Time to Write

You intended to write: where did the time go?

Business author Frank Sonnenberg created a nice little poster called “Where did the time go?” that features 55 questions and tips about time use. Here are the six that resonate the most with me in terms of the writing life, with my own tips for putting them into use:

• Being busy is not the same as being productive. At the start of every day, look at your list of tasks and check how many of them relate to the things you desire most.

• Are you decisive or do you rethink and rethink and rethink decisions? For writers the rethinking often comes when a project becomes challenging. We wonder whether maybe we should have chosen to work on a different project instead (since most of us have more ideas than we have time). Usually the answer is, “No, stick with it, get it done, then move on.”

• How much time do you spend looking for things? Is there a group called Chaotic Writers Anonymous? If so, sign me up! The answer usually is to have a system. The problem is we love setting up systems but we don’t always love following them. So also create a system for making sure you stick to the system! (For me, this is a work in progress!)

• It’s important to say no to some people in order to say yes to others. I’d add the paraphrase, ‘it’s important to say not to some projects (at least for now) in order to say yes to (and finish) others.’ I’m still learning that just because I have a lot of enthusiasm for a new idea, that doesn’t mean I should start on it right away, especially when I’m already committed to several others.

If you want a comprehensive program for using your time better, you'll find it in my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." You can get it now from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

How to do writing-related tasks and other stuff you hate to do

Are there certain writing or other tasks that you keep moving from day to day on your to-do list? I know I have a few. Most of mine relate to administrative or routine things like filing, updating my financial records, and sending invoices. (Yes, even though invoices bring in the money—and you might be surprised at how many free-lancers share this feeling.)

 J. J. Ramburg has written a book called It’s Your Business in which she shares almost 200 tips gleaned from hundreds of interviews she’s done with entrepreneurs. Here are five, adapted to apply to the kinds of things we writers often don’t like to do:

1: Look for a better way. It’s so easy to do research on the web now that it’s worth spending a bit of time (not too much!) finding out whether there’s an app or any software that might make the task easier.  Maybe somebody else has found an easier way of doing it. 

2: For reluctant networkers: Get to the event first. That way it will be easier for you to introduce yourself to the other early arrivals and feel comfortable before the larger group forms.

3: Ask for help. If you’re shy at networking events, tell the organizers, “I’m a bit shy at things like this. It would really be helpful if you could introduce me to two or three people to get things started.” They want their events to be successful, so usually they’ll be glad to oblige. Similarly, if keeping good financial records is a trial for you, ask your accountant for some guidance on how to do it.

4: Do one chunk of your least favorite task first thing in the morning—no more than 15 minutes to start. “Do it first” is advice often given, seldom followed.  It’s just too off-putting to take on some big, undesirable task first thing, but most of us could manage spending fifteen minutes on one chunk of it. If that gives you enough momentum to keep going, do it. If not, do another 15 minute chunk of it before lunch and repeat the next day.

5: Document your processes. Certain tasks come up only once every few months and it’s easy to forget how you did them. For instance, let’s say the printer breaks down and you go online to check the trouble-shooting pages of the manual and follow a six-step procedure to get the printer working again.

Document the process by printing out the relevant pages of the manual and jotting down anything else that was important and put it in a folder called “Printer” (where you also keep the receipt, warranty, etc.). If it happens again, you’ll save time by seeing what you have to do.

If you want more innovative ideas for managing your time, I recommend my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and is very concise--no padding! You can get it from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

52 Steps for Writing Success: Overcome fear of failure

The thing that stops a lot of writers from finishing writing a book or screenplay is the fear of failure: what if nobody wants it? What if I get horrible feedback? What if I’ve done all that work for nothing?

 My tip is: step back.

The scenario in which you imagine getting rejections from publishers or producers is only one part of the larger picture. The more we zoom in on that, the greater our fear. Here are some questions to help you step back and put it into the context of the greater picture:

How many rejections equal failure? One? Ten ? A hundred? Here, from BubbleCow, is a list of half a dozen writers and how often their work was rejected:

1. Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was turned down 29 times before she found a publisher.
   
   
2. C.S. Lewis received over 800 rejections before he sold a single piece of writing.
   
   
3. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by 25 publishers.
   
   
4.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 121 times.
   
   
5. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 40 times.
    
6. Louis L’Amour was rejected over 200 times before he sold any of his writing.

Set your number at the start: how many rejections will it take for you to give up on a particular manuscript? If you say 100, for instance, rejection number 20 will not bother you all that much.

What will you learn along the way? Selling your work is not the only positive outcome of writing it. What will you learn about the subject? About yourself? About writing? Stepping back means not focusing only on the sale.

What would you have done with that time if you hadn’t been writing? The fear of wasting time suggests that if you weren’t writing you’d be doing something more worthwhile. Would you? Or would you be watching or TV or surfing the web? 

If you find that a fear of failure is threatening to derail your writing, step back!

You'll find lots of friendly guidance for your writing in my books, "Your Writing Coach," and "Your Creative Writing Masterclass," both published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing and available from Amazonor your other favorite bookseller.

Shock! Someone apologized!

I have purchased some information products from a company called AppSumo. Over the past few months they started promoting so many things in an overblown manner that I lost interest. Today I received an email from them that said:

 Over the past 10 months we got distracted with “growing a business” by putting out too many deals, too fast. #notcool 

Gone are the days of: over-zealous copy, products that are just "okay" and a site we stopped checking religiously. 

From now on, we will:

Only promote products to you that we're fully proud of as a team. Ones you'll be excited to share with your friends.

Ensure every email delights you with pleasure / usefulness whether you make a purchase or not. 

Email you when it’s right for you, not us. (I.e. not sending an email every day.)

Our lives are short and we are all striving to make the most of it. 

I was surprised, and I realized I was surprised because apologies like that are so rare. I respect them for admitting they’d gone too far, and am much more likely to do business with them again in the future.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

 

A crowdfunding site and publisher - are they right for your book?

You’ve probably heard about crowdfunding site Kickstarter, where people can ask for pledges to help them fund just about any kind of project: a new product, a film, a book, etc. Not as well known but of particular interest to writers is Unbound (www.Unbound.co.uk) which deals specifically with crowdfunding books.

They put it this way:

“Unbound puts the power of publishing in the hands of authors and readers. Authors pitch their book ideas directly to you. If you back a project before it reaches its funding target, you get your name printed in the back of every copy and immediate behind-the-scenes access to the author’s shed. If any project fails to hit its funding target, you get refunded in full.”

So far, most of the writers chosen for the site have been well known, but a few are proposing their first project. There are a variety of rewards depending on how much money you pledge.

All supporters get their names in the book and the e-book version. Some higher levels include a meeting with the author, perhaps at a site relevant to the book.

The author has 50 days to attract the needed funding, which varies depending on the nature of the book and I didn’t see that amount revealed on the site (Kickstarter is transparent about the amount that needs to be raised for each project). I also didn’t spot how many days of fund-raising were left for each project.

As a supporter you also get updates on how the book is coming along, draft chapters, and the chance to give your feedback. 

What is the experience like for an author? This is what Kevin Parr, author of “The Twitch”, a novel about an extreme bird-watcher, said:

“It’s been a lot of fun for the most part. I really feel as though I am part of something that is going to be pivotal in the future of publishing. The staff are lovely and there is a real sense of camaraderie between the authors, who are all really keen to support one another and spread the word. 

It has been tough convincing some people of the concept. Anything ‘new’ seems to be met with suspicion, and a lot of people have been unnecessarily concerned about the safety of their pledges or the idea of buying into something that, for the time being at least, is virtual.

This attitude is definitely changing, and as more and more people become aware of Unbound, then so the reader and the author will benefit.”

Unbound acts both as a funding mechanism and a publisher. They split the book’s net profit 50/50 with the author. Some people have expressed skepticism—is this just a way to remove all risk for the publisher, while the author goes ahead to write the book—at least for 50 days—without knowing whether or not it will be funded? Also, how much overhead is built into that initial target and charged before there is any net profit? It’s hard to make an intelligent assessment without specific figures.

It’s true that authors could do the same thing for their own project and keep 100% of the profits but they wouldn’t have the platform of the Unbound website and would have to hire an editor, work with a printer, etc. 

One book funded via Unbound was“Evil Machines,” a collection of black comedy linked short stories by Python Terry Jones, who was an early supporter of the venture. You can see a video of him talking about the book here. 

A project that has just 4% of its desired funding at the moment is “Titanic and Me,” by Hart & Nikkel. It offers three levels: the ebook, access to the author’s shed, and an e-book version for £10, those plus a first edition premium hardback for £20, those plus the author’s autograph and personal dedication in the hardback for £50. 

If you think you might want to submit our project, here are the guidelines:

We welcome all types of proposals: if you’re a novelist, historian, philosopher, economist, biographer, scientist, journalist, comedian, filmmaker, gardener, cook, academic, traveller or have lived an interesting life or done extraordinary things, we’d love to hear from you.

Each proposal has the potential to become the book you really want to write, pitched to the people who really matter: your potential readers.

If you are a published author - or a literary agent - and you’re interested in finding out more about Unbound, you can drop us a line at HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]"[email protected].

If you are a first-time author, we will consider proposals submitted through literary agents or writing websites like HYPERLINK "http://www.abctales.com/"www.abctales.com and HYPERLINK "http://www.jottify.com/"www.jottify.com, but we will also accept unsolicited proposals sent to HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]"[email protected]. These must be in the form of the pitches we have on the site:

 - a first person pitch summarizing what your book is all about (max. 400 words).

- a short excerpt (approx. 1000 words).

- a first person author biography (max. 300 words).

(If you need some help writing your book, get a copy of Your Writing Coach, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Here's a good example of a book trailer video (and some tips for yours)

How do you make a good book trailer video?

1. Reveal the intriguing central idea or question of the book;
2. Don’t give away so much that people feel they don’t need to read the book;
3. Don’t show actors playing the characters—let the reader imagine them;
4. Don’t try for effects beyond your budget—people will automatically compare it to TV and film productions, and unless you’re being ironic it will come off as amateurish;
5. Don’t feel like you have to explain why you wrote the book. Generally nobody cares, unless it’s a really compelling and relevant story.

It’s easy to find lots of bad book trailers, not so easy to find a good one. I think the one below does a good job. It gives you the basic concept right away, it uses graphics that evoke the era and don’t take anything away from your imagination, and it moves fast and doesn’t wear out its welcome.

It may look expensive, but it’s not nearly as difficult to produce as it looks—there are After Effects templates that could do most of the work. It wouldn’t cost all that much to have it done for you by a freelancer you could find on elance (www.elance.com), for instance. The same effect could even be approximated with a free program called Prezi (see Prezi.com). See what you think:

(For more help with marketing your book, get a copy of my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other book sellers.)

One way NOT to market your book! (On insecurity...)

If you think that the insecurity most newer writers feel goes away automatically when they are successful, there’s sad evidence that it ain’t necessarily so. In the recent exposure of a number of writers who wrote glowing Amazon reviews for their own books using a series of fake names, it came out that some of them also wrote reviews trashing the books of writers they considered competitors.

One of the guilty parties was mystery writer R. J. Ellory. He has since apologized for what he called a “lapse of judgment.”

Did he really need those extra reviews or to discredit his fellow authors? Not if sales figures and awards are anything to go by. Wikipedia says, “A Quiet Belief In Angels has sold in excess of 1,000,000 copies since its release, and has also been purchased for translation into a total of twenty-three languages. It was ranked third in the Sunday Times bestselling book list in the week of its review on TV. It was shortlisted for the Barry Award for best British crime fiction 2008,[6] the 7th Prix Du Polar Européen 2008 of the weekly French magazine Le Point, 'Le Nouvel Observateur′s Crime Writing Prize 2008, and the Quebec Booksellers' Prize 2008.[2]”

Of course it also says, “This article may be an autobiography, or has been extensively edited by the subject or an institution related to the subject. Please help edit it to conform to Wikipedia's neutral point of view, in line with the discussion on the talk page.”

Using one of his pseudonyms, "Nicodemus Jones" [Nicodemus Jones? Really? There’s certainly nothing suspicious about that name] Ellory described his book as a "modern masterpiece…All I will say is that there are paragraphs and chapters that just stopped me dead in my tracks . . . it really is a magnificent book".

To me it suggest that, at least for some writers, the insecurity remains even after they’ve sold a million copies.

I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to value yourself according to how your writing career is going, especially if you are never satisfied even when it goes well. It took me years to stop doing that and believe me, it feels so good when you stop!

(For friendly guidance from your initial idea all the way through to marketing the finished work, get a copy of my book, "Your Writing Coach." Nicodemus Jones called it, "The best book ever written in any language. I fainted from its sheer greatness." Wikipedia says, "It has sold more copies even than A Quiet Belief in Angels--Warning: this may not be true")