Time to Write

How writers can have more luck

Richard Wiseman has made a career of studying what differentiates lucky people from unlucky ones. Or should that be people who consider themselves lucky vs. those who don’t? It would be interesting, if difficult, to have a neutral observer see if the number of fortunes and misfortunes are actually any different, or whether it’s all about attitude.

Anyway, in his book, “The Luck Factor,”  Wiseman identifies some of the differences and I thought it might be interesting to consider how taking on some of the habits of the lucky might apply to writing.

Lucky people are more relaxed and see what is there, rather than trying to find what they see.

This sounds especially important in the fast-changing world of publishing. One useful mental exercise might be to put aside what we know about this field and pretend we’re learning about it for the first time, based on what’s happening today.

Lucky people tend to be more extroverted so they have the more chance encounters and more possibilities of positive developments.

This could translate into attending writing conferences and other events that relate to the various aspects of writing. If you’re really shy, at least these days you can do a  fair amount of this online.

Lucky people treat failure as a chance to learn and then move on to other ways of solving the problem.

Boy, do we ever need this one! Rejection is a big part of the career of even a successful writer.

I’ve found two things helpful: always having more than one project on the go, and reframing a rejection as just one incident in a long series of things that happen around a project. It’s not the end of the line.

By the way, this latter point is why I’m reluctant now to get involved in projects where I don’t have the rights. Unless you’re being well paid upfront, doing something like writing a script based on a book to which the producer has the rights is risky. If the producer doesn’t like the script or gets absorbed in another project, you don’t have the right to keep trying to market the script.

Lucky people expect their interactions with others to be lucky and successful.

As many studies have shown, a big factor in whether people like you is whether or not they think you like them. If someone is too guarded and suspicious or negative that can keep others away. Fewer interactions = fewer opportunities for good luck (at this stage the pessimist may be saying, “and fewer opportunities for disappointment”…)

OR, AS YOUR GRANDMA PROBABLY PUT IT…

I suppose a lot of this boils down the old sayings*, “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” and “You see what you expect to see.” If you consider yourself unlucky it could be useful to check whether you fit the descriptions above—and what you might do about it if you don’t. Who knows—that could be your lucky day.

(Another lucky day is when you get your copy of "Your Writing Coach." It doesn't even require luck, just an order placed with Amazon or your other favorite book sellers.)

How writers and others can use mantras

The word “mantra” may remind you of the Maharishi and the smell of patchouli oil but they can be useful in a practical non-hippie way. One time to use them is when you are talking an agent or a publisher or anyone else who might be helpful to you in reaching one of your goals.

Referring to a workshop he attended, performance coach Angus McLeod wrote in Rapport: "We role-played a board presentation with four presenters. Each presenter was given a covert mantra [to repeat silently between sentences] and the board, subsequently, was asked to guess what the mantras might be."

The result: "It is clear that the taking up of a simple thought/mantra makes a very significant difference to our way of being and expression and interaction with others. It also demonstrated how phenomenally acute the human mind is at intuitively recognizing subliminal messages."

In other words, it worked.

HERE'S HOW TO DO IT

The next time you want to create a particular mental and physical state for a task, give yourself a mantra - something like "calm" if you're usually nervous during that task, or "love" or "understanding" when dealing with someone who normally exasperates you.

Repeat it silently and notice the difference it makes to you - and probably to any other people involved even though they will have no idea what you're doing.

(Now repeat after me: “I will buy Jurgen’s book, ‘Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done.'” Repeat until you have ordered it from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)

 

 

How can you tell whether a collaboration will work?

The other evening I attended a group of people practicing various arts—photography, writing, acting, etc.—who are interested in collaborating.  I made a suggestion that, to my surprise, stirred up a few of them.

I suggested we set a broad theme for a small project that we would do either individually or as a collaboration with one or more others. Then we could put together all the things people came up with and that would be a collaboration, too.

A few of the members recoiled at this suggestion.

One said he doesn’t like to do exercises.

Another said he has to get to know people for maybe six months, to find out what they are all about, before he would even consider a collaboration.

Maybe this was a clash of cultures. I’m from Germany originally although I grew up in the States and have lived in the UK for over 20 years.  All those countries tend to have a 'let's get on with it' approach. The objectors were from the Latin countries which typically take a more leisurely approach.

ONE GOAL, TWO VIEWS

Our goals were not actually different. I also want to get to know someone and what they are all about but I think the best way to do that is to look at the art they produce and to try out a short-term collaboration.

Spend a month drinking coffee or wine with somebody and you’ll find out what they’d like to do or what they think they do. Spend an hour looking at their work or a day trying to collaborate and you’ll learn what they actually do.

ARE ARTISTIC EXERCISES MEANINGLESS?

In turn, I was shocked by their rejection of an exercise as something that has no meaning.

One thing I realized after a few years of writing a variety of scripts (sitcoms, TV movies, stage plays) is that even if you are assigned a topic, parts of you will shine through. You can’t help it.

It’s tempting to dismiss each other’s viewpoints but sometimes the best collaboration comes from understanding a different way of looking at things.

Maybe I’ll make my exercise having coffee with the objectors.

They won’t know it, but we’ll be collaborating.

(Collaboration is one of the many topics you’ll find covered in my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or you other favorite book seller.)

 

What to read if you want to write better

If you want to write, read--familiar advice. Naturally you want to read the classic authors and the best authors in your genre, but I want to add one more tip to that. 

If you’re not the scientific type, get a copy of “Best American Science Writing 2011,” published by HarperCollins/Ecco Press.

That’s right, I said if you’re NOT a scientific type.

I believe we can learn from the best writing of any kind. For instance, if you’re a fiction writer, you want to capture the reader’s attention with a dramatic opening. How’s this:

“We’re swinging on anchor this afternoon as powerful bursts of wind blow down through the Makua Valley and out to sea. The gales stop and start every 15 minutes, as abruptly as if a giant on the far side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu were switching a fan on and off. We sail at the gusts' mercy, listing hard to starboard, then snapping hard against the anchor chain before recoiling to port. The intermittent tempests make our work harder and colder. We shiver during the microbursts, sweat during the interludes, then shiver again from our own sweat.”

That’s the opening of “BP’s Deep Secrets: the BP Cover-up,” one of the essays included in the collection, written by Julia Whitty and originally published in Mother Jones Magazine.

There are lots of others you can find—collections of writing on travel, music, science and nature,  food, sports, even mathematics (I confess I haven’t been brave enough to tackle that last one).

Pick one that's outside your normal area of writing and interest—you may find some approaches you can adapt to your particular type of writing (plus you’ll learn a lot).

(Of course it also helps to read books about the writing process such as....let me see if I can think of one at random...oh yes, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available now from Amazon and other booksellers.)

Author Solutions Publishing: Solution...or Problem to Beware?

                                                 THE MILLION $ SOLUTION?

Author Solutions, the self-publishing house, has announced it has started a film development fund with $1 million of seed money to acquire film rights to titles by its authors.

CEO Kevin Weiss said they already have one project “in the works” but didn’t give the name of the book. He also said the author involved has an agent but didn't reveal the agent’s name, either.

Normally a million dollar fund like this would be good news for writers, but there are so many complaints out there about Author Solutions that I have to admit some skepticism.

COMPLAINTS GALORE

I have no personal experience with Author Solutions but Victoria Strauss of the “Writer Beware” site knows what she’s talking about and in 2009 she described Author Solutions as a “dishonest vanity press service, parading as a self-publishing service.”

You will also find a large number of complaints on the web about late payment, lack of attention from their reps, etc.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

In light of those complaints, I was surprised that Writer’s Digest, which used to have a good reputation, in early 2011 entered into an agreement with Author Solutions to establish a self-publishing division named Abbott Press.

I’m guessing the magazine is suffering the same recessionary pressure as many other publications and went for the money. They’ve received revenue from ads for vanity publishers for years; this is one bigger step down that path. It's hard to be impartial or champion your readers when you depend on ad revenue and even are in a partnership with companies against which the readers may have a complaint.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

It’s not only your money but the success or failure of your books that’s at stake, so as usual my advice is do your own research.

Check what people are writing on the web—yes, there are always a few disgruntled souls not matter what, but if the number of complaints is large then there’s a reason.

Get in touch with authors who have used the company's services—not just the  ones they may suggest you contact. Ask what their experience was like and if they’ve found it profitable and satisfying to deal with the company in question.

Finally, before you sign up with a self-publishing company for large sums--ranging form $999 to $2999 in the case of Abbott--educate yourself about the alternatives. The veteran expert in this is Dan Poynter—Google him and you’ll find a lot of free material that will clue you in.

A little effort before you sign on the dotted line can save you a lot of time, trouble, and money.

And let's all keep our eyes open for what happens with that million dollar fund.

(For friendly support for taking your book all the way from idea through to publication, get my book, "Your Writing Coach," from Amazon or you other favorite book seller.)

 

What to do if you have too many writing (or other) ideas

If you’re a writer, you’re used to people asking you where you get all your ideas. Most writers have the opposite problem: too many ideas.

Of course  generating new ideas is the easy  part, acting on the right ones is more difficult. I love having  ideas,  but  can only act on a few of them at a time without spreading myself too thin - perhaps you can relate.

My method is to have a file for the ideas that I can’t act on right now. For me that’s a Word file when I’m at home and a notebook when I’m not but you may prefer to record audio memos, or draw a mind map, or use a list-making app on your phone.

If you record all the ideas that come to you, you’re not stopping the welcome flow of inspiration. Probably only one out of ten or even one out of hundred ultimately will be worth bringing to fruition but we usually don’t know that at the moment of conception. I’ve had many golden ideas that after a few days mysteriously had turned into lead—reverse alchemy.

Every few weeks or so you can review your file. Adopt the frame of mind  of  a constructive critic. Consider which ideas might enhance something to which you are  already committed, which ones might be good choices for implementation   when you are  done  with  your  current commitments, and the rest.

Don't throw away the rest, review them  once  every  few  months. Sometime it’s a matter of timing--something that doesn't seem like a good idea now may be a great one later on.

Then, when people ask where you get your ideas, you can tell them you have a secret stash that never runs out.

(Want ways to get even more ideas, or to help you refine the ones you already have? Get a copy of my book, “Creativity Now!”. It’s published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other good book sellers.)

 

How to write a great Halloween ghost story

I had an email from a budding young writer asking if I had any advice on how to write a good Halloween ghost story. Here’s what I came up with, maybe it’ll be useful for other students who have to write one, or to a teacher or parent who wants to make one up.

1: Create a likeable character who will be meeting the ghost. This could be the person that the reader identifies with. If we see the story through this person’s eyes and we feel they’re like us, we’ll be scared when they’re scared.

2: Create an interesting ghost. Usually it’s a child who died in that house or an old man or women or a soldier. A ghost could be anybody or anything—it could be the ghost of a dog, or a now extinct animal, or any kind of person.

3: Give the ghost a reason for what its doing. If it wants to frighten everybody, why? If it needs help, what unfinished business does it have on earth? Try to come up with something unusual. It could be funny—maybe the person died in the middle of watching a movie and won’t able to rest until they find out how the movie ends. Unfortunately it’s not available on DVD and nobody can remember the ending…

4: Think about interesting ways that the ghost could be scaring people. Saying boo or just materializing or moving stuff around is so old school. What if it haunts your character’s iPhone and sends nasty messages to all their friends? Or maybe it’s a ghost kid and it can take control of your main character’s father and mother and make them act like children.

5: Give your character a good personal reason for wanting to help the ghost. How is what the ghost is doing causing a problem for your character? Make sure that something terrible (or terrible in a funny way if you’re writing it as a comedy) will happen if your character fails to help or get rid of the ghost. Figure out a way to put a deadline on it—if the plan doesn’t succeed by midnight, the terrible thing will happen.

6: Come up with a clever solution for your character to use. Again, make up something a little different from the usual finding a hidden object in the attic or saying a spell. If the attempt to carry out the mission is dangerous, so much the better. The ghost doesn’t have to be the only scary thing in your story.  

7. As you write, remember that you can get scares without resorting to blood and guts. Let's say our character is a girl named Leah. She goes to bed for the night. She feels cold so she closes the window. She gets back into bed, turns out the light. Her feet feel cold and then the cold creeps up her body in the darkness. She wonders if she’s coming down with the flu. And then it’s her ear that gets very cold, but it’s as though the cold is just near her ear, very near…and she hears a whisper: “Leah…help me.” Now, you can add some details to make that work much better, but I hope you can imagine that whisper could be just as scary as seeing a ghost with a sword or a knife.

8. See if you can come up with a twist to the ending. Instead of ending on the ghost’s problem being solved, for example, maybe then your character gets the ghost to get even with a bully (of course you’d have to include the bully earlier in the story). 

Naturally this is only one way to write a ghost story. You could also write it from the viewpoint of the ghost. It could be about a ghost who has their own Facebook page and haunts people who don't "friend" it--maybe it needs to collect 100 Facebook friends by midnight on Halloween or else it will never be allowed to rest.  Or… you get the idea. Your turn!

Want more ghost story writing tips? Here they are:

Here’s what Susan Hill who wrote the scary stage play, “The Woman in Black” suggests: http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/2007/10/how-to-write-a-.html

Here’s what Joe Hill, writer of “Heart Shaped Box: and “Horns” advises:

http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/2010/10/how-to-write-a-great-ghost-story-part-1.html

And here’s what Neil Gaiman (“Sandman”) has to say about scaring kids: 
http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/2010/10/how-to-write-a-great-ghost-story-part-2-_neil-gaiman-says.html Edit

(If you’d like more help with writing, see my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other book sellers.) 

 

How writing free articles can pay off

In my previous post I explained why I don't think it makes sense for real writers to write for the extremely low-paying article supply sites like iWriter. There are ways, though, that writing articles for nothing can pay off.

One way is to submit them to article distribution sites like ezinearticles.com, who offer them to others for free distribution, but only if they agree to also run your brief bio and links back to any website you specify.

You don’t get paid for these articles, but if you are selling a product or service these articles lead people to the site where they can find out about that and buy from you. (Here’s more information, along with an example, of promoting your writing and yourself by writing articles.)

On your own blog or website high-quality articles help you establish a reputation for knowing what you write about. If you may be interested in doing lectures or book-related appearances, or teaching, or you approach agents and others, a collection of strong articles at your site can be beneficial.

Sometimes articles or blog posts come together nicely enough to turn them into a book--which paid off very nicely for Julie Powell whose blog was turned into a book and then a major film called "Julie and Julia."

ARTICLE WRITING TIPS

I have a few tips that might help (click on these to see them):

One about the key thing to remember about articles for the web now that our attention spans are shrinking like a Primark t-shirt (don’t write to me, Primark, I’m sure your t-shirts are great, but a guy has to use a simile once in a while)

One that claims to give you 13 tips but it’s misleading (for a good cause)

One that shows you how you can make your material go a lot farther.

One that shows you how a writer makes enough money from his online newsletter to support himself—and how he does it by "selling" only once a year.

These should be enough to inspire you to figure out how article writing best fits into your writing life, whether for profit, reputation-building, or attracting readers. 

(Want friendly guidance in writing articles or your book or screenplay? Pick up a copy of my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other book sellers.)

Make money writing articles for the web?

Would you like to make money writing articles for the web? Or are you in the market for articles written by others?

This has traditionally been a playground for scamsters. You can read my post about realwritingjobs.com—it’s one of the most popular ones I’ve written and I’m happy to say that the comments show that it has saved some people money and trouble.

There’s a new service called iWriter that is not a scam but has been making a bit of a splash—for better or for worse.

They say you can use their service to get articles written for you for between $2 and $5. They check them on copyscape (which is a handy site if you want to check whether something has been plagiarized) to make sure the content is original.

Not surprisingly, most of the writers who have signed up come from parts of the world where $5 goes farther than it does in the UK or US. Even so, they have to work pretty fast—in fact, if they agree to do an article they have to turn it in to the site within two hours or it’s given to somebody else.

Their top producer has written more than 500 articles already.  I’m guessing most of these writers find the topic on Wikipedia and quickly reword that entry.

ARE THESE EVEN READABLE? 

What kind of quality can you expect? From the reviews I’ve found, variable. You can reject an article within 48 hours if you’re not satisfied and I get the impression that happens quite a bit. However there are also buyers who found the quality fine.

I’m guessing that a lot of these articles are being used to add content to sites in order to rank higher on Google, rather than necessarily to impress the people who visit the site.

For example, a site selling fitness supplements might commission a hundred articles on various fitness topics and schedule them to be added to their blog one per day. Or a new site might put on a while bunch at the start so the site looks more well-established.

WHY THIS IS NOT YOUR COMPETITION 

As somebody who features articles on his sites I wouldn’t be tempted. I’m presenting myself as a writer/ writing coach/ writing teacher, so I’m not interested in generic articles churned out in a hurry. If you want your articles to be a reflection of you and the quality you provide, I doubt that you’ll be temped, either.

As a writer I’m also not thrilled by iWriter and by their rates of pay. However, outsourcing is a fact of life now and even at these terrible rates writers in Third World countries probably will make more than the average wage there. It’s not a generous rate of pay but it’s not quite child labour in a sweatshop, either.

These folks are not competing with you and me. They’re competing with the “spin” software that takes one article and turns it into several semi-coherent variations, according the key words in it. (Here's a funny real example). Google is getting better at detecting these and not using them for ranking, so you’ll see more services like iWriter. But I think real writers don’t have to lose any sleep over this development.

 Next post: how writing free articles can pay off

(For friendly guidance on writing, get my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other book sellers.)

 

What Alice Walker says about writing and life (

On the occasion of the first ebook edition of her best-known book, The Color Purple, Alice Walker talks about her work, the transformative power of writing, and what "winning" is for a writer in this short (2 minute) interview:

 

 

 

You might also like this longer interview with writer and writing guru Natalie Goldberg, in which she also talks about writing about the difficult parts of life.

(To win you have to write what only you can write. My book, "Your Writing Coach," gives you friendly guidance all the way from idea to publication. You can get it now from Amazon and other book sellers, in hard copy or Kindle format.)

This book trailer is amusing...but will it sell the book?

Apparently Timothy Hutton likes to read and to Tweet about what he reads, and that led to him agreeing to appear in a book trailer for Julie Klam (“You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness” and “Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself” ), who he knew only via Twitter. He plays a jerky version of himself. It’s amusing, but will it sell books? I don’t think so; for that, they might have been better of with Lassie. But see what you think (and if you want to find out the 5 keys to creating an effective book trailer, see this post.)

http://videos.nymag.com/video/Timothy-Hutton-Stars-in-His-Fir

 

 

Are you ignoring the writer's responsibility?

The other day I met a woman who said she used to love to write but couldn't find time for it these days because she was raising three young children on her own. She planned to return to it when they were older. I asked how long that would be. "The youngest is four, so I guess at least another ten years or so."

Raising children, especially on your own, is a huge responsibility but I wonder whether the responsibility referred to in the quote above isn't a pretty big one, too.

I'm not suggesting that she put the kids up for adoption or let them turn feral, only that she works out a way to find a couple of hours a week to do something she loves to do and that allows her to express her creativity in another way (I know that raising kids well requires a high level of creativity, too).

Maybe that could come through bartering with another single mother, or asking a family member to help out.

I got the sense she'd consider that selfish. It's an attitude I encounter mostly in women, even young women--that insisting on a bit of time for something meaningful for yourself is not right, that other's needs come first. 

If you're putting off writing or expressing your creativity in some other way because you have too many obligations to other people, maybe reframing "responsibility" to include the kind referred to in the quote offers a different perspective. 

What writers can learn from Domino's Pizza

It may sound strange to say that a pizza company has a useful lesson for writers who want to do better at their craft or at marketing their books, but here's the deal:

Recently Domino’s Pizza did something extraordinary in the ad world: they made a series of ads basically confessing that their pizza wasn’t very good and that they’re now improving the taste, the delivery system, pretty much everything.

Initially the USP for Domino’s was that you’d get your pizza within 30 minutes of ordering or it would be free. They got started around college campuses where students who’d been partaking of dope would get urgent munchies. The fast delivery and the chance it might even be free was a big draw. Taste wasn’t that important.

Times changed and Dominos lost market share. Lots of products try to tell you that they have a “new, improved” version but few admit that their product was kind of crappy and it’s time for a big change.

What can writers (and others) learn from this?

I think if there’s something you have been doing poorly, instead of beating yourself up over it, or trying to sweep it under the carpet it’s best to come clean to yourself and decide what you’re going to do differently from now on.  You have three choices:

“I haven’t done this well, I don’t want to do it, I’m not going to do it, and I can live with the consequences.”

Or

“I haven’t done this well, I don’t want to do it, and I’m going to start clean now and figure out how to have somebody else do it for me.”

Or

“I haven’t done this well, I’m going to start clean now, learn how to do it , and do it!”

For example, let’s say you have an ebook out there but you’ve only made a few desultory attempts to market it: a Tweet here, a Facebook note there, and one guest post on a blog.

You could decide you hate Twitter and Facebook and all that social media stuff. You’re not going to do it. Instead, you’ll use old-school methods and if that costs you some potential sales, so be it.

Or you could decide to hire somebody to do the online marketing work for you, for instance a bright college student who is savvy about social media. You could even approach the marketing professors at your local university and offer your product as the subject to be used in a case study—you might just get results for free.

Or you could decide to go deeper into it, learn what works, figure out how to make it something you don’t mind doing, and then do it consistently.(By the way, if marketing your work is a challenge for you, see this post about the ways a few authors are doing it differently.)

I guarantee that you’ll feel better no matter which of these options you choose, because you’ll be letting go of any guilt and the constant nagging feeling that there’s something you really should be doing but aren’t.

Then you can order a pizza to reward yourself (Sorry, Domino’s, I still prefer Pizza Hut).

There are a lot of strategies for working smart in my book, “Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done.” You can buy it now from Amazon or your other favorite online or offline bookseller.

 

The scams and cons that target writers (and others) & the warning signs

The reason behind this post is that there are people out there eager to con you via your desire to be a writer, to self-publish or get published, and to reach people with your work. At the end I’ll have some tips about the warning signs writers need to look out for in order to avoid getting scammed, but first let me take a step back and share with you two other interesting stories in a different field.

These stories come from a post by copywriter Doberman Dan about how internet marketing gurus make the worst clients and, more importantly, how they’re often not telling the truth about themselves.

THE MULTIMILLIONAIRE WHO HAD NO MONEY

One such guru was selling nutritional supplements and going around the country selling a $2000 course and bragging about “a multi-million dollar health and wellness business.” But when it came time to pay for the copywriting Doberman Dan did for him he ducked him for months and then said he couldn’t pay because he didn’t have any money. DD did some research and found out that the guru was averaging $12,000 a month in sales—not bad but hardly enough a multi-million dollar business. He was lying twice: he did have money, but not as much as he claimed in his ads.

THE MAN WHO REVEALS WHAT “THEY” DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

The second guru has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in infomercials selling “how to make money” and nutritional products. The product for which he wanted copy written is a 14-CD program that basically offers instant riches, based on secret “information that the wealthy, powerful and influential don’t want you to know.” The promise: “It’s virtually IMPOSSIBLE TO FAIL once you know and use the secrets!”

That would be handy, wouldn’t it? Yet this guru decided not to use DD’s services because he charged too much. Wait a minute…why not just use the secret information and generate a few million extra? (For the record, DD didn’t plan to take the job anyway and named a big number just to see what they’d say.)

WHAT HE PROBABLY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW 

DD doesn’t reveal the names of these two but it wasn’t difficult to figure out that the second one is Kevin Trudeau. On the sales page for the CD set, Trudeau says he used to be a member of “The Brotherhood” but decided to break his silence and make these miraculous methods available to anybody who is willing to send him some money.

Wait! Am I foolishly mocking the very system that, according to the sales page, could teach me to become “a millionaire or EVEN a billionaire, improve my health, experience quality business/personal relationships and live the life [I’ve] only dreamed of”?

It’s not like there’s no proof—the site specifically says that “A lawyer named Bill (from Indiana) made over 2 million dollars in 24 months.” I’m glad they mentioned that Bill is from Indiana. Otherwise I might have been sceptical that he’s a real person.

Mr Trudeau says he “decided to risk his life and reveal the closely guarded secrets.” I hope there isn’t a gang of ninjas on their way to his mansion at this very moment.

DO YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO SPARE?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering whether attaining these vast riches would take up too much of your time. Fear not! The site tells us that Mr Trudeau, who knows we are busy people, “took some of the most powerful concepts taught by the Brotherhood (for attaining miracles in any area of life) and distilled them all into a process you can use to attract money or manifest any other desire. In most cases, the entire process, start to finish, takes only about 5 seconds.”

Five seconds! In the time you’ve spent reading this, you could have made several fortunes. Mr Trudeau says due to applying this secret information, “I’ve had servants including a butler, private chef, chauffeur and bodyguard.”

Just think, five seconds from now you could have your butler reading this blog to you while your bodyguard sorts out those noisy neighbours.

THE BODYGUARD ISN’T THE ONLY KIND OF GUARD HE’S HAD

Ooops, there are a couple of details the sales page doesn’t mention, but Wikipedia does: “Trudeau's activities have been the subject of both criminal and civil action. He was convicted of larceny and credit card fraud in the early 1990s, and in 1998 paid a $500,000 fine for making false or misleading claims in his infomercials. In 2004, he consented to a lifetime ban on promoting products other than his books via infomercials.” Along the way he did two years in the slammer.

Maybe that’s why, if you click to buy the CDs (now a bargain $99), you are redirected to a site run by somebody other than Mr Trudeau.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH WRITERS?

The takeaway from this sounds obvious: the internet makes it easier than ever to tell lies about yourself, how much you make, and the results people will get if they fork over their money. With brilliant copywriting, too-good-to-believe offers can tap into our gullibility with the ease and elegance of a Barcelona pickpocket.

The writing niche isn’t as rife with charlatans as the “how to make money” or “instant cures for all your problems” arenas, but it has its share. Here are some of them:

The vanity publishing industry is still alive and well and now feasting on people who don’t realize they can self-publish e-books inexpensively. They make it sound like formatting an e-book is a dark, mysterious art,  getting an ISBN number is an ordeal, and you won’t get anywhere without the boilerplate press release they’ll write you for a few hundred additional dollars or pounds.

The “make big money writing articles” scamsters are also every active. Usually they ask for a subscription fee in exchange for a list of markets which turn out to be bogus, out of date, or paying next to nothing.

In the case of at least one of these, attempts to get a refund go nowhere and you find your credit card still being charged after you have tried to cancel your subscription.

There are also companies offering to shoot book trailers for you, either with you speaking to the camera or using screen capture. These are not cons, but the resulting products are of questionable value. I’ve seen quite a few authors pitching their books on video who obviously had no guidance and whose videos are more likely to put people off than to turn them on to the book.

The latest angle is “Make big money writing for the web.” The only people making big money writing for the web are copywriters who have a track record of sales pages that have brought in big money.

Another one that’s new, at least to me, is companies offering to create and broadcast TV commercials for your book. I saw one of these the other day—for $5000 they would create a TV ad with a reach of half a million people.

Sounds like a lot of people, doesn’t it? Here's what Wikipedia says about "reach": "Reach should not be confused with the number of people who will actually be exposed to and consume the advertising, though. It is just the number of people who are exposed to the medium and therefore have an opportunity to see or hear the ad or commercial."

THE WARNING SIGNS FOR WRITERS

Here are a few warning signs. Beware of:

• Any agent who charges you fees to read your material (Here is one example, and here are the 20 agencies about which the Writer Beware blog has had the most complaints.)
• Any agent or publisher who requires you to hire someone they recommend (for example, as an editor, publicist, or PR person) --here is a post about one such publisher.
• Any publisher that advertises that they’re looking for submissions. The legitimate publishers are swamped with material and have no need to advertise. 
• Any contest where the prize is less than equal to 50 times the entry fee.
• Anybody who claims they can show you how to make your book a best-seller (unless they’re talking about a one-day Amazon best-seller, which I’ve written about here before and which means nothing if you care about being honest with your readers) 
• Anybody who claims they can show you how to write a good book in a week or 14 days. Yes, you can write a book in 14 days. Just not a good book, unless you’re a genius, in which case you should be able to figure it out yourself.
• Any service that offers to write a screenplay version of your novel. Ask them which of the scripts they’ve written that way have been optioned or sold and verify that information if they give it.
• Any service that offers to send your manuscript or screenplay to lots of celebrities, producers,       decision-makers, etc. They'll probably send them, all right, and they'll be dumped as soon as they arrive. Here you can read about one example of a service like this.
• Any service that offers to put ads for your book or ebook on TV with a “reach” of a lot of people. Ask them what time your ads would be on, what the actual (not potential) viewing figures are for that time, and contact information for a few writers who have taken advantage of this deal so you can find out how it worked out for them.
• Any service that says there's easy big money to be made writing for the internet. Here you can read the warning about the most notorious of these (read the comments as well as the post and you'll see the experiences people have had--this group advertises widely).

Don’t feel bad if you fallen for any of these. I have an embarrassing and expensive internet-guru related story in my past and it’s only  human to want things that seem too good to be true:

Endlessly rising house values? Great!

Endless rises in the standard of living? We’ll take it!

Spending more money than we have (whether a family or a country)? Sounds good to us!

The bill arrives eventually. 

(For friendly guidance writing your book from idea through to publication, get my book, "Your Writing Coach" published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other booksellers.)

 

Did this little writing notebook just lose its way?

I think Moleskin just jumped the shark. They grew their reputation on the assertion that some of the literary greats wrote in little notebooks like the ones they sell. Some people think Moleskin actually made the notebooks used by Oscar Wilde, Hemingway, etc. but the brand goes back only to 1997. Wikipedia says:

“In 1997 a small company based in Milan named Modo & Modo SpA decided to bring this kind of notebook back to life, establishing the Moleskine trademark and starting production of Moleskine notebooks with 5000 pieces. In 1999 Modo & Modo SpA started distributing outside Italy, in the US and Europe. In 2004 Moleskine notebooks arrived in Japan and from there Moleskine started distribution in the rest of Asia. Perhaps due to their link to the literary and cultural heritage of the Moleskine notebooks, bookshop retailers and design stores everywhere are the main distribution channel.

In 2006, according to an article in The Daily Telegraph, the company’s small staff was unable to keep up with demand. In August 2006, the French investment fund Société Générale Capital purchased Modo & Modo SpA and started investing in its expansion. The company name changed into “Moleskine Srl”. According to an article in the German magazine Brand Eins, Moleskine notebooks are now distributed in 53 countries, through 14,000 stores, 65% of which are bookshops.”

What prompts me to say they’ve jumped the shark is the announcement I saw today that they have issued a limited edition of products dedicated to Star Wars. I don’t have anything against Star Wars, in fact I enjoyed those films when they first came out, but it’s a link not consistent with the literary associations that built the company.

We'll see whether we've just watched a brand self-destruct.

AND ONE MORE EXCERPT FROM THE "HUMOUR BOOKS" SECTION OF AMAZON.CO.UK. (Is somebody in the listings department bored and having a little fun?)