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How NOT to Self-Publish: 12 Things for New Indies to Avoid

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, May 19, 2013 0 comments

Self-publishing has lost its stigma, and it’s the publishing path of choice for a lot of writers these days.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Or that everybody who self-publishes will succeed.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing a lot of writers dive in head first without having a clue what they’re doing. Even long-time trad-pubbed authors who think they know the ropes can make fatal errors because self-publishing has a different set of rules. One of them lamented his fate in an article in Salon recently.

But the poor guy had an amateurish cover (not-to-do #3) and a dismal Amazon buy page (#4). He also tried to market an ebook like a trad-pubbed book (#7). Most of all he seems to think self-publishing means “second-class,” so he presented his book as a second-class product.

Full disclosure here: I'm not self-published. I'm "indie" in the old fashioned sense—I publish with a small, independent press. But I belong to lots of indie groups where the vast majority of authors are self-published. Quite a few are doing very well for themselves—better than the average mid-lister with a big publisher—but many more aren't.

Unlike Tolstoy's happy families, most happy indies are not alike. Successful indies seem to follow quirky, personal paths. But the less successful ones seem to make similar mistakes.

If you want to launch a career as a professional, self-published author, here are some things it's better not to do.

1) Publish your first novel before you’ve written a second.

The most popular way of marketing a self-published book right now is giving away a lot of free copies. But this only works if you have other books for the customer to actually pay for.

You should write at least two novels before you try to publish—whether you’re hopping on the query-go-round or self-publishing. Marketing takes a whole lot of time, and once you’re doing it, writing novel #2 is going to be really tough. Give yourself at least two novels worth of time before you jump into becoming an author-publisher.

2) Think you don’t have to follow “writing rules” because you’re not dealing with agents and publishers.

A lot of those "agent rules" are based on stuff that’s hardwired to the human brain. If you’re boring or self-indulgent, you’ll get bad reviews, disgruntled customers and dismal sales.

Some agent rules can be ignored, like "no prologues", "never use the word 'was'," and “if you’re not writing YA Steampunk Zombiepocalyptic dystopian romance, go die."

But things like, “start with an inciting incident, not 49 pages of musing”…that’s going to be a good rule no matter how you publish.

And yeah, you need a plot. Successful self-publishers are almost all genre writers. Literary musings probably aren't going to sell to an online audience—and successful indies make most of their sales online.

Also, you still have to learn basic spelling and grammar rules. They are the tools of your trade.

3) DYI editing, cover design and formatting

Some of the early Kindle pioneers got away with amateurish presentation. There weren’t so many ebooks to choose from in 2009 and 2010. Now, there are 1000s of new indie titles coming out every day. You gotta have a professional-looking product or you’re not going to sell.

4) Amateurish buy page

Lots of indies neglect their buy pages on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, etc. Make sure you take advantage of the "editorial reviews" section if it's offered, and include quotes from good blog reviews. Check to see if the “peek inside” feature is working, and write a snappy product description.

Here's some great advice on how to write a compelling product description in a guest blogpost from indie superstar Mark Edwards.

5) Market exclusively to other authors

Unless you have a nonfic book for authors like HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE (had to get a plug in there), other authors aren't your market.

Bloghops are a fun way to get to know other authors, but they don't sell a lot of books

And guilt-tripping and spamming author sites that are meant for mutual support and exchange of information is going to backfire. There are some authors I'm much LESS likely to read because they’ve hijacked author info sites with “tweet and share and make my book the most successful in history and screw you if you have a book to sell too because I’m going to bump my posts up the thread every 15 minutes…it's all about me, me, ME!!”

You want to make FRIENDS with other authors, not get to the top of their list of "A**hats to Avoid."

Successful indie authors know their audience and market to that niche. As indie publishing guru Orna Ross said, "to succeed as an indie you need to go where your readers are, which means understanding your place within the reading ecosystem."

6) Solicit a bunch of phony rave reviews

Getting Aunt Susie and the gals in her garden club to all write glowing reviews of your opus can backfire, big time. Buying fake reviews is even worse. Ditto manipulating other authors into positive review exchanges. Some writers have even written themselves dozens of rave reviews under various aliases. All this stuff erupted in a big review scandal last September.

Amazon responded by removing 1000s of reviews and banning some writers from Amazon for life. You may not love the Mighty Zon, but it still sells more ebooks than any other site. You’d miss them.

And don't bully your readers into reviewing. It's fine to ask for reviews from time to time, but readers are starting to get fed up with all the begging, spammy newsletters. An angry reader vented on the subject in the HuffPo recently.

7) Expect a lot of sales right away

Self-publishing works on the principle of slow building. It doesn’t work like traditional publishing with a big splash, push for about a month, then a slow petering of sales, followed by returns, pulping the leftovers and rinse, wash, repeat. Self-publishers sell mostly ebooks, and ebooks are forever.

A title can sell nothing for months—or even years—then suddenly take off once you’ve built an audience with other books.

8) Put on an expensive book launch party

If you want an excuse for a fun get-together with your friends who haven’t seen you all those years you’ve been in your writing cave—fabulous. You deserve a celebration.

But as a marketing tool, it doesn’t make much sense. A real-world book launch is expensive. Even if you can get it in the local paper, you’re not likely to make enough money back to pay for it unless you have a very large, wealthy, extended family who have all pledged to buy copies in bulk.

9) Treat other authors in your genre as rivals instead of colleagues

It’s not a zero-sum game. The rising tide raises all boats. If your genre is hot, more people will read it.

One of the most disappointing things in the review scandal last fall was discovering that some authors were actually writing fake 1-star reviews for other authors in their genre, in some misguided hope they’d push their “rivals” off the bestseller lists.

That’s not the way it works. If you can get interest in your genre, all the authors in it will sell more. Teaming with more successful authors can do nothing but help your own sales. Patrice Fitzgerald did this with Hugh Howey—getting his permission to write a novella in his Wool series—and her career took off. So who knows, you might actually be able to collaborate with the star in your genre some day, the way so many authors do with James Patterson.

Appearing in anthologies with big sellers can also really boost your sales. So don’t fight them, join them!

10) Publish through a vanity press

“Oh, sure. I know that,” sez you. "I’d never get duped by a scammy outfit like PublishAmerica. I’m going with a big name publisher: Simon and Schuster. I'm using their self-publishing wing, Archway."

Sorry. Archway is run by AuthorSolutions, a notorious vanity publisher (even though AS is now owned by Penguin.) A lot of people thought the Penguin buy was a bad move, and the lawsuits suggest that’s the case. Unfortunately a lot of other traditional publishers are teaming up with AuthorSolutions too, like Hay House's Balboa Press, Thomas Nelson's West Bow Press, and Harlequin's Horizons. Don't go there.

For more on vanity presses and how to avoid them, see David Gaughran's Blog or Writer Beware.

You don’t want to publish with a vanity press because they make money off the author, not book sales. They often charge 10 times what the normal self- publishing route would cost and the books are so overpriced you can’t make a profit selling them.

There is a tried and true method of self publishing that almost all self publishers use. Don’t self-publish without reading this from Sarah Woodbury. There are a whole lot of books out there on self-publishing. Probably too many, as Porter Anderson lamented in Writing on the Ether this week. The one I see most highly recommended by successful indies is David Gaughran's, Let's Get Digital. (on sale for 99c this week. No. Mr. Gaughran doesn't give me kickbacks, alas.)

The indie’s best friend, Mark Coker of Smashwords, has lots of great information on his site for free. Or if you need affordable help with the tech side of self-publishing, try BookBaby or Draft2Digital. Smashwords, BookBaby and Draft2Digital help you with formatting and post to retail sites for you, but they are not publishers or vanity presses. BookBaby provides ebooks and pbooks (paper).

The two biggest pbook printing companies are CreateSpace (owned by Amazon) and LightingSource (owned by Ingram, the biggest distributor to bookstores in the US) Lulu is good too, but beware their more expensive packages—those have gone over to the Author Solutions dark side, too

11) Believe there is one formula for publishing success

What worked in the past may have been overworked since then. And what sells books in one genre may not work in another. Every book and every marketing plan has to be different.

Prolific chick lit author D.D. Scott keeps on the bestseller lists with her “Snickers bar” pricing, but her method may not work for every genre.
Some authors find professional blog tours are a great way to launch a title. Others say they’re an exhausting waste of money.
Sci-Fi superstar Hugh Howey used the cliff-hanger serial format to build his audience. But a whole lot of authors have tried the serial thing since then and only managed to infuriate readers who expected a whole story.
Giving away free books has been the big thing recently. But everybody’s Kindle is full of freebies now, so this may not work for long.
At the moment, everybody’s having pretty good luck with those expensive ads on places like BookBub and Kindle Nation Daily, but Amazon no longer allows “affiliates” to advertise unlimited free books, so we’re not sure if they’ll have the same cachet a few months from now. (Some cheap ebook newsletters are not affiliates, like the UK bargain book site below.)

Pay attention to your own sales and what seems to boost them. Do more of that. And be patient. Very patient. And go write another book. That’s the only proven way to increase sales.

12) And the biggest no-no of all? Dissing a reviewer who doesn’t like your book

Somebody is going to hate your book. I guarantee it. And they may be snarky about it. Especially if the book is self-published. But trad-pubbed books get nasty reviews, too. Look at the nearly 150 one star reviews of The Great Gatsby. Or some of the bad reviews J.K Rowling got for the Casual Vacancy. Every reviewer dislikes some books, and some reviewers revel in their dislikes. Put-downs can be fun, unfortunately.

Accepting the snark with grace is part of being a professional. You will feel the sting, of course, but deal with your anguish offline. Anything you do in response to a negative review is likely to backfire in a major way.

Note: this does not extend to bullying. Most bad reviews are not “bullying,” but some misguided morons do abuse the review system in order to attack or "punish" authors for imagined transgressions or out of sheer malevolence. People who use reviews for bullying generally follow a certain pattern.

1) They make it pretty clear they haven't read the book
2) They attack an author personally
3) They often attack in packs, using identical talking points
4) They may be organized by a "rival" author (yeah, mean people are usually kinda stupid, too.)

If you are being bullied, do NOT respond to the bullies in the comments or engage with them in any way. But DO report them for abusing the review system. I'm glad to hear that Amazon is rolling out a new program for reporting abuse. If you see this kind of bullying happening on any author's buy page, report it.

All writers benefit from fighting this kind of abuse, because it renders the whole review system useless.

If you're a victim, stay away from groups where bullies hang out and try to get some good professional reviews to quote in your product description to counteract the lies.

And trust that your readers can tell the difference.

If you want to read more about online bullying, I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on Gangs of New Media.

If you're still sitting on the fence about self-publishing, Orna Ross has a great post this week at Jane Friedman's blog with 15 questions to ask before you self publish.

If you'd rather go the traditional route, but don't write in a genre on the agent hot list right now, take a look at indie presses. Escargot Books, listed below, has just opened to submissions in most fiction genres and accepts both agented and non-agented work. And there's a list of small digital presses with ratings at ePublishaBook.com.

What about you, scriveners? Have you made any of these mistakes? Have they turned out not to be mistakes at all? And what’s up with that steampunk stuff? If agents love it so much, why isn’t it all over the bestseller list? Have I missed something? What other advice would you give a new indie author? Have you ever been bullied by a review bully?

BOOK DEALS THIS WEEK

Roxanna Britton, a biographical novel by Shirley S. Allen will be FREE on Amazon from May 22-25. It's Little House on the Prairie meets Jane Austen. In this wonderful novel, my mom tells the story of her own great-grandmother, an amazing pioneer of the Old West.

"This true biographical novel of an American pioneer is gripping and exciting in every sense. From Ohio to California one cannot help but admire the courage of the Britton women... If true history is your cup of tea, I strongly advise you to buy this book."--Karen Mabry Rice

"A family saga I could not put down. Ms. Allen has written a fascinating tale of real people, full of danger and tension, in prose that flows easily and pulls the reader along."--Susan Tuttle

The Gatsby Game, based on a real unsolved Hollywood mystery, is only 99c at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. through May 31st, in honor of the debut of the Baz Luhrmann film. It's based on the mysterious death of David Whiting, a man I knew in college. Nobody knows what happened the night he died in Sarah Miles' motel room during the filming of a Burt Reynolds movie, but I have a theory, and this is a fictionalized account of it. Like David, my anti-hero Alistair Milbourne is obsessed with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and imagines himself to be "the ghost of Jay Gatsby, in a straw boater and spats, whistling a tune by Cole Porter."

"I was thoroughly entertained by The Gatsby Game. It has all the elements for a good mystery, and would also appeal to readers who enjoy romance in a women’s fiction style. I give the characters, cultural references, story building, and especially the slightly sarcastic narrator voice a 5 star rating" --Donna Hole

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) Iron Writer Insane-a-Thon!

The Dreadful Cafe will hold their annual writing marathon on July 13, 2013. There are prizes for the most words written in a 24 hour period and for raising the most money for their charity, St. Jude's Hospital. It's a wild and crazy insane-a-thon for a great cause. More at The Dreadful Cafe. Send in your entry to submissions@dreadfulcafe.com before July 14th.

2) Spoonfuls of Stories Contest

For new, unpublished writers of children's fiction. HUGE prizes for the winning stories for children age 2-6. This contest, sponsored by Cheerios, offers a $5000 grand prize and some hefty runners-up prizes too. More info at spoonfulsofstories.com Deadline is July 31.

3) FREE book advertising to British readers from EbookBargainsUK

DEADLINE EXTENDED! 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 June 30th, 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) Orion Magazine

Submission Window Opens June 1 “America's finest Environmental Magazine" is open to submissions only three times a year. Orionaccepts essays, narrative nonfiction, interviews, and short fiction that focus on nature, culture, and place. 1,200 to 5000 words.

5) Escargot Books is expanding its catalogue and are now accepting submissions.

Crime fiction (dark thrillers to cozies), women’s fiction, health and fitness, children’s, sci-fi and dystopian. All books will be published in digital format. Some books will be chosen for print and/or audio as well. Escargot Books does not offer an advance, but they offer higher royalties than traditional publishers, especially for direct sales from our website, as well as editing, formatting, promotion, and the company of bestselling authors. This is an indie press with some big name authors and a good track record. Here’s their online submission form.

12 Social Media Mistakes for Authors to Avoid

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, February 17, 2013 0 comments

Are you "building platform" or just annoying people?

This week, author Mary W. Walters blogged that promoting your books on Facebook and Twitter is a total waste of time for book sales.

That's because Social Media is not for selling books. It's for making friends—friends we hope will help us in our careers sometime. It's for networking, not a direct sales tool.

Mary Walters is right when she says, "Most book-reading folk...aren’t interested in advertising and promotional copy, or in watching writers pat themselves on the backs for winning awards or getting great reviews. They are interested in discussions and opinions about books. They are interested in two-way exchanges about literary matters – not in one-way communications."

One-way communication is a misuse of Social Media—and that's why it doesn't sell books.

And why we find it so annoying.

Author Elizabeth Ann West rebutted Mary Walters' post in a comment on The Passive Voice . She pointed out: "The problem is most authors start using social media in a professional capacity for the first time when they publish and guess what? It takes a large amount of time the first few months to figure it out and test it out and make social connections."

In other words, they blindly jump in and start screaming "buy my book" at everybody instead of making friends with people who could then suggest your book to readers in your target demographic.

It's like going to a Chamber of Commerce mixer wearing a sandwich board advertising your restaurant instead of schmoozing a large company's event coordinator and getting her to use your restaurant's banquet room for future company parties.

Don't wear a sandwich board to a cocktail party. Be subtle. Make friends. Anything else is misusing the medium.

I've made a list of some of my unfavorite misuses of Social Media here. I admit upfront that this is a very subjective list, so please feel free to vent your own pet peeves in the comments.

And if things I find annoying have made zillions for you in book sales, we want to hear about that too.

I think authors have probably learned their most irritating habits from “marketing gurus” who tell them they’ll make more money if they’re just “bold” enough to use social media “like an expert.”

Be wary of "experts" in new tech fields that are constantly evolving. What was OK a few years ago can be deadly now because it’s been abused or overused. Yesterday's "surefire sales tool" can be today's spam.

So here is my subjective and by no means comprehensive list of what NOT to do in social media.

1) Spamming* somebody’s Facebook wall. A person’s Facebook "wall" is like their home. Posting something there is like putting up a billboard on their front yard. Do not do this without permission.

If you’d like somebody to share your promotional material or make a plea for charitable donations, send an email or DM. And don’t be surprised if they say no. I know your "Ban the Roach Brooch" cockroach rights foundation seems like the most important cause on the planet, but everybody has one and when they spam my wall, I make a note NEVER to give to any of these charities.

The only time it’s OK to post on a person’s wall is to send a personal message that's about THEM and will enhance their page. Stuff like: "Love all the cockroach cartoons on this page", "Congrats on your new book," "I’ll be at your book signing tomorrow—save me a cupcake."

2) Creating a Facebook page and Twitter account for every one of your books, short stories, launches, life events and rainy Mondays. No, I will not Like and Follow your 50 different Like pages and Twitter accounts. You are not respecting my time, so no—actually, I DON'T like you.

In my opinion, an author only needs one Twitter account, one blog and at most, two FB pages: one for yourself as an author and one for your personal page (FB now requires a personal page in order to comment on most pages, so the personal one is useful, if a little time consuming.)

But no matter how much you love to spend time on Facebook to avoid that WIP, chances are most of your readers don't. (Your ideal reader is busy reading books.)

But if you must put up a new FB page every time you finish a chapter of your WIP or whatever you consider to be a momentous occasion in your life, don't invite random fellow authors outside of your genre. We're busy promoting our own books.

Do join supportive, non-spammy writing groups like Indie Writers Unite —where membership is by invitation. But forming a group and automatically adding names without permission is not a good idea—no matter how good your intentions.

Which leads me to…

3) Creating an “event” or “group” and adding people’s names without permission. At least ten people I know launch a book in any given week. When you include me as a "member" of your launch "party" so I have to opt out and say why I'm "not going," I'm sorely tempted to tell you the actual reason. Don't push me.

I realize that FB encourages you to add the names of everybody you know to all your "events", and may even disguise the addition of names as "invitations," but don't go there. Mark Zuckerberg should not be anybody's role model for good manners.

Unless you know I’m a fan and a reader of your genre, don’t tell me about your book at all. I’m not your audience. I can cheer you on if you get a request from an agent or a great review, but I’m not going to read a whole page of your BUY MY BOOK ads.

If you spam me, I’ll remember you, but not in a good way.

4) Responding to Tweeted links without reading the article. If I tweet a link to a brilliant post at “Mystery Writing is Murder,” don’t tell me I’ve ruined your day because you just started writing a mystery novel and you don’t want to hear that it’s “murder.” That’s the name of a top-rated blog by Elizabeth S. Craig. If you don’t like the title of a blog or post, tell the blogger—ON THE BLOG.

If you want to start a Twitter discussion with me, say something like, “I just started writing a rom-com mystery novel like your Camilla books. Any tips?” Then—when I have time—I'll be happy to help.

But clueless arguing with a title isn’t going to make you any friends. And that’s why you’re on social media. To make friends. Not rack up a list of people who think you’re a jerk.

5) Tweeting as a fictional character and expecting people to respond as a character in your own personal fictional world. I’ve had people tweet to me in Pirate-speak and then get incensed that I didn’t Pirate-tweet back. And it wasn’t even Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Or they take offense at one of my general-audience tweets because it isn't about their fictional time period or planet. I am tweeting for anybody interested in the publishing industry—not for you in particular.

If you like to be twee, find other twee Tweeps to talk pirate or baby or aardvark or whatever language you like, but don’t expect professional writers to have time to play games with you.

These days, most people are on Twitter for information. It’s the best way to find out the most current news on a given topic, like the latest merger of the Big 6-5-4, that strange sonic boom in your neighborhood or whether your aunt’s neighborhood is under 30-foot drifts of snow.

When you send somebody an @ message that demands some sort of game-playing, you are behaving like a spoiled child grabbing Mommy’s arm and saying “Mommy, Mommy, look at my Barbie!” while she’s driving in rush hour traffic.

6) Blogging your WIP and asking for critiques and praise. If I see that anybody is blogging pieces of a novel in progress on a blog, I skip it. I figure they’re clueless beginners. (A WIP can never be traditionally pubbed if you give pieces away, even in rough draft. You are violating your own future copyright.)

Update: Please note: I said Work In Progress. By that I mean the rough draft of an unfinished novel. Blogging is self-publishing. It's fine to self-publish good, solid edited work on a blog as long as you realize you're giving away your first rights. No agent will ever be interested in it unless you get a following of over 100K—which is very tough for fiction. You are essentially publishing the book as a serial. That's fine.

What's not is composing your book online and expecting the general public to function as your editors and beta readers.

People who do this tend to be the same kind of newbies who will accuse you of “stealing their idea” of writing a novel about a lonely, brilliant, disaffected youth who can’t get published because the system is rigged against him.

When I catch a whiff of this kind of amateurism, I run.

If you want critique, join a critique group. I highly recommend CritiqueCircle.com

If you’re a published professional giving us free stories about your main characters, or edited-out scenes from a published novel, again, that's great—that’s for your fans and they’ll love it. (Although you'll want to run it by your agent or publisher first.)

But be aware where you are in your writing learning curve. Most people do NOT want to read a beginner’s practice fiction unless they're getting paid to.

7) Blaming people you’ve friended or circled because you’re getting email notifications whenever they post. Your notifications from Facebook and Google+ are YOUR responsibility.

Unfortunately the default mode for social media is they send you an email every time your friend’s cousin’s Beagle farts, so as soon as you sign up, go to your home page, go to “Privacy Settings” (via that tiny gear icon on the upper right.) Then click “notifications” and turn them off.

Some guy circled me on Google+ and I circled him back because he’s a writer. (I’m not doing that any more.) A week later I got a furious email from him saying I’d been spamming his inbox, so I should uncircle him. I did. Immediately.

But he kept getting my posts (I only post there once a day or less, but for some reason it was making him furious) and he kept emailing that I had to stop. Finally I told him that HE had to take me out of HIS circle (and turn off his notifications) and I had no control over his settings. It didn’t end well. He’s out of my circles and onto my list of Jerks to Avoid.

8) “Thanking” people for following you by sending spam. It might seem like good manners, but a thank-you for a follow is generally unwelcome. Especially if the “thank-you” is posted on somebody’s Facebook wall. Or loaded with spam. If you really want to thank somebody, retweet one of their tweets.

An automated message that says “Thanks for the follow, now you are my minion: so go like my FB Page, LinkedIN profile, circle me on Google+, follow my blog and BUY MY BOOK and I’ll teach YOU how to be the kind of successful author I imagine myself to be!! Bwahahah!!!” is not good manners in anybody’s world.

9) Following and unfollowing immediately after you get a follow back. People do this to rack up numbers on Twitter. Which is idiotic. Numbers on Twitter mean nothing without engagement.

It’s like re-calibrating your scale to show you weigh 30 pounds less and expecting that to make you fit into size zero jeans. Or turning off the fire alarm to put out a fire.

You want real people who respond and retweet your stuff. Not just ciphers you’ve duped into being one of your statistics.

10) Tagging a photo that’s an ad—or worse, porn—with the names of all your Facebook friends. People are doing this ALL the time. I don’t know if they mean to or if it’s one of those diabolical Facebook “games” where if you click on the answer to a stupid question, spam is immediately sent out to all your friends.

Never, ever tag a photo with a person’s name without thinking long and hard. Especially if the photo isn’t of that person. I guess it’s a way to game Facebook into posting the photo on that person’s wall—but what do you gain by that? Now somebody thinks you’re a moron. And that benefits you…how?

You can sign up to have no tagged posts go up on YOUR wall without your permission in your "Privacy" settings, but it will not stop that photo from being posted on a lot of other people’s walls.

And if the photo is unflattering or unprofessional, don’t tag it, ever. Ask the person first if they want to be identified in your photo. I’ve become a fat lady in middle age. Most photos of me are hideous. NEVER take a photo of me and put it on the Interwebz without my permission, or you're going on my $%*! list for a good, long time.

11) Not posting share buttons or your @Twitterhandle on your blog. Even if you’re not on any social medium but a blog, you can have a social media presence if your fans tweet your links and post them to FB, Google+, etc. But you make that very tough if you don’t have a “share” button (They’re available in your list of “gadgets” or “widgets” on your dashboard.) I have a bit.ly icon on my toolbar that I can use to share your posts, but most people don’t. (If you want the handy share function and url shortener on your toolbar, visit bit.ly.com for a quick download.)

Also, try not to make your title too lame to tweet. Even though your content is great, it’s not worth sharing if I have to take the time to make up a good title for you. Lame titles are things like "Blue Monday" or "Thoughts". Good titles are questions, lists and answers. Stuff like: "Can You Write a Publishable First Novel?" or "12 Tips To Get Out of the Slushpile".

And if you don’t have your Twitter handle on your blog, I can’t credit you and you won't even know I tweeted you.

12) Hiding your identity behind a whimsical name or avatar. Don’t put a picture of a baby rhinoceros in a tutu as your avatar. Or call yourself @HoneyBooBooFan or @SexyBeast247. If you’re an author who wants to succeed, you need to be professional. The Internet is not Kindergarten, a celebrity fan club, or your favorite bar. For a rant on bad avatars, read the quote from Porter Anderson in my Feb 3rd post.

Treat Cyberia as your workplace. Because that’s what it is. Look and act professional and show you’re proud of who you are. That means letting us know your name or pen name every time you Tweet or comment on a blog.

***

A word on *spamming. Most people know that Internet "spam" is an inappropriate, unsolicited advertisement for a product.

But a lot of things that can be perfectly appropriate in small doses are not when they show up too often.

Like newsletters.

I know that some people who are very savvy—like self-pub guru David Gaughran—say that newsletters are the best way to reach your fans.

They may be. But personally, I'm not fond of them. Partly because newsletters are one-way communication.

Also, I think they have been overused to the point they have become an annoyance. I only read one in about 50 and the rest go immediately into the trash—even the ones from big name authors. Some newsletters I may have actually signed up for when I had more time, but many come from people who just took my email address off my blog or a group email.

I figure if I hate having newsletters fill up my inbox, other people do too. We can say what we have to say here on the blog and people know where to find us.

But you might love newsletters. If you do, I really want to hear about it. I may be totally wrong on this. I’ve been wrong before. If you’d like a newsletter from Ruth and me, do speak up. In fact, if there’s anything you’d like to hear more or less of from us, let us know.

I agree with the statement Mary Walters made in her post, "As writers, we should focus our promotional efforts on trying to get people to talk about our books (review them, read and recommend them, give them awards, take them to their book groups, write articles or blog posts about them) instead of trying to get people to buy them."

What we really need to focus on is connecting with readers who aren't necessarily writers. Social media Jedi Kristen Lamb said it very well in an interview this week with Alex Laybourne. "We have to stop expecting “readers” to come to us and we need to go to them. We are talking about query letters and Smashwords and Amazon and agents and then wonder why we aren’t connecting with readers. Try talking about some stuff THEY like for a change. We need to start a dialogue on mutual ground, then that leads to a relationship which will eventually translate into sales... Spend less time being interesting and more time being INTERESTED.

And what about your pet peeves? Let us know what annoys you in social media. How about newsletters? Like or dislike?

If you have a comment and Blogger won't let you post for one of their unknown reasons (talk about annoying) don't hesitate to email me at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com. I'll post your comment with my response.

WIN FREE TICKETS!!!

If you want to learn more about what to do and not do in building your platform, and you're in the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, CA, I'll be teaching a seminar called THE TECH-SAVVY AUTHOR with iconic author Catherine Ryan Hyde on March 2nd.

The organizers have given me two FREE TICKETS to give away this week! Each one is a $75 value and includes a yummy lunch. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments or email me at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com to say you'd like your name to be put in the drawing for the free tickets. I will then assign each of the contestants a number and go to Random.org on Saturday February 23rd to name the winners.

Contest closes at 6 PM Pacific time on February 23rd.

The winners will be announced in the post on Sunday, February 24th. More info on the workshop in the Opportunity Alerts below.

***

Milestone: This is the 250th post on this blog. Amazing. Especially since the first 50 or so were read by maybe a total of ten people. Now we have close to 1340 followers and a lot of very nice awards. Sticking with something really does pay off.

Opportunity Alerts:

1) BiblioPublishing is looking for submissions of out-of-print or new books for publication through their small press. This 25-year-old press (formerly called The Educational Publisher) is branching out from educational books to other nonfiction and selected fiction. They're especially looking for self-help and sci-fi. They provide cover design, formatting and distribution, but ask your ms. be pre-edited. They publish in print as well as all ebook formats

2) Tech-Savvy Author Workshop: If you live on the Central Coast of California and you’re interested in learning about blogging, building platform and everything a 21st Century author needs to know, Anne will be teaching at a seminar called THE TECH SAVVY AUTHOR with Catherine Ryan Hyde, screenwriter and radio personality Dave Congalton and a whole crew of smart techie folks on March 2nd. Students get in for half price.

3) Interested in having your short fiction recorded for a weekly podcast?There’s no pay, but it’s fantastic publicity if your story is accepted by SMOKE AND MIRRORS. They broadcast about three stories a week. Spooky, dark tales preferred. No previous publication necessary. They judge on the story alone.

4) Cash prizes for flash fiction. The San Luis Obispo NIGHTWRITERS are holding their annual 500-word story contest. Anybody from anywhere in the world is welcome to enter. Prizes are $200, $150 and $75. This is a fantastic organization that boasts a number of bestselling authors among their members, including Jay Asher, Jeff Carlson, and moi. (Well, some sell better than others :-) ) Deadline is March 31st.

5 Blogging Rules Authors Can Ignore…and 5 You Can’t

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, January 20, 2013 0 comments

Do all aspiring authors need to blog?

The answer used to be: Only the ones who want to get published.

Now, agents and publishers are letting up on the requirement.

Recently, agent Rachelle Gardner changed her stance on blogs.“A few years ago, the standard wisdom was that authors, both fiction and non-fiction, should have blogs in order to gather an audience and build relationships with readers. Now, not so much. As social media and online marketing have evolved, my thoughts on blogging have changed. I think each author needs to carefully consider whether blogging is an appropriate vehicle for them.”

But she added that you need to be on social media somewhere. She says Goodreads, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Google + can help you establish yourself if you find blogging too daunting.

But if you’re a Boomer like me, you may find those other platforms MORE daunting. For the non-tech-savvy, blogging is the easiest to master. It’s also the social media platform that gives you the most control.

This week social media ~~guru~~ diva Kristen Lamb devoted a whole week of blogposts to explaining the reasons why “blogs are probably THE BEST use of an author’s time when it comes to building an author platform using social media.”

But some writers start to blog too early in their careers and find it’s a time suck that keeps them from their primary writing goals.

So when should you start blogging? I don't think you have to worry about blogging if—

You’re at a stage where you need to put 100% of your writing time into learning your craft and getting that WIP onto the page.
You’re a student who loves your creative writing class and hopes to be a writer someday, but you’re not sure what genre you’ll want to write or if you'll want to write novels, screenplays, poetry or whatever..
You’ve written a NaNo novel and a few short stories but you know you've got a lot to learn and you're not ready to start submitting things yet.
You’ve been to a few writers conferences and you’re working madly on edits on your first novel and you’ve got this new idea you’re just dying to get on paper...

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with blogging if you’re at any of those stages. For some of us, blogging is fun. Having fun with words is good at any stage of your writing career, as long as it doesn't keep you from your primary writing goals.

But don’t feel pressured to jump in yet. Blogging is a commitment. Don’t start if you don’t have the time or discipline to follow through.

When should you definitely think about a blog? When you’re sending out queries or getting ready to self-publish.

You will need a website anyway. (Sending out a query when you don’t have a website is shooting yourself in the font. Many agents and editors reject on that item alone.) A blog is a website—while a Facebook, Google +, Twitter or Pinterest page is not. Nothing that requires membership counts. And a blog hosted by Blogger or Wordpress is free as well as being interactive—as opposed to a static website. So it counts as “social media.” It’s a two-bird stone.

I agree with Kristen Lamb. I think blogging provides the most effective long-term strategy for writers to get their names out there into the marketplace and interact with the public.Why?

You’re a writer. Blogging uses a skill you’ve already got: putting words together to make sentences.
Other social media are subject to faddism and rapid changes. (Facebook has become much less effective now that you have to pay to reach more than a handful of readers. Other social media sites may follow suit.)
Blogging is the social medium that gives YOU the most control over your brand.

But blogger-authors usually make one huge mistake: we follow rules established by other types of bloggers.

I made this mistake myself. Thing is: as an author, you are not blogging to monetize, so a lot of those rules don’t apply. You're blogging to make yourself an interactive home on the Web—a place for agents/fellow writers/fellow bloggers/publishers/editors/readers to find you and communicate with you. It's a place to establish your brand.

And your brand is YOU.

This means:

1) You don’t have to blog every day.

Or even every week. Or on a schedule. (Although a schedule will give you a better chance of building a readership.) But it’s all good. For more on this, read my post on The Slow Blog Manifesto.

2) You don’t have to keep to 300-500 words.

Make your post as long as it needs to be to cover the subject. If you go over 3000 words, you’ll probably lose some readers, but Porter Anderson writes more than that in every one of his posts at Writing on the Ether and he's one of the most respected bloggers in the business

3) You don’t want a cutsie title that masks your identity.

The number one reason for an author to have a blog is to get name recognition, so for heaven’s sake, PUT YOUR NAME ON THE BLOG. I know I hammer away at this, but still 70% of the writing blogs I visit don’t have the author's name in the header—and almost that many don’t have an “about me” bio page to give us any idea of who heck they are.

The reason you’re blogging is the opposite of anonymity. You want people to be able to put your name (or pen name) into a search engine find you. Don’t make them rummage in their memory banks trying to remember if your blog is called “Songs from the Zombiepocalypse”, “Lost Marbles” or “MommiePornCentral". A whole lot more people will find you if they can just Google "Your Name."

Every minute you spend blogging anonymously is a minute wasted. Let the public know who you are and where you are and why we should be reading your stuff instead of the other 10 billion blogs out there.

And ALWAYS put your contact information prominently on the blog. If you’re selling a product, it’s just plain dumb not to tell people where to find it.

4) You don’t have to blog about any one subject. Your product is YOU.

For a long time, I believed all the stuff about how you have to have a niche. So this is a niche blog. It's serving us well, but it hems us in. We may try branching out into other territory in the coming months. Notice the new "Opportunity Alerts" at the end of the post.

Remember people surf the Web looking for two things: information and entertainment. Your blog can spin a good yarn, make people laugh, provide information, or all three, as long as you are putting it all out in your own honest, unique voice. (But I generally advise against fictional yarns—see below.)

A great example of a highly successful blogger is Nina Badzin, who blogs about books, parenting, religion, career choices, and so much more. Her posts are engaging and charming and often get picked up by the Huffington Post. Why? She’s smart, funny, honest, and totally herself.

One caveat: one of the least interesting topics to readers is your writing process. Hardly any potential reader wants to know your daily word count or your rejection sorrows. Other writers may stop by to commiserate, and you do want to network with other authors, but don’t make your writer’s block or attempts to get published the main focus of your blog.

You’re a writer, so they want your well-written observations on things: your unique voice talking about the things you feel passionate about. The research you’re doing on medieval armor. Your theories on why raccoons are going to take over the planet. The hilarious adventures of an erotica writer/PTA president.

NOTE: If you’re not a published author writing for an established fan base, DO NOT post bits of your WIP hoping to get praise or critique. That’s because:

You’re blogging to GIVE entertainment and information, not GET praise or free editing.
If you’re not published, that book can never be sold, because you have given away “first rights.”

5) You don’t need a lot of images.

Don’t waste lots of time looking for the right photo (or risk getting sued for using copyrighted material.) If your blog is about travel, or fishing, or antiquing, yes, take lots of photos, but if the post is about books or ideas—don’t sweat it. You’re a WRITER. The blog is going to be a showcase for what you can do with the written word. We’ve never used images on this blog, and we’re doing pretty well.

If you do use images, make sure they are in the public domain. Try Wiki Commons or WANA Commons

But there are some blogging rules you'd be wise to heed:

1) Learn to write good headers. A “good” header does a number of things:

Asks a question or provides an answer.
Attracts search engines.
Makes a good Tweet (even if you aren’t on Twitter, you want somebody else to tweet it and spread the word.)
Promises the reader something of value: information or entertainment

Note: One-word and enigmatic titles may delight your muse, but minimalism won’t attract blog readers. Also stuff that’s unfocused, doesn’t inform, and nobody’s likely to Google.

Titles like “Scribbles”, “Alone,” or “Sad Thoughts” are not going to get you many hits. These are not words or phrases people are likely to search for, and they don't entice or offer anything. Look at the titles of our top ten blogposts for ideas on what works in a blog header. Numbered lists and questions work best.

2) Always include share buttons Those little "f" "t", "g +1" and other buttons that allow people to share your brilliant words to their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts are the way you will build a following. Put them up there even if you personally don’t use that kind of social media.

3) Always post a bio and contact info—and your @twitterhandle, if you have one. Also include a way for people to follow the blog as a “follower” or by email and rss feed. (All this stuff is available in your "gadgets" menu on your dashboard if you use Blogger.)

4) Remember social media is SOCIAL. Be welcoming to your visitors and visit other blogs. Respond to comments. Make commenting as easy as possible. You can’t control all the Blogger/Wordpress hoop-jumping, but if you haven’t had a barrage of spam, you can turn off the “word verification” or “CAPTCHA”. That will triple your comments. (Especially from people with older eyes who can’t read those %&*! letters to save our lives.)

And don't neglect your neighbors. Nobody’s going to know you’re there if you stay home all the time. Get out and visit. Social media is about networking. Choose a few high profile blogs to visit regularly and notice whose comments interest you. Go to their blogs. Eventually you’ll make some friends. Who knows—it could be a potential collaborator, blog partner, or somebody who’ll recommend you to a publisher or agent. Or just a great friend who can support you through the tough times.

5) Learn to write 21st century prose. People skim on the Internet. You need short paragraphs, bullet points, lists, bolding, and lots of white space. Draw the reader's eye through the piece.

What about you, Scriveners? Do you have a blog yet? When did you start to blog? Can you think of any other “conventional blogger wisdom” that’s not true for author-bloggers?

We have 5 Opportunity Alerts this week:

#1 Tech-Savvy Author Workshop: If you live on the Central Coast of California and you’re interested in learning more about blogging, building platform and everything a 21st Century author needs to know, I’ll be teaching at a seminar called THE TECH SAVVY AUTHOR with Catherine Ryan Hyde, screenwriter and radio personality Dave Congalton and a whole crew of smart techie folks on March 2nd.

#2 Interested in having your short fiction on a weekly podcast? There’s no pay, but it’s fantastic publicity if your story is accepted by SMOKE AND MIRRORS. They broadcast about three stories a week. Spooky, dark tales preferred. No previous publication necessary. They judge on the story alone.

#3 Cash prizes for flash fiction. The San Luis Obispo NIGHTWRITERS are holding their annual 500-word story contest. Anybody from anywhere in the world is welcome to enter. Prizes are $200, $150 and $75. This is a fantastic organization that boasts a number of bestselling authors among their members, including Jay Asher, Jeff Carlson, and moi. (Well, some sell better than others :-) ) Deadline is March 31st.

#4 Want to find out about the latest ebooks? TODAY'S E-READER BUZZ is a new way to read about the latest releases. When you subscribe, you could win a gift card or a copy of my new Camilla mystery, No Place Like Home.

#5 A Blog for the Multi-Talented. An interactive blog for your photos and stories. Different themes each month. STORIED IMPRESSIONS. In intriguing new blog from Gretchen Fogelstrom. (although I've told her she needs to make her name bigger!)

Social Media Overload: How Do Authors Reach READERS? Advice from Bestselling Romance Author Roni Loren

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, December 16, 2012 0 comments

First: We have Contest Winners!

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest last week for free copies of How to be a Writer in the E-Age...and Keep Your E-Sanity! which I co-authored with Catherine Ryan Hyde. We assigned everybody a number (two numbers if you entered on both blogs) and put them into the random number sequence generator at random.org. (Timestamp: 2012-12-16 05:05:33 UTC)

The winners of the ebooks are: E.S. Ivy, Clare London, and Cheri
And the winners of the pbooks are: Stella Notte, Linda Gray, and Jlmbewe

Please contact Catherine at ryanhyde@cryanhyde.com with your address to receive your prize.

Today we have a visit from one of my favorite online author-friends. I knew her even before her name was Roni Loren :-) Roni is an awesome blogger who always has something innovative and thoughtful to say at her blog for the Fearless Romantic. She's become a bestselling author for Berkley Heat through her smart use of social media, so this is market-tested advice. My experience with Twitter and Facebook mirrors hers. I much prefer Twitter, but the readers seem to be on Facebook.

Social Media Overload: How Do You Reach READERS?

Guest Post by Roni Loren

If there is one question that all writers would love to have a definitive answer to, it’d be: How do I reach my current readers and attract new readers?

For many of us, the most practical place is online. We don’t have the funds to fly around the country for book signings or to pay for shiny ad campaigns in magazines or on TV, so we go to our computers.

But, of course, the choices are overwhelming. Facebook? Twitter? Blogs? Blog about writing? Blog about...other stuff that readers will like (and what the heck IS that other stuff)?

First, let’s tackle the biggie: blogs. I’ve had a blog going on four years now. I started out as a writing focused blog. That was before I had an agent or was published, so it seemed the obvious track to take. Over time, I’ve morphed into a more flexible blog. Sometimes I blog about writing, sometimes it’s about what I’m reading, and other times it’s just general life topics.

And the reason I made that gradual change was because I went from a blogger who writes to a published author who blogs. The focus changed. Of course, you can have a niche writing blog, and there are many authors like Anne and Janice Hardy who do a fantastic job at providing that to the writer community. However, I chose to go a slightly different route because (a) I get tired of writing about writing at times and (b) I wanted to provide my readers with something fun to if they happened to stop by.

So what should YOU do? Well, that is up to you and what you feel you can maintain and enjoy. If you do decide to stay focused on a more craft/industry type blog, then maybe make sure your website has “sticky” extras that readers can dig through if they stop by. (See my post Author Websites: Layering Yours With Sticky Extras for ideas.) I have photos of my heroes, pictures of The Ranch (the secretive, illicit resort my series centers around), and a music playlist for the books and characters. I also keep a list of what I’ve read that anyone can look through. Those are things readers enjoy. (And my web stats speak to that. The Ranch page gets a surprising amount of hits.)

So try to look at your site through the eyes of a reader stopping by for the first time. What are you offering them?

All right, now on to the two other biggies out there…

Facebook or Twitter? It's a question that people seem to have definite feelings on. Most people prefer one strongly and see the other as a pain. In the past, I've made it no secret that I'm a Twitter girl. I like the fast pace and the simple interface. I like that I can follow a bunch of people and get a little nibble of everything. And frankly, I use it as my blog reader now since I never seem to have time to keep up with my Google Reader.

However, over the last few months or so, I decided to put more effort into my Facebook presence. Many established authors swear by Facebook for connecting with readers, and I know that people are way more likely to be on Facebook than Twitter.

So I begin to put focus on FB and not just by copying tweets over there. FB and Twitter are inherently different in the kinds of updates that "fit." I also made the point of keeping FB more reader-focused than writer-focused. Twitter is filled with my fellow writers who don't mind hearing about word counts or craft-related things. But FB seemed to be getting more pure readers, so I didn't want to bore them with the technical side of writing.

And you know what?

When I did a poll recently, the difference in "crowd" became noticeable.

I posted a question on both Twitter and Facebook asking what I should put on a stamp I'm going to use when I send out signed bookplates. One option was my tagline "For the Fearless Romantic" and the other was "Greetings from The Ranch."

So the results were very telling. Almost every one of my Twitter followers said the Fearless Romantic one. Then on Facebook, every vote was for The Ranch. It was amazing how divided it was.

And then I realized the difference. My writer friends were going for the one that spoke more to "author brand". We've been trained to think that way, to have that marketing hook. But my READERS who are already fans of the books were thrilled at the thought of having "Greetings from The Ranch." One line is meant to "sell" the books to new people. The other serves to entertain people who love the series already.
So, it was an easy decision. Anyone who is asking me for a bookplate is already a fan. Therefore, this needs to be for them. It's not about selling someone new on the book. If this were for promo material at a conference or something, the fearless romantic line would be the better fit. So it was a lesson in knowing who your audience is for something.

BUT, back to the point, this also showed me the clear distinction. Twitter is where my writer friends hang out. Facebook is where more readers are. (At least from my own anecdotal evidence and what I've heard from other authors.)

So which one should you do?

Short answer: Both

Longer answer: If you don't have time for both, do which one you enjoy the most because that's the one you'll probably thrive at.

But here are some things to consider and make a good case for cultivating both...

Why Is Facebook Important?

■ It's the most likely place fans will look for you besides your website.

■ Not everyone is a social media addict (like we writers are). Your every day person may not read blogs regularly, have a google plus profile, a Twitter account, or a Goodreads account. But even the most social media averse person probably has a Facebook page. My grandparents have one, my parents have one, my high school teachers have them. I'm hard pressed to think of someone I know who DOESN'T have one.

■ It allows you longer updates because not everything can be said in 140 characters.

■ It gives you the chance to put up exclusive content and sneak peeks to give your readers something extra for following you and reading your books.

■ You only have to post an update one or two times a day. So there is more opportunity for interaction about one topic.

■ It's easy for people to share you with their friends.

■ And yes, I’m aware that the recent changes with the “promote” button make updates harder for all your followers to see. However, if you post interesting things that get good interaction, the algorithm spreads the message to more people.

Why Is Twitter Is Important?

■ There is an incredible writer community on there. Writing is a solitary business. Hanging out on Twitter is like the office water cooler. You can go there for gossip, encouragement, or just to vent to each other.

■ Some readers do prefer Twitter and that will continue to grow.

■ It is a wealth of blog link love. Like I said, it acts as my blog reader these days.

■ It's more casual than FB in my opinion. Since you can update throughout the day, each update doesn't have to be super profound. : )

■ It's easy to share things via Twitter.

■ It doesn't have all the restrictions like FB. And your followers see your updates--you don't have to pay extra to "promote".

■ You don't get a crap ton of emails anytime someone comments on something.

■ It's less of a commitment for someone to follow you on Twitter. Most people won't "Like" a FB page unless they are a fan already. But many people will follow you on Twitter just to check you out and see what you have to say. So it's easier to introduce yourself and your books to new people.

Each obviously has benefits and drawbacks. But I think if you can manage both, you're going to find you have a more well-rounded online presence. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you and connect with you.

So, if you aren't already there and want to hang out with me, you can find me on Twitter AND Facebook. ;)

And a quick note and PSA on Pinterest and Tumblr because I know someone will inevitably bring one of them up in the comments. If you follow me, you know that earlier this year I was sued for using a photo on my blog that I didn’t have the copyright to. Therefore, Pinterest and Tumblr scare the crap out of me because I know now the rules, and you are not protected. Anytime you post something that you don’t have clear permission from the copyright holder to post, you can be sued for copyright infringement. So use it at your own risk. All I post now are book covers, movie posters, and creative commons licensed pics. *end PSA* : )

So what do you think? Do you have a preference on your social media presence? To those of you on both Twitter and Facebook, do you find a difference in the "crowd"? As a reader, do you seek out authors on any particular social network? Do you read blogs?

Roni wrote her first romance novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about boys was way easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting skills haven’t improved, but she likes to think her storytelling ability has. Though she’ll forever be a New Orleans girl at heart, she now lives in Dallas with her husband and son. If she’s not working on her latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching reality television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rockstars, er, rock concerts. Yeah, that's it. She is the National Bestselling Author of The Loving on the Edge series from Berkley Heat. Website: www.roniloren.com

NEWS: Anne is visiting Louise Wise's Wise Words this week with some tips on fixing some of those pesky problems in your WIP that your critique group can't help you with.

The White Queen Age: Why Are We Running as Fast as We Can to Stay in the Same Place?

Posted by Unknown On Sunday, November 4, 2012 0 comments

This week I finished the first draft of my fourth Camilla Randall mystery, NO PLACE LIKE HOME, and sent it off to my editor. What a relief!

All my books are comedies, but they have a darker subtext, and this one, dealing with homelessness here in San Luis Obispo, CA— "The Happiest Town on Earth"—took a lot of soul searching. Finishing it left me feeling drained. But satisfied. I'd succeeded in doing some writing I was proud of, and I could enjoy the feeling of job well done.

For about 8 hours.

The next morning, I was confronted with a pile of procrastinated projects that literally brought me to tears. Huge, already-overdue writing projects, this blog, guest posts, plus falling fences, overgrown gardens, put-off doctor visits, unpaid bills, neglected family and friends. And my inbox is crammed with requests to help newbie authors, new literary magazines, and start-up reader/author sites. All worthy enough to be set aside for "when I have time"--whenever that may be.

No rest for the weary.

So I asked myself—when did I sign up for "weary"?

Do I really have to live this frenzied life that is taking such a huge toll on my health and home and friendships...and seems to get me no farther ahead?

In the final three months of last year, I launched five novels and two anthologies--all while keeping up this blog (which I couldn't have done without the wonderful Ruth Harris. Thanks, Ruth!) But it was pretty much the most exhausting thing I've ever done. I thought I'd get to rest afterward. But after a bout of pneumonia in January, my pace went back to frantic. I had a nonfic book to co-author and launch in June, the new Camilla mystery to write, plus dozens of guest posts, bloghops, blogtours, radio interviews, daily Tweeting, Facebooking, etc., and presentations at a seminar and a writers' conference to prepare

I know my schedule is nothing compared to what most authors face. In fact, I'm constantly hearing the message that I should be doing more. Lots more. And I have a wonderful, helpful publisher--so I have nothing like the workload of most indie authors.

But I know I can't keep up this pace for much longer without facing another health crisis. And a health crisis will eat up any profits I might make from producing and marketing more books.

On the morning I woke up to the tsunami of procrastinated tasks, I saw a tweet from a reader who has taken my Slow Blogging posts to heart. The wonderful Marcia Richards wrote a plea for blogging sanity that reminded me of something kind of important:

I'm a "Slow Blog" person, not a "work-24-hours-a-day-and-sleep-when-your-dead" person.

My nonfic book is called HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…and Keep your E-Sanity! (co-authored with Catherine Ryan Hyde.)

So why have I been willing to give up my own "e-sanity"?

I think I started to forget who I am.

I call these crazed times "White Queen Days," after Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, who ruled a chessboard kingdom where "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place." (Yikes. I stand corrected. it's the RED Queen who said this--the picture above should have been a clue, Anne. The White Queen did say the quote below. She also said, "Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today,"which is almost as good. Thanks Lexi Revellian for the correction! Yet another reason why we shouldn't write when were're on burn-out.)

The White Queen offered Alice this advice for surviving in her "Looking Glass" realm: "Speak in French when you can’t remember the English for a thing; turn out your toes as you walk, and remember who you are!"

Pretty good advice for the surreal world of 2012. Well, the French and the toe thing—not so much—but “remember who you are” is true wisdom.

Wisdom that I’ve been ignoring. I hope to remedy that.

The dictators of the new publishing paradigm say the average author should have followings in social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Goodreads, RedRoom, Libararything—and all the new and wonderful sites emerging daily. (There's a new reader site that looks like a nice alternative to the sometimes cumbersome Goodreads, called Readmill, which really does look intriguing if you've got more time than me.) Oh, and then those are those book trailers we're supposed to be filming...

And we're also supposed to blog three to five times a week.

All while we churn out twelve novels a year

Plus keep a day job and a tidy home, exercise daily, contribute to the community, and perform all the duties of the perfect parent/spouse, of course.

I think it's wonderful so many authors out there have the remarkable superpowers to be able to do all that.

But I'm not a super-hero. (You do not want to see me wearing my underwear over spandex pants. Seriously.)

I'm not even "the average author."

And you know what? Nobody is. We're not machines. We each have our own gifts to bring to the table.

I remember an old folk song from the pre-Civil War South I heard as a kid. It had a verse that resonated in my small, way-too-sensitive soul:

Blue jay pulled a four-horse plow

Sparrow, why can't you?

Because my legs is little and long

And they might get broke in two.

Yes, there are blue jays out there doing the work of four horses. They are amazing and due all the credit in the world.

But a lot of us are sparrows--and we're quite good at being sparrows.

The fact we aren't horse-impersonating blue jays shouldn't be held against us.

I think Harper Lee made as important a contribution to our culture with her one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, as Prentiss Ingraham did with his 600+ books. (Note I had to provide link to tell you who Mr. Ingraham was, but not Ms. Lee.)

I think we all benefit from diversity. I know I learn more from reading books by a lot of different authors than I would reading the same number of books by one author.

Agent Rachelle Gardner reminded us recently that it's going to take quality, not quantity, to stand out in this rapidly expanding marketplace. She says "The quality of your writing is going to determine if people want to read what you write."

And after telling us a year ago that all authors should have daily blogs with 15K hits or more a month, she's finally come around to the idea that blogging may not be for everyone.

I'm not saying that some authors can't produce a huge number of quality books in quick succession while blogging and Tweeting brilliant bon mots every fifteen minutes.

But personally, I can't.

Natalie Whipple, a successful children’s author, has a popular blog. Last year she wrote wrote a post about what she wished she’d done differently in her career. It was enlightening.

Here are a few of the things she’d do if she had a second chance:

• Spend less time online
• Spend more time reading
• Spend more time with her family
• Spend more time “living”
• Spend less time “waiting”
• Spend less time on news

She realized she’d been running in place so long, she’d been missing out on the things that mattered. I re-read that recently and it really hit home for me.

Maybe we can keep running like Alice, clinging to the White Queen, for a certain amount of time. But every human has to rest sometime. Hey, even the Lord rested on the seventh day.

We are bombarded with constant White Queen messages on the Interwebz: What—you’re not on Pinterest yet?! There’s another blog hop you’ve GOT to join!! Social media is 24/7!! Look what you missed while you slept, you lazy slacker!!! Whatever you do will never be enough!!!! Look at all the people who are writing/selling more than you!!!!!!

But yanno--I'm pretty sure all that tech is supposed to be here to serve us, not the other way around.

So if you're feeling as pressured as I am, be brave: shut out the noise. Write at your own pace. Ignore social media for a while. Read the “Slow Blog Manifesto”.

Compare yourself to no one. You may not be keeping up with Prentiss Ingraham's stats, but you may be creating the next To Kill a Mockingbird.

Take the White Queen’s advice: remember who you are…and keep your e-sanity!

I'd love to have writers at all stages of their writing journeys weigh in here. Are you feeling pressure to do endless tasks that get you nowhere? This is NaNoWriMo month, so a lot of people are busy trying to access their own White Queens. I think NaNo is a fabulous exercise if you've got the time to do it--at least once. But for the rest of us, maybe it's good to remember that we don't have to be in a state of frenzied activity to be productive...and that slow and steady can still win the race. What do you think, scriveners?

TO ALL THE SURVIVORS OF SUPERSTORM SANDY: Our prayers are with you. I hope you have your power back or that you will soon. A catastrophe like this gives all of us a reminder of what's really important. Ruth Harris lives in Manhattan, but she seems to have come through it relatively unscathed. I thank her for being such a trouper and keeping up with the blog last week in spite of everything.

BOOK NEWS: SHERWOOD, LTD, joins THE GATSBY GAME and FOOD OF LOVE in HARD COPY. They are all now available as very nice paperbacks for only $8.99 (£6.29 UK) on Amazon. And in ebooks, SHERWOOD, LTD is FREE for Kobo! And free on Smashwords, too. (Please ignore the glitches. My publisher will correct my name and give some description besides "blah" very soon. )

When the Manners Doctor, Camilla Randall, flies into Robin Hood airport with a suitcase in one hand and a book contract in the other, she thinks she's leaving all her problems behind and is about to start a new life. If you look very carefully you may just spot the Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marian and even Little John hidden away. But as for Robin Hood himself... You'll just have to read it and find out.

COMING UP ON THE BLOG! On November 18th, we'll have a visit from the dynamic literary agent Laurie McLean of Larsen-Pomada, talking about the exciting new happenings in the publishing world. And on December 16th, we'll have another visit from uber-blogger Roni Loren talking about how authors can best use Facebook and Twitter.

Download Ebook

How NOT to Self-Publish: 12 Things for New Indies to Avoid

Top 10 Questions from New Writers: Answers to Your Most Burning Questions

12 Social Media Mistakes for Authors to Avoid

5 Blogging Rules Authors Can Ignore…and 5 You Can’t

Social Media Overload: How Do Authors Reach READERS? Advice from Bestselling Romance Author Roni Loren

The White Queen Age: Why Are We Running as Fast as We Can to Stay in the Same Place?

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