Don't Jump the Bandwagon... Unless You Can Write a Better Wagon - Thursdays with the Author

We all see the shelves at our local bookstores lined with copycat books made to mimic our favorite series.

First there was Harry Potter and the young wizard/magic books that flooded shelves after its success. 

Then there was Twilight and all the millions of vampire books that followed. There's even a story going around that Shades of Grey started out as a Twilight fan fiction with an erotic twist but changed to the Shades we know today after the idea gained support.

Now there are hundreds of Shades of Grey knockoff books, some with titles that are way too similar. 

Next came the Hunger Games and the plethora of dystopian novels that have followed blindly onto the shelves after it. 

But story ideas aren't the only bandwagons that get hopped in the world of publishing. Politics and pop culture also get copied. 

One more recent example: I just finished the first book in Rick Riordan's House of Hades series (you know the ones that follow Percy Jackson and the Olympians). It was a good read but something irked me. 

SPOILER HERE. 

A minor god talks about how he fell in love with a mortal man and became jealous of another god's attention on the same man. Then one of the main characters is forced to admit that he had a crush on Percy Jackson and still loves him. 

Let me point out here that I have NO problem with same sex couples/relationships. I have no problem reading about them either. 

My problem is when a writer decides they have to add it to a story-line, where it had never previously been mentioned (in over 10 books now) for no obvious reason. Added to the fact that this specific character had never hinted or shown any other signs of being attracted to the same sex. 

Yes I know that's possible. People that haven't come out about their sexuality tend to hide it very well from others. Others will say, they shouldn't have to act different to be homosexual.

But this seemed very out of place. The author tried to explain it in but I still read it with a feeling that it didn't belong. It seemed very obvious to me (though I will admit that I could be reading too much into it) that this particular story-line was injected so far into the series to try and gain more readers from that specific group of people.
A bandwagon hopper. 

END SPOILER

A few authors can hop the bandwagon and make a good go at taking the reins. The Divergent Series does a good job of making the dystopian craze their own. 

I understand the appeal, especially in the YA/middle grade genres. These kids like a book and they will sink every penny they have into merchandise, books, movies, you name it. For an author it probably looks like a gold mine.

But are we really doing readers, especially young, impressionable ones, a favor by churning out book after book on the same topics with differently named characters? Are we helping the creative minds of other human beings by putting sub-par writing on the shelves just to make an easier buck?

As an author, if you really feel passionate about a subject, even if it would be jumping on the proverbial bandwagon to write it, then by all means. Jump. Jump like the Dauntless off a train in Divergent. Dive in like Katniss for the cornucopia in Catching Fire. Throw on the sorting hat like Harry in the Sorcerer's Stone. 

Just make sure you can write it better. 

Write it so well, so original, that you create your own bandwagon. 

Don't steal story-lines and love triangles. Don't use the same plot lines and problems. Create your own world, your own rules, your own characters. 

You just might create your own name for yourself. 

5 Steps to Not Losing Your Work - Thursdays with the Author

5 Steps to Not Losing Your Work

This title may seem obvious to most but a lot of new authors and writers don't realize how easy it is to lose their work. My PC crashed recently and the only way to repair it was to have it basically wiped clean and put back into factory condition. Which meant all my novels, rough drafts, cover art, pictures, etc. would be lost. Permanently. Thankfully, I had already learned this painful lesson six years ago when my first computer crashed and I lost all my work. So I've come up with some tips for writers to avoid learning the same lesson the hard way.

1) Have your work/pictures/etc. on multiple devices. The first time I had a PC die, it was my only device that I used for writing. The books I had been working on were saved to the hard drive and no where else. I had to dig through my keepsake boxes and find the first hand-written drafts and re-write them all. Though this was a saving grace, I still lost all the work I'd put into it between the first draft and computer crash. This time around, I had all my work on my laptop (and saved in multiple places - see #2) as well, so even though my PC died, I still had my work.

2) Save your work in lots of places. A PC, a laptop, a zip/flash drive, Google Drive, email a copy to yourself, save it on an extra hard drive, have a printed copy, etc. Cover ALL your bases. It may seem a bit of overkill but you'll be glad you did if your PC crashes, you switch to your laptop, then spill your drink on it, your kid flushes the flash drive down the toilet, etc. You NEVER know what will happen so it's best that you save your work in multiple places.

3) Have a hand-written draft. This one is surprising. A lot of writers don't even bother with hand written drafts/notes anymore. They have their computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. But technology can't be trusted... electronics can break. Having a hand-written draft gives you the last resort if all else fails for preserving your work. 

4) Save, Save, Save. Set your auto save timer to every 2 minutes, seriously. Or if you don't have an auto save, hit the save button every few minutes. You never know when you'll accidentally lose your work, thanks to children hitting the keyboard, power outages, automatic updates, etc. If you're saving often, the chances of you losing something major drastically lessens.

5) When working, save multiple copies of your work. Just imagine: You're working on formatting a manuscript for publishing. Your auto save is on. You've been trying to add some formatting that's giving you a headache and all of a sudden, your text disappears. Then the undo button doesn't work. So you try opening the document again but the auto save just so happened to save right after you lost everything. Sound epic? It certainly is. Depending on what the age of your program is, things like that don't happen often anymore. But it CAN happen. Before you start working, save multiple copies with different file names so if the epic failure does happen, you have your original copy, safe and sound.

These may seem like 'duh' tips to most authors but they're usually 'duh' because we've all been there at some point in our writing careers. Hopefully these tips will help someone who hasn't learned yet, so they never have to learn the hard way.

Sometimes life hands us a balloon just to watch it pop - Thursdays with the Author

Today's post is extremely late and I apologize. And now for my long-winded explanation of why...

Today I had a day off (I run an in-home daycare) and tackled a doctors appointment. I had been referred to a hypertension specialist because my blood pressure, which has been an issue since I was pregnant with my son 10 years ago, has become uncontrolled with my medication... Again. My primary physician was worried my kidneys weren't functioning properly and after having a sonogram done on them a few weeks ago, I had an appointment to go over the results and my options. 

So don't worry, my kidneys ARE fine. Which was extremely relieving to hear. My hypertension is mainly thanks to my genes as my older sister, mother, father and grandmother all suffer from it. He does want me to lose a bit of weight to help rein it in and added another medication to the one I'm currently on (I currently take 6 pills a day, so what's one more?) but didn't seem overly concerned. 

I did breathe a sigh of relief, knowing there was nothing wrong with me that wasn't too serious (well as not serious as it can be when you have high blood pressure).

 Another relief as he told me that having another baby wouldn't be a risk once we found the right medication/dosages and got my numbers under control. I have two healthy, beautiful kids. A boy and a girl. Everyone's perfect family, apparently. But after miscarrying our third baby nearly a year ago, the desire to have another child has been stronger than ever. 

But my health concerns have held me back from wanting to try again. You see, pregnancy makes your blood pressure run higher than normal and with a woman who already has hypertension problems, the risks are even greater. Pre-eclampsia with severe swelling and headaches, low birth weight. Then eclampsia and toxemia with seizures, strokes, comas and even death. All very real risks. And all reasons to firmly say no to another pregnancy. 

I felt like my choice to be pregnant, to feel that life fluttering inside me, was taken away. There was no choice. For women that have experienced a medical reason to not have a pregnancy, some never even getting the option in the first place, the feeling is horrible. 

So hearing that in the future, I could have that choice was the best news I've had in a while. 

So on with my day. Like I said, I had the day off and my kids wouldn't be home from school for hours so I decided to spend the rest of my day relaxing. I know I should've been writing but I've recently discovered a new addiction. That addiction is Downton Abbey. I'm jumping on the bandwagon a bit late but I rented the first 3 seasons from my library and have been trying to play catch-up. 

So after my doctor appointment I came home and started on season 3. If you watch Downton, you know what happens. I reached episode 5 and the bubble of joy I had gotten back earlier in the day, was popped. 

Sybil, one of my favorite characters, died. And not just an ordinary death. She died shortly after giving birth from complications of eclampsia. 

Ugh. And yes, I know that this was 1920-whatever and medicine was still appallingly Neanderthal. But watching that character die from the same thing I am at risk for, the same day I was told I wouldn't have to worry about it, was depressing. I cried the rest of the day. Effectively ruining my day off. And ruining any mood to write anything creative or full of advice. 

So I mulled it over until bedtime and decided to tell you all about it instead of going to sleep. Quite possibly because I will just dream of dying in childbirth and I'm trying to avoid those nightmares for as long as possible. 

So I will leave off with a consolation for anyone who is worried. Though I desperately want to have another baby, I will not risk my life to do so. If my primary doctor, hypertension specialist and obstetrician all share the same concern, I will gladly hang up my 'child-bearing' cap and exchange it for a 'permanent birth control' one with a 'possibility of adoption' feather in it. So please don't worry about my health or my children going motherless because of a selfish decision on my part. 

Honestly, I have no idea why I even wrote this in my blog as it's a very personal post but I seem to not have been able to help myself. So I'll leave it at that and wish you all health... and happiness in whatever form it may come in. 

And on an epic side-note, I just realized that I used the word 'so' a million times in this post AND used it to start a few sentences, therefore, I shall endeavor to use other words from here on out. ;)

When Someone Asks: What You Do? Own Your Answer: I Am An Author! - Thursdays with the Author

Today's post is going to be a bit more personal as I've been facing this topic more often lately.

Have you ever been speaking with someone and they ask what you do? Usually they mean, what type of work do you do, as in a job. Here in America, that personal of a question is common and usually easily answered. My husband's answer would be, "Industrial Maintenance" or six years ago, "Robot Technichian" or "Level III welder". My mother would answer "I'm a teacher," or "I teach middle-school science". 

But for writers, especially self-published ones, that question is a bit harder to answer.

Someone asked me recently what I do for a living and I answered, "I'm an author". Perhaps it's the inner writer in me, but I sincerely wanted to go into a monologue on what it is, exactly, that I do. You see, being an author isn't ALL that I do.

The first problem I run into is that a lot of people think that self-published authors are just writers that try to sell their work. Not an actual author. Authors are those writers who are famous, who are backed by huge publishing houses, who sell millions of copies and have their work featured on the New York Times Best Seller lists. And they are right. Partially. Those writers are authors, but so am I.

Maybe I should insert that I'm a self-published author? No. That takes away from what I've actually done. I have written a novel. Taken years of work and put them between two covers. Cried, laughed, got really pissed off, filled with ecstatic joy, crippled with worry. All for those pages that someone will read. And hopefully love. That kind of work deserves recognition. It may or may not come from readers. It may or may not come from the best sellers list. But it will come from the title I give myself. I am an author. 

I've always been a writer, since I first learned how to put letters together to create words. I've been in love with stories and creating them that long. Becoming an author was a much harder journey.

Now here, I will admit that being an author isn't all that I do. At least at this point in my life. My career, as it were, originally started out as a stay-at-home-mom. I wanted to stay home and raise my children before they started school. I didn't want to send them to daycare with twenty other kids, losing most of my paycheck in the process, only to have someone else see those first steps, hear those first words, participate in all those milestones. Thankfully my husband was successful enough and we budgeted well enough to make that dream possible.

This career choice morphed into yet another opportunity. I saw other parents struggling with the same choices I had made when my daughter was born. I saw my husband working tirelessly to make sure we could live with those choices that we made. I wanted to help both. So I decided to open a daycare. In my home. (This is the part where you can laugh and say 'this woman is crazy'. Yeah, I was. And am.) Regardless of the crazy level of this decision, I knew it was the right one. I could still stay home with my kids. I could help contribute to our income, without commuting, without the expenses. I could help other parents feel more comfortable about sending their children to a caregiver while they worked. I wasn't going to be an institutional daycare. I was an in-home daycare. Like sending your child to an aunt or grandma for the day. More comfortable, more personal. So far it's worked pretty well and I started this particular venture over four years ago.

I never stopped writing though. During naps, in the evenings after my kids were tucked in bed, hours on the weekends. I pieced those novels together a chapter at a time. I sent out query letters, took critiques and learned from them, accepted every no I got from an agent or publisher. 

Then I went through a really hard year. The beginning of 2013 challenged my husband and I with the loss of a child. Only a few weeks after discovering we were going to be parents again, we lost our baby. I wrote a guest post a few months ago about writing through tragedy. You can view it here: Alana Munro's Blog. Losing our baby woke something inside me. The desire to not lose out on anything else. Suddenly, becoming a published author wasn't just a dream I'd had since childhood. It was my new goal. The next thing I was going to strive for with everything I had. It was a dream that wouldn't be taken away painfully and unexpectedly. It wasn't a dream I had no control over. I could make it happen. I would make it happen.

Then my youngest child started school. Even while still having daycare kids, my home seemed oddly quiet. I felt like the job I'd had nearly nine years had been finished. No more young children, no babies. No one to stay home and raise. It was just another push towards achieving my goal. I had a bit more time, a bit more focus. I was in charge of my own destiny.

So I decided to self publish. I didn't do as much research as I should have before diving into the deep end of publishing, but after a few lifeguard moments (to stay with the metaphor), I was swimming fine. My first book, Dark Mountains, was released in July 2013. Seeing my book online, people buying it and actually liking it, positive reviews coming in... it was like watching my child's first steps again. Like opening a present on Christmas morning. I had achieved my goal. But I wasn't done there. Now the thirst to write was unquenchable. The fire in me to publish my stories was raging. At the end of the year, my second book, Irish Strength, came out. You know when you have your first great kiss? Not your first sloppy and awkward one. The one that makes you sigh dreamily after. The one you'll remember throughout your life. The one you want every other kiss you ever have to be like? That's how it felt to see that second book ready for people to read. I looked at the screen and blissfully sighed.

I am an author. Nothing will change that fact now. It can't be lost, can't be stolen, can't be broken. No one can tell me that's not what I am. That I didn't earn that title since I published it myself. The feeling of being an author is what makes me an author. And no one can tell me otherwise.

Inevitably, the next question  is along the lines of "Why do you want to be a writer?" 
It's usually asked with a tone of real curiosity. As if the speaker really can't understand why anyone would want to write for a living. The answer to this question is much easier for me. Because I've known why I wanted to be a writer since I learned how to write. Being an author is a relatively new concept for me. Being a writer is what I know. 

I was recently chatting with a fellow writer on Google+ about writing and why I loved it so much and he asked me what it was that I loved so much. Here was my reply: 

Writing has just been something I have loved since I was young. 
I love to tell stories. To pull a reader into a world of my own creation. I love the relationships, the problems, the battle of good vs. evil, the happily ever after. Right now, I don't make very much money from my books. Maybe someday I will but that isn't my goal. (Even though it would be nice). My goal is to have a someone read my story and fall in love with it. I want my words to make them laugh and cry, sigh to themselves, imagine themselves in that world, BE the characters they are reading about. I want them to finish my book and not be able to stop thinking about it. I want them to reread it again and again because they loved it so much. I want them to wish there was a sequel because they want the story to keep going. I want my stories to change people's lives, if only while they are reading them. 
I read or tell stories to my children every night. Watching their eyes widen, hearing then gasp and laugh, ask questions, argue over who their favorite characters are. The wonder and imagination they have. I want my children's stories to have that affect on children the same way my romance novels affect my adult readers. 
Even when I write song lyrics. One song, one poem, one story, can change someone's life. 
I want what I write to be alive. To be full of feeling and emotion. To pull a reader in and make them forget their troubles and problems. To make them happy. To make them believe the impossible. That is why I write. That is why, for me, being an author and a writer is the greatest job in the world. 

It doesn't matter if you're self-published or traditionally published. It doesn't matter if you have 30 books for sale or just a binder full of in-process novels that you dream about seeing in print one day. It doesn't matter if you write novels, or non-fiction, pictures books or song lyrics, poetry or memoirs. 

If you are passionate about what you write, if you believe the words you are putting on that paper, if you believe, without a doubt, that writing is what you are meant to do than you ARE an author. 

Writers aren't made, though anyone can be taught the basics. Writers are born. The stories we have locked in our hearts and minds? No one else can make them. They are unique. They are original. If you are a writer, you are blessed with a gift that no one else has. No one can put words together like you are going to do. So don't stop writing. Don't give up on your dreams. Don't let anything stop you from doing what your are meant to do. To write.

The Publishing Process - Part 2 - Self-Publishing and My Choices - Thursdays with the Author

I was planning on publishing the second part to my Publishing Process post Thursday, but since a majority of the US will be stuck indoors due to heavy snow or severely cold temperatures for the next 5 days, I decided to post early so everyone would have something to help alleviate their 'cabin fever'. So here is Part 2.

The Publishing Process - Part 2 - Self-Publishing and My Choices

My last blog post The Publishing Process - Part 1 focused on the Traditional Route when publishing. I went over all the tips to helping you get your novel picked up by a literary agent and/or publisher. 

But even with those tips, there's no guarantee you will get a YES from anyone. You might not even want to try. And that is perfectly fine. In today's age, self-publishing is exploding onto the scene. Publishing on your own is easier than ever and anyone can do it. 

That is true. But it's also sort of a lie. Yes: anyone can self publish. Should they? Well that's where the lie starts. 

Is self-publishing easy? Sure. But self-publishing and doing a good job of it is not.

Let's start with the first question: Should everyone self-publish? Well they certainly can. But it doesn't mean they should. If you can go the traditional route, if you can get that hard-to-achieve YES from an agent then do it. The marketing, the resources, the money...it's all bigger and probably much better with a traditional publisher. As I stated in Part 1, your book has to be near perfection to even be considered by an agent or publisher and they will STILL change things in it. 

Some authors buck the traditional route because they don't want their hard work being dissected and changed by their publisher. I can understand that. It took me over eight years to write and publish Dark Mountains on my own. It was so wrapped up in my life it would've been like cutting off a limb if they had asked me to change something. 

But another side of that coin is that some authors need their work to be changed. I hope that doesn't sound like I had a perfect work of art and others not so much. Quite the opposite actually. I found quite a few mistakes after I published that I hadn't noticed before. That's another beautiful aspect of self-publishing: you can fix your mistakes and have them updated and live in 24 hours or less. But some self published books that I see available are riddled with mistakes and bad writing. They would've done well to have a publisher edit the life out of it and turn it into a great read.

Some authors buck the traditional route because they get too many NO's. It happens. Even well established, famous authors had rejection after rejection before someone said YES to their work. Instead of trying again and again and hoping the next letter is acceptance instead of rejection, they decided to go their own route and self-publish on their own. 

This was another reason why I chose the self--publishing route with Dark Mountains. I have more rejection letters than I care to count. Some of them were actually personal, with specific reasons why a particular agent said NO, or with advice on how to get a YES out of someone else. But the majority were cookie cutter letters with a polite NO. It could have been my book. It could have been my synopsis (as you read in Part 1, I'm horrible at those). My query letter could have sucked. Maybe I caught all those agents on their bad days. 

So before I completely gave up on the traditional route, I read the letters, took the advice into consideration, worked on my approach, my pitch, my synopsis and resubmitted. Still NO. So I chose to self-publish.

Now I will go into the second question: Is self-publishing easy?
Sure it is. Most self-publishing sites have a meat-grinder submission engine that turns your Word document into an eReading work of art. At least that what they advertise. The reality is, editing, formatting, publishing and marketing your novel isn't as easy as they'd like you to think.

The first problem you'll run into is your novel. 

Your novel? Wait, you mean the masterpiece I have spent months and months perfecting? The manuscript I have poured my entire soul into? 

Yes. Your novel. It's not perfect. If it was perfect, editors wouldn't be needed in publishing houses. Even major-name authors have their work edited and rewritten after submitting it to a publisher. You need to have your manuscript edited... professionally. More than once, preferably. You'll hate seeing all that red ink but trust me, it must be done. You need to have it Beta-read. In case you aren't sure what that means: You need to give your book (for free) to a bunch of people to read and critique/review. Preferably people that know what they're doing. Avid readers, book reviewers, English teachers, etc. Not your mom. Even though your mom is probably a good option as a starting point but face it, she's your mom and she WILL lie to you. If you really want your novel to be great you need to have people read it that will be completely honest with you. Which usually means that family and friends, especially moms, don't count. Even if they're honest, they'll try to sugar-coat it so they don't hurt your feelings. And don't try to tell me they won't hurt your feelings if they are honest with you. You know that's a lie and so do they. This is you BABY we're talking about here. You don't want anyone telling you it isn't good enough. But it's something you need to hear so you can fix what's actually wrong with it. Try your hardest (and I KNOW it's damn near impossible) to look at their critiques objectively. Change what needs to be changed. You don't follow through with every single opinion... (Remember back in my post on November 8 - Handling Negative Feedback?). You can't please everyone. Every person has a different personality and will read your book differently. 

My general rule: if 2 or more people say the same thing, they're probably right.

You don't want to be one of those authors who's reviews and comments are littered with reports of typos, bad grammar, unresolved story-lines, etc. Trust me, if you write a bad book, the readers will let you know about it. Especially if they spent their hard-earned money on your book only to come away disappointed. You want to do EVERYTHING you can to make sure your book is free of the things that readers hate: mistakes.

The second problem you'll run into is choosing which Self-Publishing company to use.

As I mentioned earlier in this post and in Part 1, self-publishing is EXPLODING onto the scene now-a-days. There are hundreds of sites to self-publish with and more pop up every day. Top companies are CreateSpace (print only), Kindle Direct Publishing (eBook), Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks, Lulu, NOOK Press. 

Keep in mind that some companies are easier to use than others. I've had a pretty great experience with Amazon and CreateSpace and have also heard great things about Smashwords. Some companies require exclusive contracts so be sure you read the fine print before you publish with multiple companies. For example: Kindle Direct has a clause when you sign up for Kindle Select (where Select members can borrow your book and you can run free promotions) stating you can't publish an eBook edition with any other company while enrolled in Kindle Select or 90 days after opting out. You can still publish a print version with another company though. 

All companies have different royalty options as well. Some companies have to pay more of the 'middle-man' so you'll get less out of your royalty payments. Some companies charge extra for expanded distribution (having your book available in bookstores, libraries, etc) and some offer it free. 

Just remember, with self-publishing you should NEVER HAVE to pay for ANYTHING. The products that cost should be OPTIONAL (like formatting assistance, editing, cover design, marketing, etc.) If a company is trying to get you to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get your book published, you are being scammed. Whatever the cost is for production (mostly applies to print editions), it should come out of your chunk of royalty AFTER the sale, not before. For example: With CreateSpace: the CreateSpace store gives you more of a profit because there is one less 'middle-man' but if someone orders your book through Amazon, Amazon will get a chunk out of your money as well. 

So if your 266 page print book will be on sale for US $6.99 and you chose the worldwide 70% royalty option and expanded distribution (which raises the production cost a bit). It would cost aprox. US $6.74 to produce your book so your royalty would be 15 cents through Amazon or US $1.55 through the CreateSpace store. Prices and royalties are also different depending on what country you live in and what country your book is bought from. (And on a side note: PLEASE don't forget that whatever profit you make off your book you HAVE to pay taxes on.) See how confusing that all is? That's why self-publishing is NOT easy.

The third problem you'll run into is formatting. 

Especially if you are publishing an eReader version and print version. The formatting process is COMPLETELY different. For eBooks you need hyperlinks for chapter headings, internet links that actually work, page breaks, etc. For print you need specific gutters and margins, headers and footers (that don't show up on chapter and blank pages), readable fonts, chapter starts on certain pages, page breaks AND section breaks, etc. The meat-grinders on self-publishing sites will format your book for you but 9 times out of 10, something you did in your manuscript will cause an error on the eBook. Most meat-grinders can sort through these mistakes and fix them automatically but I always say: "If you want something done right, do it yourself.". Well I don't ALWAYS say that but I say it sometimes. ;) 

Most self-publishing sites have community forums where you can find out tons of information and ask questions from other users. Doing some research before hitting the publish button will do you a world of good. The companies I chose were Kindle Direct Publishing for my eBook edition and CreateSpace for my print edition. Both have their own formatting guidelines and community forums to help you navigate. CreateSpace has some great community boards that have general help and Q&A areas. I've used these boards plenty of times. Other users are quick to answer and always very helpful. Kindle also has the same type of community board. I recommend reading through both before you try publishing. Smashwords is also another good option for self-publishing. Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, provides a great and free guide to formatting both versions. You can find it here: Smashwords Formatting

The fourth problem you'll run into is cover design. 

This can be one of the most difficult parts of self-publishing, especially if you aren't artistically inclined or if you lean more towards computer illiterate. I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago on cover design that has some great advice on what NOT to do on a cover. You can find it here: Creating Your Cover - What Not To Do

This is one of those circumstances where spending a little extra money to have someone design a cover for you, might not be such a bad idea. I recommend reading through the above-mentioned blog post, browsing the Coverscroll site I mention there, and seeing for yourself what can happen when you design your own cover. Not saying your cover will turn out like some of the ridiculous ones shown there but you really need to do your research and practice. As you will see browsing that site, some of the covers are really well done. It IS possible to make a beautiful, eye-catching cover on your own, but don't expect to do it without any hard work!

Another good tip with cover design is to go to your local store, find the books and the section with your genre in it. Take a picture of the book selection to take home and compare to your cover. Or if you think that will get you arrested  for that ;) then imagine your book sitting there on the shelves among all the others. Does your cover stand out? Does it look amateurish? Most books in stores are traditionally published and have had professional covers done. If your cover can stand out among them, you're a step ahead of the game! :)

The fifth problem you'll run into is marketing. 

This is one of those must-do's whether you choose traditional publishing or self-publishing. You still have to work on your marketing if you choose the traditional route but with you have a huge, well-established company with the money, time and contacts to get your book on everyone's radar. When you self-publish, you only have you. 

In Part 1, I went into detail about how to create an internet presence and trust me, you need to have a good internet presence. Before you publish. That is the key to marketing your book. Social Media, blogging, review sites, author pages, websites. Use all of those resources to promote your book. Just remember: Don't Spam. No one wants to see every post as 'buy my book'. Be productive, be helpful and only plug your book every so often. You'll have a more faithful following if you actually give them something (like advice, or humor, etc) rather then shoving your book down their throats every day. (with exception to websites dedicated to your book - users know it's specifically FOR your book and won't think they're being spammed) 

Contact your local libraries and book clubs, join local writing groups and organizations. Write your local papers. Hold book signings, release parties, have prize giveaways. Hang posters in your local communities and libraries, make bookmarks for libraries to give out, etc. Make your presence known and don't be afraid to talk to people. With self-publishing, you'll start more local and work your way to regional, national and then world wide. With traditional, you tend to start all of them at once. :)

The sixth problem you'll run into is trying to keep writing. 

With all the things you have to do to self-publish your novel, finding time to keep writing is a difficult task. You really have to try hard to find the balance between marketing your newly published masterpiece and writing the next one. The best way to become a successful author is to keep writing and keep publishing. The more books you have available to readers the better. You should be writing every day. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to be working on a project to write. You could be typing up your newsletter, writing a review for another author's book, writing a blog post, etc. Any writing you do is great practice for writing your novel. 



So there's my tips for choosing self publishing. Whatever choice you make, it won't be an easy one and it will be full of hard work. Do your research, double-check all your options and don't be afraid to take a leap of faith. 

Happy writing and happy publishing!

The Publishing Process - Part 1 - Going The Traditional Route - Thursdays with the Author

The Publishing Process Part 1 - Going The Traditional Route

I can already see that this post is going to be really long so I've decided to split it into 2 posts. The first will be about the publishing process - the traditional route, and I will discuss query letters, synopsis, landing an agent, etc. The second post will be about self-publishing and I will discuss what it takes to publish your novel on your own and how I did just that. 

So here we go: 

Part 1 - The Traditional Route

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, about being an author that comes easily. Perhaps the easiest part of our job is that first spark of an idea that we jot down. But the easiness ends there. Then comes the countless hours of writing, saying dialogue out-loud to be sure it sounds right, scouring the thesaurus for the millionth time, the frustration of hitting a blank wall while working on your story, the endless edits and rewrites, the nail-biting as we wait for our beta-reader's responses, the second-guessing as we work on our 'perfect' query letter, the giddy anticipation when we drop that letter off in the mail or hit send on the email, the crushing disappointment when we receive the polite 'no'. And that isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

If anyone ever says that being an author is easy, they are crazy. Probably from doing the above-mentioned process one too many times and finally taking a dive off edge of the deep-end. 

Writing your story, morphing it from a flutter of an idea to a 120,000+ word masterpiece, creating something completely unique and original from a spark that popped into your head is only HALF the battle.

Now you've written your book. You've gone through edit after edit, rewrite after rewrite. You've listened to your beta-readers and critique groups and made all the necessary adjustments. You've spent your hard-earned and very limited funds on an editor and polished your story to the highest sheen imaginable. Now how to get it published?

This is the REALLY hard part.

Traditionally, authors would go through the process of creating their masterpiece and have to write an amazing query letter, a synopsis and/or outline, a proposal and marketing plan. They'd have to take all those things, which are just as hard to write as the story itself, and send it out to literary agents and publishing companies HOPING that someone would like what they send. 

It's a daunting idea. Here you've spent months, even years, creating a story that you've invested your blood, sweat and tears into and your baby (which is exactly what it has become after such a process) is going to be accepted or thrown in the trash, based on a few paragraphs that you have to use to describe something that you invested thousands of hours into writing. It just doesn't seem fair. 

One person, an agent, editor or publisher. One personality, one style of writing and reading. One person, that you combed through dozens of publisher marketplace books and websites to find. One person who you've narrowed out of thousands that might actually like your book. That ONE person is the ONLY person who will decide the fate of your book. Maybe that one person had a bad morning. Maybe that one person missed breakfast because they were running late and their hunger makes it impossible to be receptive to anyone or anything. Maybe that one person just read someone else's manuscript and decided they like it and to not bother reading any others for the day. Maybe that one person broke a nail opening your envelope and now is so angry that your book has no chance of breaking through. It's possible. It has happened.

But maybe that one person has been waiting months for a good idea to land on their desk. Maybe that one person is itching for a new breakthrough author they can represent. Maybe your book is that ONE idea they have been DYING to read. Maybe that one person you sent your baby to absolutely loved it and a few days or weeks later you receive a response asking for more.

Both situations are possible. Most authors receive more of the first than the latter. Some best-selling authors have hundreds or thousands of NO's before finally getting a YES from that ONE person.

Getting a NO is hard. It breaks your heart. You try to brush it off like every other author you know tells you to. You may even be able to brush it off the first time. Or the second time. But sooner or later, NO NO NO NO will get to you and you'll reach a crossroads. You'll have to decide something. Quit or keep trying. Quitting is easy. It really is. But there is no reward. No happy ending. Nothing that makes it worth it. If you keep trying, you open up yourself and your book to a lot of new roads to take. 

Here's some options to try if you keep getting a NO. 

1) Work on your Query letter

This has got to be one of the hardest. You have to crunch you massive 120,000 word book into one stinking page. You have to cram the pitch for your book, your bio/publishing experience, and contact info into ONE page, all while sounding professional and NOT desperate, while making your book appear like the masterpiece it is.
Piece of cake. 
Except it's not. 
There are plenty of websites/blogs/writing communities out there that can help you perfect your query letter. Most of them are even free! Do some research, write up a few options and have some of your favorite writing groups critique them, just like you had your book critiqued. Once you find the perfect query letter, send it out again. 

2) Send your Query letter to the right person: (This ties into #1) 

When searching for an agent/publisher, this is THE MOST important part. If you don't do your homework on this, your book is going to end up in the garbage can. Every agent/publishing website has a tab called submission guidelines on their site. This tab is your friend. Click on it. Read it. If the agent matches your work, query them. If not, and it doesn't matter how much you want them to represent you, don't query them. Agents get thousands upon thousands of query letters, on a weekly basis. Your best chance of getting them to pay attention to yours is to do your homework. Writer's Market and Literary Agent Marketplace release new editions every year with updated info on all the literary agents/publishers and their submission guidelines. These books aren't cheap but can be checked out at your local library at no cost. This website is also good at helping you zero in on the right agent: Agent Query Form 

Here's some tips for #1 & #2:

A) Make sure they actually represent your genre

B) Make sure they are open for submissions

C) Make sure you SPELL THEIR NAME RIGHT

D) Make sure you are sending the correct material. If they ask for a synopsis they mean a synopsis. If they ask for the first 5 pages, don't send them 10. 

E) Make sure you are sending it correctly. If they ask for email with no attachments, you better send it exactly like that. If they ask for a self-addressed and stamped envelope to return their letter to you, you better send it.

F) DO NOT email, write, or call them to see if they got your work or if they've read it yet. If they say they will respond on their info page then they will. You need to be patient.

G) DO NOT send them anything with mistakes, grammatical errors, typos. Seriously. They aren't going to want to read your book if you can't even write a letter without screwing something up.

3) Work on your Synopsis/Outline

I don't even want to go here because this is the part that I personally hate the most. I am a 'backwards writer'. Meaning, I don't start with an outline or synopsis and then create my novel around those well organized ideas. I'm more of a 'chaotic writer'. I get an idea and I write it down. I could write half a novel on one idea that pops into my head. I also work on multiple books at one time. If I get an idea for another book I start working on that. Sometimes I write the beginning and end without knowing what the middle is going to be. Sometimes I have the end all figured out but have no idea what to do at the beginning. I really don't recommend this process as an author but it's what works for me. It makes writing a synopsis, however, the most difficult task ever. 

A synopsis is basically a chapter by chapter outline of your book. All the main plots are covered, the crisis, the climax, the resolutions. The key characters and dialogues, etc. You aren't leaving any important details out. You aren't leaving the ending out either. Don't think that skipping the ending in your synopsis will catch an agent like a bait will a fish. The agent WANTS TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. They have to like the ending to decide whether they want to represent you so DON'T LEAVE IT OUT!

4) Work on Your Bio

Here's a dreaded section of the query letter, especially for new authors. Agents want to know what kind of publishing experience you've had. What makes you qualified to be an author? What makes you know enough to write the next best selling book? Honestly, the answer is nothing because even best-selling authors can write a crap book. Even authors that have sold millions of copies can have absolutely no experience. But the agent still wants to know. So what do you say if you haven't published anything? If you have no education specifically for writing? If you have no experience what-so-ever? The first thing you can do is try to get some. Most community colleges (here in the US) offer adult education classes or non-degree classes for a descent price. 

A)Take some creative writing classes, some English classes and get some education under your belt. 

B) Publish in newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites. 

C) Enter your book and other works in contests. There are THOUSANDS of contests to choose from. 

D) Join writing groups/organizations. The Romance Writers Association is a big one if you write romance. There's a yearly membership fee, classes, and workshops, critique groups, contests, and a huge yearly conference (also a GREAT place to meet agents). There are quite a few local RWA chapters in every state that offer the same as the National group but with lower fees and closer to home. Meetup is also a good website for finding writing groups close to you.

5) Create an Online Presence

This is becoming HUGE in today's publishing business. The internet is a make-or-break machine. If you are wanting to get published, try running your name through a Google search. Did you find anything? Did it actually have something to do with you? If it did, was it some random Facebook post that would be more embarrassing than anything else? 
Here's what you want to see when you Google search your name:

1) you're an author 

2) what you're working on a book (or project) or what you have that's already published

3) what genre you write in 

4) a link to a blog/website/etc where you strictly work as a writer. 

Don't think agents aren't going to Google search your name because they will. And if all they find is a link to a Facebook rant about your ex you can bet they won't be interested in representing you.

Here's some tips for creating an online presence:

A) Have a Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. that is SEPARATE from your personal pages. These are your AUTHOR pages and should only contain things pertinent to you being a writer. Set these pages to PUBLIC and keep your private stuff on your PRIVATE pages. Also remember that all of these sites are MEMBER ONLY. Some can be seen when set to public but some cannot unless the viewer is also a member. Use these sites to provide updates on your current projects, answer questions from readers (or soon to be readers), give writing advice, connect with other writers, etc. Google+ has some great writing communities to connect with as well. I have learned SO much from those groups.

B) Start a blog. I didn't know anything about blogging but I started one anyway and have really enjoyed it. Your blog is a public site and can be viewed by anyone. All the social media sites can be linked to it. Use your blog for the same reasons as the social media sites but go more in depth. Today's post is part of my Thursdays with the Author posts that I write every week. I answer reader questions and write advice posts for authors. I also use my blog to give sneak peeks of upcoming works, announce promotions for already published works, and even random thoughts. But I try to keep the personal stuff off my blog.

C) If you're already published, make sure you have your author pages set up. If you published with Amazon (either CreateSpace or Kindle) you need to have an Author Central Page. Your Bio, blog, social media links, available books and current reviews are all listed on one site. Amazon offers this page for multiple countries so make sure you have one set up for all of them.

D) Create profiles on Goodreads and Shelfari (an Amazon company). These are great sites for readers and writers to connect. Also a great place for getting reviews. Even if you aren't published yet, start using these sites to write reviews for books you have read. The authors might do the same for you once you're published. You can also get an early start with fans by posting snippets of your projects here.

E) If you have the money, start your own website. There are some cheap options out there, especially if you know a little about setting it up but this option can get costly. Some authors wait for this option until they find a publisher since most publishers provide you with one anyway. Use the same techniques as the above-mentioned sites. Keep the personal stuff, unless it's relevant, off. For example, don't go on a political rant unless your next book is about politics. You can talk about your family and/or kids but don't bash your sister-in-law for pissing you off at Christmas. Got it?

F) Get started on a newsletter. You will use this in your writing career. You might not get a big mailing list until after you publish but it's good to have one already set up. Use your newsletter the same as the above sites but provide unique content only available to newsletter subscribers. You can get a bit more personal with your newsletter (still no bashing the in-laws and exes) but talking (in a good way) about your family is fine. Give sneak peeks and excerpts of your next novels. Have contest sign-ups for free books and/or prizes, etc. Having an already established newsletter will make things a lot easier once you're published. Newsletters can be released as often as you'd like just don't be guilty of spamming your readers. I release mine every 3 months or if I have a new release between newsletters. I use MailChimp since it's free until you get a huge mailing list but there are many options out there.



So those are some of my tips and tricks for going the traditional publishing route. Here's some websites I like to use that help with all of the tips listed above. There are MANY more sites out there with great information.

Kathy Carmichael
Gail Eastwood's Tips
Charlotte Dillon
First Novels Club Blog
Lisa Gardner
Writers Relief


Keep in mind, if you go with the traditional publishing route, your baby, that you've spent so much time creating, will no longer be your baby. You now have a literary agent, editor, publisher, etc. all investing their time, energy and personality into your creation. You won't have a publisher look at your book and say it's perfect the way it is and put it to print. It's not going to happen. Something will change. Even if it's just minor formatting or grammar. Sometimes it's huge. Like plot, or character development. If an agent or publisher has signed your book, you no longer have the say in what gets changed. That's not necessarily a bad thing either. Some books do need a lot of work to get them perfectly ready for sale but not all of them. 

I went with the self-publishing route after more than a few NO's and more than a few horror stories about what a writer's book is morphed into after a big publishing company gets their corporate claws on it. That's not the route I really wanted to take. But if you choose self-publishing, remember, you have to be just as picky about quality as a traditional publisher. It must be edited rigorously, critiqued and beta-read, and polished as perfectly as a corporate publisher would do themselves. The only difference is, YOU are in control of what you change. Not a team of strangers. At the same time, this can also be a bad thing. I've seen so many self-published books that look like they were written by high school students or worse. But I'll get into all of this in my next post: Part 2 - Self-Publishing and My Choices. I will discuss what you need to do to prepare for self-publishing and go into my choice of using CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing. 

I hope these tips help you out! Don't give up! Happy writing!