Time to Write

Spammers hijacked my email account - ignore "emergency" (UPDATED)

On Friday morning I was unable to sign on to my AOL email account. It didn’t recognize my password. When I tried to change it, I found that the security questions and answers also were different.

The result: I was locked out of the account, which started sending “emergency” messages to everybody on my email list, claiming (in my name) that I was stranded in Malaysia and needed money fast to get back to London. 

Fortunately, I think most people are aware that this is a common scam and would assume that if I really needed $3000 immediately I would turn to family members or one or two close friends. Even so, there are kind people who will help anybody they think is in need, which is why this scam does work sometimes.

AOL has been no help whatsoever. They said to access my account I’d have to answer the security questions, starting with my city of birth. I told the call center person the city. “That’s wrong,” she said. “You have two more guesses.” I told her I don’t need to guess my city of birth, it was what I told her. “Then I’m sorry but you can’t access the account.” 

I explained that somebody had changed the security question answers. “Oh no,” she said, “that’s really hard to do. Good-bye.” (Once you know the password, it’s simple to change those answers—takes about two clicks.)

I called back and asked to speak to a supervisor. None available, good-bye.

I went online to the live chat with an AOL rep. As soon as I gave them my name and email address they cut me off. Obviously the previous reps put a note in my file. 

I’ve warned as many people as I could, notified the FBI and Western Union, and had an expert check out the hard drive. It was clean. He reckons the hackers had compromised the hotel internet connection (unusually, the hotel had no wifi, but an Ethernet cable that you plug into your computer).

The hackers also got into my Facebook account (I didn’t use the same password but it wasn’t totally different, either, so I guess their systems figured it out pretty easily) and I’ve suspended that account. 

With the computer expert's help I was able to secure my Gmail account, but he couldn't get me back on my AOL account. My battle with AOL continues. The call centers are hopeless, AOL US says it can't even access the information on an AOL UK account, the UK numbers are not accessible from the US (where I am at the moment).

The hackers are sending repeat messages to my list, fortunately with rather bad grammar.

This is terribly frustraiting, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The moral of the story? Several.

One is to use better passwords. For the sake of making them easy to remember, I ended up with simple passwords. They weren't all alike but they did all use the none-too-sophisticated system.

In the many hours I’ve spent trying to figure out what’s going on and how to deal with it, I’ve read a lot about how using hotel and other wifi or Ethernet systems can make you vulnerable. The computer expert suggested setting up a system that encrypts all internet traffic from your computer when you away from your normal, secure wifi system. He also suggests getting a plan with a phone company that allows you to set up your own personal wifi with a dongle you plug into a USB port. 

How did the hackers get my password? I was at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, where there was only wired (Ethernet) access to the web. Podcaster Steve Gibson says, "

"Essentially, there is absolutely no security with Ethernet. The assumption always was that it would be used in a LAN setting where you knew and trusted everybody on the network. You were one big happy company..."he said. Someone can get in the middle of all Internet conversations. Web pages, email messages and everything else coming and going to the Internet can be intercepted and logged."

UPDATE: I finally had a call from a very helpful AOL representative who arranged for the account to be returned to me and secured. Guess how it came to his attention. Yes, via this blog (not the dozens of phone calls I made)!

I suggested that AOl train their call center people to give out the phone number of the fraud departmantes in the US and a number for that department in the UK and Europe. It looks like everything is back to normal and I think I have most of my messages back. Thank you for your suggestions, I am implementing them.

 

If, like me, you're automatically backing up all your files be aware that probably that doesn't include your emails. A hacker can wipe out your entire backlog of emails with one click. That includes those you've put into different categories for later reference.

Another moral: if you’re still using AOL, switch!

Ps: Lifehacker featured an article on the most used PINs and numeric passwords. More than 10% of people use 1234. Also high on the list and not recommended: 1111, 0000, 1212, 7777, 1004, 2000, and 4444 (or any four of the same number).

Looking for inspiration for marketing your book?

Publisher's Weekly described how Gretchen McNeil is promoting her teen thriller, TEN. It's a clever approach to book marketing:

She set up a blog tour for herself and took part in a live Twitter chat hosted by a Young Adult fan site.

She also organized an online "party" to reveal the video trailer for the book. 

Most interesting, she's leveraging the power of fans. They go online to enlist in her "Army of Ten." They start out as privates and are given the mission of Tweeting that they've joined the Army of Ten. Their "medal" for this is a bookmark and a promotion to Sargeant--with another assignment. They can keep going up the ranks until they reach the level of Major. To earn that they have to find a book store that doesn't stock the title and convince them to order it. If they suceed, they will be named in the acknowledgments page in her next book, which comes out in fall 2013.

At the time of the Publisher's Weekly article, before the publication date, she had 250 recruits. The campaign was prompted by the news that Barnes and Noble would not be stocking the book. With that important avenue closed, she decided to reach and engage her readers--and have them do some vital marketing for her. 

I think it's a creative approach that many authors could emulate in a variety to ways.

(My book, YOUR WRITING COACH, has a chapter on traditional book marketing methods and one on guerrilla marketing ideas for writers. You can get it as a traditional book or as an ebook. The UK Kindle edition is on sale for a limited time for £2.86 via this LINK.)

If you had had to learn from only one writer about writing well...

A reader of my book, "Your Creative Writing Masterclass," which includes writing advice from more than 100 clasic and modern authors, asked if I had to choose just one to study in order to write well, who would I choose?

That's a tough question when the candidates include Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, etc. 

However, my choice would be Anton Chekhov not only because he's brlliant but because his style works just as it stands today.

With most of the others you have to take into account that the taste for extensive descripton was different in their eras; or, as with Shakespeare, you have to immerse yourself in the events of his time and of the times from which he drew his stories, as well as the change in language. So I'm not saying Chekhov's writing is superior to that of those greats, but it is ready to use as a model today with very little extra work on our part. 

If you haven't read his short stories, or haven't read them for a long time, take another look, I think you'll share my appreciation.

(The "Your Creative Writing Masterclass" is available in a print version and as an ebook.)

Guess who is buying all those Young Adult novels!

Publisher’s Weekly reports that a new study reveals that 55% of the people buying Young Adult (YA) books, written with youngsters from 12 to 17 in mind, are bought by older readers. The biggest group of adult buyers are aged from 30 to 44.

Are they buying them for their kids or siblings? Most of the time, no. The survey by Bowker Market Research shows that 78% are buying these books for themselves.

The results are somewhat skewed by success of the Hunger Games series, but even allowing for that, this is a growing phenomenon. It’s also a rare bit of good news for publishers because the study also reveals these readers tend to be early adopters and are socially active, meaning that they probably recommend the books they like to their friends. 

One implication is that if you are writing a YA novel, don't limit your marketing of it to that younger age group. You could even follow the lead of publishers who put out the same book with one cover to appeal to younger readers and another one to appeal to adults...for instance, not only could you have two covers, but you might even have two different websites. When reaching adults you'd put in a link to the website geared to adults, when reaching kids you'd link to the one geared to them.

How to Generate Excitement for a Forthcoming Book

Novelist Sarah Maas wrote an epic tale with a big back story and she and her publisher Bloomsbury decided to use that extra material as part of an innovative marketing scheme. The material became four novellas that were published only in e-book form and released every other month, between January and July, for 99 cents each.

Each novella contains a teaser for the full-length novel, Throne of Glass, which is released this week. She is planning a sequel and will again use shorter ebooks to bridge the gap between that and the current book.

Maas already had a following from the online fiction community, FictionPress, but the release of these books built up interest in her work and increased her Facebook friends from 1000 to 6000.

If you're working on a book or other creative project that lends itself to this kind of strategy, it might be worth considering as a way to gradually build anticipation for its release.

(You'll find more marketing strategies in my book, "Marketing for Entrepreneurs"--and, yes, writers need to be entrepreneurs these deays--published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other booksellers.)

 

The 17-year-old-author with 17 million readers

I wrote here not long ago about Wattpad.com, a site where authors can post their books chapter by chapter. The Bookseller reported recently on one success story involving that site:

 “Abigail Gibbs, 17, began publishing her novel The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire when she was 15 on the online writer’s platform, Wattpad.

Now HarperFiction commissioning editor Amy McCulloch and Erika Tsang from HarperCollins in the US have pre-empted world English language rights for the novel and its sequel. The rights were acquired for a significant six-figure sum from Scott Mendel at Mendel Media Group LLC.

 On Wattpad, the novel has been read more than 17 million times, as readers follow the story of 18-year-old Londoner Violet Lee, who is kidnapped by the charismatic heir to the vampire throne, Kaspar Varn.

It was released as an e-book on September 13^th (2012), followed by a paperback edition on October 25th.”

Seventeen million is quite a number, but if you go to Wattpad you’ll find plenty of books that have been accessed several million times. The books tend to focus on romance and many of them have a teen audience in mind, but other categories are represented as well. If you want to try out your fiction to see whether it gathers followers (and comments), Wattpad is a good, free way to do so.

(Do you want more tips on writing and marketing what you write? Get my book, Your Writing Coach, published by Nichoals Brealey and available from Amazon and other booksellers.)

Marketing Your Writing: the mantra that will bring you success (8 of 10)

In the previous posts in this series I've focused on specific methods of marketing your book, but it's also useful to step back from time to time and make sure you are staying in the right frame of mind. This motto will see you through:

"Write like an artist,

market like a businessperson."

Why is this so important? An artist often takes rejection personally. A businessperson tries to learn from it in order to make the sale next time. 

If you are in the artist's frame of mind when you find that one or more of your marketing methods isn't leading to sales of your book, it's easy to take it personally. You may decide marketing isn't worth doing, or resentful that of all the "friends" you have on Facebook very few seem to be friendly enough to spend money on your book. 

Instead, step back, take a deep breath, and step into your businessperson's alter ego. Then ask yourself:

* What's not working?

* What might be some reasons it's not working?

* What are some options for fixing it?

* If it doesn't seem fixable, what can you do instead?

For instance, let's say you build a Facebook fan page for your book but nobody is visiting it. It's not working.

Why? Well, what mechanisms are you using to attract people to it? The most damaging motto that people have bought into is "Build it and they will come." No, they will not--not unless you give them a good reason!

How to fix it? How about putting something on that fan page that is of interest to your target audience and that they can't easily find elsewhere? If you can't think of anything, visit some of the more popular fan pages and see what they're doing and brainstorm how you can adapt their methods.

If you decide you can't fix it, what can you do instead of a fan page? A podcast? An online radio show? There are many options and figuring out which one to use often is a matter of trial and error. If you stay in the businessperson's mindset, that process will be much less painful. 

(There is a chapter on traditional marketing and one on guerrilla marketing for writers in my book, Your Writing Coach. You can get it from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller. I also do a very limited amount of consulting for authors who need help working out their author platform strategy. If you're interested in that, email me at [email protected] for details.)

 

52 Tips for Writing Success: Build an arc

Many novels and screenplays feature protagonists who change as a result of the trials and tribulations they undergo in the story.

Dorothy discovers there is no place like home,

Scrooge learns to be generous and warm-hearted,

George in “It’s a Wonderful Life” realizes his life does have meaning. 

Such stories appeal because we like to think change is possible even if we find it hard ourselves.

This change over the course of the story is called the character arc. The trick to making it work is to match the size and speed of the change to the events in the plot. 

The most common mistake is creating big jumps in changes that don’t feel motivated enough. It takes a lot of pressure to create massive change. In our examples, Dorothy went (apparently) to another world, Scrooge was confronted by three ghosts and time travelled, and George faced a life and death decision.

It’s also a good idea to build in some setbacks. Change seldom is a straightforward process--remember, Scrooge backslid between the visits of the first two ghosts.

The challenge of revealing change is harder for screenwriters than it is for novelists. The latter can include descriptions of a how a character realizes something. In a screenplay all realizations have to be turned into things people do and say.

A useful method is to draw an arc (like a rainbow) and at the left end jot down what the character is like at the start. At the right end note what he or she is like at the end. At points on the arc note what changes and what triggers each step of the change. 

Of course not all characters do change. Some try but fail, and often that leads to a tragic ending. Othello cannot overcome his jealousy, King Lear cannot overcome his vanity and pride, and Emma Bovary cannot overcome her hunger for a more romantic life. 

Others, like James Bond and the heroes of many action books and films, stay basically the same over the course of many adventures.

(SPECIAL OFFER: for a friendly guide to take your from your idea through to publication, get a copy of my book, Your Writing Coach. The UK Kindle edition is on sale for only £2.99 for a limited time--you can get it here.)

How Pete the Cat led to a publishing success

Self publishing may be the hot topic right now but there have been success stories all along. Last year Publisher’s Weekly took a look back at some of these, including how the Pete the Cat series came to be born. It’s in the news again because a company called Merrymakers is planning a world-wide licensing program for a large range of Pete the Cat goods, including shoes, toys, school supplies, etc. What I found particularly interesting is how the character was born. This is the account written by Sally Lodge for PW:

“A chance encounter at an Atlanta stoplight led to the creation of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, written by children's musician Eric Litwin and illustrated by James Dean. Waiting for the light to turn, Litwin recognized Dean, a local artist known for his paintings of a blue cat named Pete, in the next car. Litwin told him he was a big fan of Pete and asked if he wanted to collaborate on a book; thus a children's book protagonist was born.”

 They self-published a book in 2008, and the way in which they marketed it also stood out:

“The collaborators—Litwin on guitar and banjo and Dean with giant easel—promoted their book at Atlanta-area bookstores, schools, libraries, and festivals, and sold some 4,000 copies.”

A bookseller called the book to the attention of a sales rep for Harper Collins. In 2010 the publisher released Pete the Cat and sent the two on a publicity tour to five cities. The book made it onto the New York Times best-seller list and as of early 2011 had sold 50,000 copies, with a follow up (Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes) following with a first printing of 75,000 copies.

I share this story for several reasons. First, it shows the power of asking. If Litwin had thought, “I don’t think he’d want to collaborate since he created the character,” or “Probably somebody has already suggested a book and it might not have worked,” he never would have asked.

Second, it’s an encouraging tale for authors who self-publish, although I’m not saying that the true definition of success is to get published by a big publisher. Sometimes that’s the best route, sometimes it’s not.

The PW article is about authors who made that transition. As mentioned above, the Pete the Cat collaborators sold 4000 copies themselves; other authors mentioned in the article sold 1000, 2000, 3000, and 179,000 copies before being picked up by a traditional publisher. (That 179,000 is not a typo, it’s for a picture book called I Love Your More, by Laura Duksta)

Finally, the story underscores the fact that if you have an unusual way to promote your book you will draw attention that most authors never get.

(If you'd like friendly guidance on going from idea all the way through to publication, get a copy of my book, Your Writing Coach, available from Amazon and other booksellers.)

Marketing Your Book: Prime the pump (7th of 10 things you must do)

When it comes to book buying as to almost every human behaviour, most people go by what others are doing. This concept was illustrated in one of my favorite non-fiction books, "Influence," by Robert Cialdini. 

He describes an experiment that took place in New York. When one man stood and looked up at the sky, passers-by ignored him. But when a group of 15 did it, a crowd formed within seconds, all looking up and continuing to do so even when they didn’t see anything up there.

How can you get that process started when you want to make people aware of your book? Here are four strategies you can use:

* Offer it for free on Kindle and other sites for one or two days. A friend who is an unknown writer did this with his detective novel and got more than 2000 downloads. He's about to release his second book in the series--it will be interesting to see whether the people who sampled his first one become paying customers for the second one. Obviously this works best if you have or plan to have more than one book and they are part of a series or at least in the same genre. 

* Arrange with a charity to give a free copy to people who donate a certain amount of money. If you have a printed book rather than a downloadable one, offer it to the charity as your cost. Obvioulsy not every book is right for this, but yours might just be.

* If you find a person trying to raise money via Kickstarter or another crowdfunding site for a product that is in some way complementary, offer to let the fundrasiers give away a downloadable copy of your book to anyone who kicks in a certain level of money. 

* Offer a copy to the most influential bloggers in your arena. It can be worth setting up a print on demand version for bloggers and other reviewers who prefer having a copy they can hold in their hands, even if you mainly want to sell ebooks.

* Get at least 21 reviews on Amazon, even if you have to send out a lot of free review copies to achieve that.  An Amazon insider says the magic number is 21 reviews, and while you want most of them to be four or five stars, having one low one in there doesn't seem to put off potential buyers.

 If you are trying to sell people on your project or idea, start with those most likely to agree so that by the time you get to the more skeptical ones you’ll have the psychology of group influence on your side.

(For more tips, see my book, Your Writing Coach--it includes a chapter on traditional marketing and one on guerrilla marketing. It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Why your ebook title's length matters

Here is a screen shot of an ebook that is being featured on the Kindle site today:

If you go by the title, all you see is "How I Raised Over $35"...not that impressive an amount, is it?

If you go by the part of the cover that's readable in this small image, you will see either "Publisher Needed," or "No Publisher Needed" if you can make out the white "No" against the light green background. 

The actual title of the book is "How I Raised Over $35K in 30 Days to Write My Book (Crowdfunding Tips and Tricks)." To figure out from the shortened title and the tiny cover image what it's really about probably would take more time and effort than most browsers would give it. 

The moral of the story: if possible, create a title that will make sense even when shortened to 21 spaces. In this case, maybe something like "Crowdfund Your Book!" and then make the "How I Raised..." part the subtitle.

Also, make your title and image as easily readable as possible when they are shrunken down to postage stamp size.

If your book is featured, you want people to see instantly what it's about.

(for friendly guidance from idea through to publication, see my book, YOUR WRITING COACH, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

52 Tips for Writing Success: Escalate the Conflict!

I’m sure you’ve heard or read that the way to keep your reader interested is to escalate the conflict. If you don’t do that, there’s a good chance he or she will lose interest somewhere around the middle of your book or script. How do you do that? 

Let’s assume you have established something your protagonist wants, and someone or something stopping him or her from getting it. Here are the useful questions to ask if you find the conflict is running out of steam:

1. Who or what can be added as a source of conflict? For instance, in many thrillers the innocent person being pursued by the baddies does something that also puts the police on his or her trail (come up with something more original, though!).
2. What hidden flaw might there be in a move or tactic that originally helped your protagonist, and now makes things go the other way? For example, the person who agreed to hide her from the bad guys turns out to be in collusion with them or fears them too much to keep the secret.
3. What new information could come out that could help the antagonist? Does your protagonist have a secret from the past that might be damaging?
4. What additional handicap can you lumber your protagonist with to make his or her task even harder? Perhaps the character on the run gets injured along the way, which will slow him or her down.
5. What natural force might complicate things for both the protagonist and the person or people trying to stop him? This could be a huge storm, an electrical blackout, etc. It can be enjoyable to see both of them struggle against the same thing.

These questions should lead you to plenty of conflict that will keep the reader turning the pages of your script or book.

(SPECIAL OFFER: for a friendly guide to take your from your idea through to publication, get a copy of my book, Your Writing Coach. The UK Kindle edition is on sale for only £2.99 for a limited time--you can get it here.)