.

6) Be careful where you post comments. Some blogs are heavily weighted pro- or anti- self-publishing or pro- or anti- author and may be controlled by a hive mind. If you see name-calling or blanket dismissal of a whole segment of the population by a blogger, you have wandered into a private clubhouse of snark and your time will be better spent elsewhere.

The internet book community is ours to create. We can become a jungle of irrational, violent thugs, or we can behave like literate, civilized adults. If you have a personal problem with an individual, consider talking to him or her about it in a reasonable, non-accusatory way. If the person is misusing a forum, or you see criminal activity, leave the group temporarily and contact the appropriate authorities.

As Konrath said—

 “Have the integrity to defend your public statements and the courage to respond to people with different views.”

Probably braying “Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate….” like a Dalek is not what he means by "courage."

Here's my own message to anybody who is tempted to "go along with the crowd" and persecute a fellow writer rather than engage in intelligent discourse.

Remember you have your very own personal brain. Even when you’re on the Interwebz. Use it.

How about you, scriveners? Have you been the victim of a cyber-gang? What did you do about it? Have you ever found yourself being swept up in a gang-frenzy, saying things you later regretted? What groups and forums do you consider safe for writers who are new to social media?

***

This week, in honor of the debut of the new film of The Great Gatsby, and of course the Stephen Colbert Book Club, which has made Fitzgerald's classic the #1 Bestseller on Amazon, Anne will be making the rounds talking about her own novel about a real-life Gatsby-obsessed con man, the Gatsby Game. ONLY 99c until the end of May!

On Monday, May 6th, THE GATSBY GAME will be featured at reviewer Donna Hole's blog. with an in-depth look at the real events that inspired the novel.
And I'll also be at Janet Boyer's Blog, giving my #1 piece of advice for new authors.

On Tuesday, May 7th, THE GATSBY GAME will be featured on The Cheap Ebook. Anne is going to be talking about the new film, and how she feels about a giving a contemporary soundtrack to the greatest story of the Jazz Age. She'll also be talking about the real Gatsby-obsessed man who inspired her novel.

On Thursday, May 9, I'll be talking about the real-life Hollywood mystery behind THE GATSBY GAME with Elaine Raco Chase at the Author's Corner at Triangle Variety Radio.

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS:


1) Win a free book cover makeover! Westin Lee's Cover Cleaning Contest. Are your sales sluggish? It could be your cover. In this fun contest—open to self published writers and writers with small presses who have permission from their publishers. There's an easy online form. But you've only got a week. Winner and runner up will be announced May 15th, so get going!!

2) The Saturday Evening Post’s Second Annual Great American Fiction Contest—yes, THAT Saturday Evening Post—is holding a short fiction contest. Could you join the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald; William Faulkner; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Ray Bradbury; Louis L’Amour; Sinclair Lewis; Jack London; and Edgar Allan Poe? $10 entry fee Deadline July 1, 2013

3) FREE book advertising to British readers from EbookBargainsUK Lots of authors and publishers have had huge successes with their free or sale books by advertising on BookBub, ENT, KND, POI, etc. But none of those target the UK, and their links go to US sites Brits can't use. But now there’s a newsletter for UK readers only. It links to all the big UK retailers like Apple UK, Waterstones and Foyles as well as Amazon UK. They don’t sell books direct or get paid for clickthroughs, so they don't have any restrictions on how many free books they can spotlight like BookBub and the others. So it's THE place to tell Brits about your book when it goes free or on sale in the UK. Since Brits have the highest number of readers per capita of any country in the world, this looks like a great idea to me: Plus: the site will be offering FREE book ads until May 31st, on a first come, first served basis.

And if you're in the UK, do sign up for their newsletter. It brings links to free and bargain ebooks—at the UK bookstore of your choice—in your inbox every morning. You can subscribe here.

4) The Lyttoniad contest for the WORST first sentence of a novel. The classic Bulwer-Lytton Contest makes news every year. Each entry must consist of a single sentence but you may submit as many entries as you wish. E-mail entries should be sent to Scott Rice at srice@pacbell.net in the body of the message, Ariel 12 font. One e-mail may contain multiple entries. Entries will be judged by categories, from “general” to detective, western, science fiction, romance, and so on. There will be overall winners as well as category winners. Deadline is June 30th. No prizes that I know of, but lots of admiration from your fellow writers.