Time to Write

What are your novel's or screenplay's 3 magic words?

If you are writing a novel or screenplay, this is a simple way to make sure that it has the qualities that will attract readers and buyers. 

Lou Kunzler, who teaches the ‘writing for children’ workshop I attend, had this great suggestion: before you write anything, decide on three words that describe it in a way that will make people want to read it.

Put those words on a sticky note and put it where you can see it as you write, as a reminder that every chapter should fit that description.

For the novella I’m writing, I’d say something like “killer pursuit thriller”—it’s the story of a boy and his father on the run from people who want to kill the father.

That reminds me to make sure to keep up the pressure, to show how much is at stake, and to keep the action thrilling.

You could also choose three adjectives that don’t refer to the plot, just the writing itself, something like “funny, insightful, touching.”

If you are self-publishing you might also find the three words come in handy when you're coming up with the marketing materials for your ebook. However, when pitching or writing a query letter don't use too many adjectives but rather make sure the way you summarize or describe the project suggests those qualities. In other words, instead of writing in a letter to an agent that your book is "funny, insightful, and touching," make your description project those.

I think this strategy could extend to other kinds of goals as well. If you want to improve your health and fitness, what three words describe the result you’re after? Maybe energetic, flexible, strong, for example.

You could also apply it to the process you employ in pursuit of the goal. For you to stick to an exercise regime, for instance, what three words describe what it should be like? Maybe enjoyable, non-competitive, efficient (that is, gets results in minimum time)?

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Why some people shouldn't self-publish

I really liked what Guy Kawasaki said recently about good reasons and not-so-good reasons to self-publish a book. He pointed to the trend for people to write non-fiction books as a means to an end—typically to get more speaking engagements, more consulting clients, etc…rather than because you have something to say.

I’m on a lot of mailing lists (note to self: cut down!) and lately there has been a glut of people offering courses in “how to write a best-seller in a weekend” and similar topics.

They don’t dedicate much attention to whether or not you’re going to add anything valuable to the discussion.

If you’ve been wondering what their secret method is, I can save you a lot of money:

1. Pick a topic.
2. Look at the tables of content of similar books to get your chapter headings.
3. Reword what you’ve read, add a dash of Wikipedia, mix at high speed.
4. Bang out your rehash.
5. Get somebody at Fiverr.com to make you a cover for five dollars.
6. Create the e-book and list it on Amazon.
7. Get as many people as possible to all order it on the same day. You may have to bribe them with something they get when they send you the Amazon receipt as proof they bought it on the right day.
8. If enough people have done number 7, achieve number one ranking in your niche or sub-niche for several hours
9. Tell everybody you’re the author of a “number one best-seller”

The more people that do that, the more cluttered things get and the harder it is to find the books that do actually have something new to say or at the very least a fresher approach to what’s been said before.

(If you do want to write a book, you'll find friendly guidance from my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite books seller.)

 

A phrase I often use in my writing workshops is, “Write what only you can write.” This trend is based on “Write what anybody could write if they have a free weekend.” I hope more people will adopt the former.

 

By the way, this kind of thing isn’t so typical in fiction, but recently I encountered a clever internet marketer who is coming up with plots for horror books and outsourcing the writing. He’s even using Fiverr, paying people five dollars to write a chapter. I’m not optimistic that this is a great way to get a well-written book, and I can’t imagine that it brings any creative satisfaction. I could be wrong…but I doubt it.

The best writer's success strategy

Below is an item from a list written by an online marketer who calls himself Johnny B Truant.

The best moneymaking and success strategy is to be awesome. It’s amazing how many people fret about perfecting their marketing strategy when what they have to offer is total shit. Sure, marketing and SEO and positioning matter… but only once you are producing awesome stuff. No matter how many times we talk about marketing funnels or KDP Select promotion strategy on the podcast, the bottom-line advice always boils down to, “Keep writing awesome books that people love.” That philosophy applies to everything.

 This resonates with me especially because I was approached recently to work on a book series that has a lot of promotional angles to it, but when I read the description of the actual content, it was terrible, so I declined.

It's easy to get so hung up on marketing--which certainly is important--that sometimes core quality gets lost. We have to  remind ourselves that while hooks and gimmicks can help sell things, we have to be careful not to let the marketing dictate the content, or at least not to the point where it hurts the quality. This can be very hard when we are working for someone else so we owe it to ourselves even more to to do it when we do our own work.

(Want to learn how to focus and overcome procrastination? Get my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

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The writer who went on the road to promote his book (part 1)

Be a writer right now!

Korean novelist Yung-ha Kim gave a TED talk entitled "Be an Artist Right Now."

He pointed out that there are many reasons that we, as adults, resist the impulse we may feel to tell stories. One is that it seems daunting to write something as long as a novel or screenplay. In answer to that, he quoted Roland Barthes on how Flaubert wrote: "Flaubert did not write a novel. He merely connected one sentence after another. The eros between sentences, that is the essence of Flaubert's novels."

Yung-ha Kim said, "That's right--a novel, basically, is writing one sentence, then, without violating the scope of the first one, writing the next sentence. And you continue to make connections."

Maybe that makes it sound too simple, but I've found that often when a book or a screenplay doeasn't work it's because the story takes a sudden turn in the direction of what the writer thought might be an interesting scene but that in some way betrays what went before. 

If you're hesitating about writing, start now with one page. Tomorrow write another one. If at some point you feel ready to work out the rest of the story, go for it. Otherwise keep following one page with another and have faith.

(The great writers like Dickens and Austen and Twain had advice to help writers. I've collected it all and added tips on how to apply that advice to your own novel or script. The book is called "Your Creative Writing Masterclass" and you can buy it right now at Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

A great example of a slick book website

Sometimes people ask me what should an author's website should look like and what its content should be. There are several functions an author's website can serve:

* to tell about the author - you could have a general, interesting bio for readers who are curious, and a more comprehensive media page with a downloadable photo, some interviews with you (even if you have to make them up yourself), press clippings if you have any, an extended bio (with emphasis on anything unusual reporters can use as a hook), your availability for interviews or events, any positive reviews, and of course contact information. 

* to whet readers' appetite for a forthcoming book. You could include relevant images (e.g., if you did research somewhere and took photos), some character bios, an intriguing paragraph or two about the plot, etc.)

* to provide an experience to supplement the reading of the book. This might include character biographies, "deleted scenes" from your novel, articles about how and why you chose to write this story, an audio or video interview with you, games, puzzles, contests, etc.

An excellent--but not cheap--example of a site that does this is http://www.finishingschoolbooks.com/

It's the site for a new series of books with the umbrella title "Finishing School," aimed at a Young Adult audience. Here's a a screen shot of part of the home page:

As you'll see if you go to the site, it took some skill and expense to create. My guess is the publisher was willing to foot the bill because this site will service a series of books, not just one, and the author, Gail Carriger, is already well established. Here is her whimsical bio from the site:

New York Times Bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She survived her early years by reading most of her local library and memorizing Greek battles. Eventually, she escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in Higher Learning. In pursuit of further finishing, Ms. Carriger traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She now resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London.

This is a good example of a bio that has the same tone as the books the site promotes. Matching the style of your book (funny bio if your book is amusing, for instance) creates a more enjoyable experience for the visitor.

Unless you have a fair amount of money at your disposal, probably you won't be able to come up with a site with this many bells and whistles. However, it can still serve as a good model for a light-hearted approach. If you can find a student interested in practicing his or her After Effects skills, even the limited animations on this site wouldn't be difficult to emulate.

Take a close look at the sites of a variety of authors so you can discover for yourself what works, what doesn't, and what you can take them them in order to construct your own. If you're curious about how they achieved a particular effect, don't be afraid to write to them; most authors are glad to help.

(Do you need ideas for how to market your book? You'll find chapters on both traditional and guerrilla marketing for writers in my book, "Your Writing Coach." It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)

The writer who went on the road to promote his book (part 2)

In the previous post I told the story of Ron Tanner, who did a forty-state, sixty-city book tour to promote his book, ““From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story,” about the refurbishment of an old fraternity house.

 Did he make any profit?

 How many books did he sell? In the article he says he’s still trying to figure that out. I’m not sure why he doesn’t have at least an educated guess, so I’m going to risk making one.

 He made 60 appearances. Let’s say the average attendance was 15. That’s 900 people, let’s round that up to 1000. How many of those bought? My guess would be ten percent, or 100.

 The book costs $25, so if he bought them at the author’s rate he probably made $5 on each one. That would make his take a total of $500, which would have been less than he spent on gas and other expenses.

So, net profit: zero or possibly minus a few hundred dollars. He did get exposure via his media appearances, and now via the article I’m quoting. It’s possible that the effort will stimulate some follow-on sales. That might just put him into the black if you don’t count the cost of his time for four months.

Other benefits

 However, money is not the only way to measure something like this. In an article In Poets and Writers Magazine, Tanner writes, “If you think that a book tour should make money and/or you should easily recoup your expenses, then stay home and query book bloggers. If, on the other hand, you believe that by putting yourself in motion, by meeting as many people as you can, you will be better off as a writer, then the DIY book tour is for you.” He mentions that it can be done on weekends if you don’t want to commit four months the way he did.

The book tour that made Wayne Dyer rich

In 1976 Wayne Dyer wrote a self-help book called Your Erroneous Zones (a play on the title of a sex book popular at the time, Your Erogenous Zones). The book was going nowhere and the publisher was not promoting it so Dyer took matters into his own hands.  

Dyer quit his teaching job and for six months drove his station wagon across the United States. He went onto local radio and TV stations and did interviews with local and regional newspapers. He took a load of books with him and convinced book store owners to put it in their windows ahead of his media appearances. When he ran out of books his wife shipped more ahead to the next town.

It worked. The publisher realized that they were getting a lot of orders for this book and decided to back it with publicity and promotion as well.

The book has sold an estimated 35 million copies and is still in print. It was on the New York Times best-seller list for 64 weeks and paved the way for Dyer to write many more self-help books and become one of the top personal development speakers in the world.

What’s the difference?

Why was Dyer’s tour such a spectacular success compared to Tanner’s?

Book publishing and sales have changed. There are fewer book stores and, as Tanner points out, many independents are struggling and don’t have the time or money to promote speakers. Also when books don’t sell right away they tend to return them to the publishers to get their money back, so the books doesn’t stay on display or on the shelves for as long as they used to.

Dyer’s book had a wider appeal, Tanner’s is more of a niche interest. Most people are interested in improving themselves and their relationships. Compared to that, relatively few want to pay $25 to read about house being refurbished. Niche books do break out from time to time, but it’s a long shot.

There are fewer newspapers and people’s attention is more fragmented. Back in 1976 if you were interviewed in a local newspaper or appeared on a local television show probably you reached a majority of the adults in that community. Now a lot of those newspapers are gone and TV viewership is down.  A panellist at the recent Digital Book World conference in New York said these days only 10% of book awareness comes from traditional media.

What’s the lesson for authors?

A cross-country tour sounds like quite an adventure and may not be without potential payoffs for certain kinds of books. However, as Tanner says, if your goal is to sell the most copies, it’s not the way to go. These days the internet is where to find readers, even though four months in a room working on Facebook and Twitter doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as a road trip with a basset hound.

(These days it requires guerrilla marketing to make an impact. You’ll find a chapter on that, as well as a chapter on traditional marketing, in my book, “Your Writing Coach.” It’s published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three revealing quotes about writing--and life

Today I wanted to share three quotes about writing and about life.

"I read and I walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." -- Anna Quindlen

That one hits home for me; I used to wander around the Stanford campus late at night when I was a student there, sometimes feeling like I was in a movie but not knowing whether it was a comedy or a tragedy. Come on, those are the years when it's easy to imagine yourself as some kind of doomed hero because you don't yet have a mortgage to think about and you doubt you'll ever make it to old age (40) anyway. I think it did occur to me that the person who had to step out of the darkness could be me, or even that it had to be me, I just didn't know how--but it always seemed to involve writing.

"You fail only if you stop writing" -- Ray Bradbury

Bradbury never did stop writing, not until he stopped breathing. He gave you the feeling they were pretty much the same thing.

After the 99th rejection or a few particularly frustrating incidents it can be tempting to stop, but one thing I've found helpful is to switch to a different genre or even a totally different type of writing for a while.

I've spent a lot of my career writing scripts but when I got fed up with some of the more aggravating aspects of that, I switched to writing non-fiction books.

At the moment I'm back to writing a script, but also trying out something totally new for me, a young adult novel.

Yes, it's good to focus your efforts because breaking in to any type of writing is a challenge and you don't want to spread yourself too thin. However, sometimes it's healthy. As the saying goes, sometimes a change is as good as a rest.

"Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with completely different people." - Roald Dahl

Being in a different place with completely different people is what made me love reading, and makes me love writing.

With a few exceptions, I've avoided writing (or reading, or seeing films) about serial killers, child molesters, and murderers, mostly because these are not people I want to spend time with.

If you do enjoy vicariously confronting horrible people, perhaps making sure they get their comeuppance more often than is the case with their real-life counterparts, that's great, too.

Either way, I hope you're taking advantage of our unique ability as writers to create worlds and people to live within and to share with thousands or even millions of our fellow escapees.

(For writing advice from the finest writers, including Dickens, Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as modern masters like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, get a copy of my book, "Your Creative Writing Masterclass," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

 

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Want to sell your novel, screenplay, or non-fiction book? Give them a sample.

What works in the supermarket can also help you to sell your writing, whether that's a novel, a screeplay, or a non-fiction book. 

I'm talking about the samples tray--you try a little of that cheese or that sausage or cookie, you like it, and before you know it in your shopping basked you've got three packs that you never would have bought otherwise. In terms of writing, here are some of the ways you can let people sample your work.

If you're a novelist:

* short stories published as an ebook

* short stories or sample chapters published on a sharing site like Wattpad

* sample chapters of your novel on your web site

If you're a non-fiction book author:

* articles on related topics published in newspapers or magazines

* a relevant blog you establish, and guest posts on other blogs

* samples on your web site

If you're a screenwriter:

* short films for which you write the script, produced by you 

* short films produced from your script by others (check local film schools--they often have directing/producing students looking for scripts to work with)

* a graphic novel (or chapter of one) based on your script (graphic design and illustrations students who aren't writers may do this cheaply or for their portfolio-naturally you should make a deal to pay them if and when you make any money from this)

* spec scripts in the genre in which you're strongest

Most people are reluctant to take a chance on someone new but if your samples demonstrate your skills you'll find it much easier to win them over.

(For lots of tips on marketing your work, see "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)

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Does your book or script have to have a happy ending?

Publishers and producers tend to favor books and scripts that have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean it has to be soppy. Here's what novelist Celia Ahern ("P.S. I Love You") said about that in an interview with The Bookseller (July 2012):

I suppose I start them in such a dark place and I want to bring them to a light, positive place. Even when I write about something sad I want to inject it with humour. I do always want to bring things to a good, honest, positive place realistically without being sweetie and saccharine and all that. 

While I want positive endings, I don't want conventional happy endings. I just want the character to wake up and feel hopeful that they can face the day. To me that's a happy ending.

Ultimately, of course, it's the rest of the story that will determine whether or not you have a happy ending, but I think her definition gives us all a lot of leeway.

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Why to start your novel inside-out

Author and agent Chuck Sambuchino recently made an important observation about modern novels: they should start inside and go out. In other words, you start with a character and his or her actions and thoughts, and then place them in a setting.

Many of the great novels—from a time when readers had more time or at least more patience—started outside and then went into a character. You’d have several pages of description of the landscape, the weather, and maybe the ancestry of the protagonist before you ever met him or her.

If you want to grab readers, focus on what we find most interesting: people. Introduce us to someone who find intriguing, or lovable, or mysterious, or fascinatingly evil. Make us wonder what’s going on with them. Then, when you’ve hooked us, you’ll have the luxury of describing the setting and other aspects of their lives.

Of course I’ve overstated the case; not every book needs to start with a shocking or mysterious event featuring the protagonist, but many writers err in the other direction, assuming that we’ll stick around to meet the main characters once the authors have finished setting the scene.

(For friendly guidance on all aspects of writing, get a copy of my book "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)