Time to Write

The Writing Secret that Marketers Don't Want You to Know

Do you want me to tell you the secret that people who market to aspiring writers don't want them to know?

It's that THERE IS NO SECRET.

Another day, another offer in my email for aspiring writers (from the same people mentioned in my last two posts), with the usual implication that there are secrets of writing well that you don't know--but you will when you buy their book or course.

Here's part of the latest pitch from Trent Steele, this time for a course about writing for children:

"For years, the world’s greatest writers have followed a SECRET SYSTEM.

It’s a system that enables them to write well – and write QUICKLY.

And YOU don’t know about it!

Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in just 2 weeks. Barbara Cartland wrote each of her books in a quick 5 days.

Yes – THESE writers know the SECRET of WRITING QUICKLY."

In the case of Dickens, the secret is that he was a supremely talented and disciplined writer. In the case of Cartland, it was that she wrote basically the same book over and over.

Writers tend to be open about their methods. I collected much of their advice (including that of Dickens) in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass. Many of them wrote extensively about how they worked. I didn't come across any who wanted to keep it a secret.

AND HERE COMES THE HYPE!

Later in the pitch, we come to this:

"Inside 'How to Write a Children's Book in 14 Days' you’ll learn the PRECISE STEPS you need to follow to GUARANTEE a best-selling children’s classic – in under two weeks.

Let us savor that promise for a moment. 

They GUARANTEE (their caps)...

that in under two weeks ...

you will write not only a best-selling children's book...

but a classic!

If you believe that, please contact me about a bridge I have for sale.

Then they suggest:

Take a SNEAK PEAK Inside This Amazing New Course!

A book about writing, from people who don't know the difference between peak and peek, how could you go wrong?

The business of life (and Happy New Year!)

"All the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it."

- Samuel Butler

Writers: beware the extreme hype! (part 2)

In the previous post, I shared a pitch for a book on self-publishing. Unfortunately, the information used to try to sell it to you was out of date at best, misleading at worst.

Recently I got another pitch from the same source (Trent Steele, editor, Write Street Newsletter, part of the Self Development Network). This time the pitch is for a book called The Wealthy Writer (not be confused with one with the same title, by Michael Meanwell).

This one starts by painting a picture of the idyllic life you could have if you were earning $100,000+ per year writing for the internet. That's what the book, by Nick Daws and Ruth Barringham, will show you, apparently. 

The pitch screams:

"TODAY the Web is Literally BEGGING for New WRITERS!"

Not figuratively, but literally. That means somewhere the Web is on its knees (who knew it even had knees?) beseeching the gods for someone, anyone, to please write for it. Because, as we all know, there's a big shortage of writers willing to put their words on the web.

NOT MUCH TALENT? NO PROBLEM!

The pitch goes on:

"Right now, ANY writer, living ANYWHERE, with almost ANY level of talent, can begin a career writing online.

It requires absolutely NO experience – and you could start earning BIG, in just DAYS.

We’re not kidding. Right now, you could be just a couple of days from your first paycheck.

Work quickly – and you could have earned your first payment by TONIGHT.

From article writing to affiliate marketing... From blogging to copywriting... From e-books to self-publishing... From auction websites to sales copy...

It’s EASY – and right now the industry is BEGGING for NEW WRITERS!"

Apparently there are loads of secret websites that offer big money even to low-talent, inexperienced writers. I haven't heard of these sites, have you? No? Well, the sales letter explains:

"The "worst thing" is that "regular" writers don't even know these sites exist!"

I'm not sure why there are quotes around "worst thing"--maybe to indicate that in this instance they mean figuratively, not literally, the worst, since I can think of quite a few worse things.

There must be some kind of conspiracy to keep this information from us, because in my experience, word normally travels pretty fast about people who are willing to pay writers any money, much less $100K a year.

The pitch asks:

"Are YOU ready to begin making at least $100,000 a year by tapping away at your keyboard?"

Tapping away at our keyboards...reminds me of what a member of the aristocracy said to Gibbon when the latter issued another volume of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "Another damned thick book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Gibbon?"

The disclaimer

There is a smaller-print link to a disclaimer that says the examples they use are not typical, it's all down to how hard you work, etc.

THE GUARANTEE ALMOST GUARANTEED NOT TO BE REQUESTED

They say that if you haven't earned at least $25,000 after three months of using their manual, they'll refund your $47...but only betwee three and four months after purchase. How many people do you think remember that? And if they do, how many will remember where they put the address to which to send the refund request? It's not a fake guarantee, but a clever one.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAKE $100K PLUS WRITING FOR THE INTERNET?

There are copywriters, authors of ebooks, and others who make that and more. However, I doubt very much that they are writers "with just about any level of talent" and "no experience." They also are in the top 1%, maybe the top .5% of all writers trying to earn money through their craft. And I doubt that they would think of what they do as "tapping on the keyboard for a few hours a day."

I understand that sales letters have to get you excited about the thing they're selling. A little hype is expected and accepted, but I think this pitch goes too far. OK, the most you're going to lose is $47, but these days that amount can be a lot to lose for somebody who is unemployed and buys into the fantasy of riches presented here. 

If you happen to have ordered this book and have any comments, please let me know. I'm on the road at the moment, but maybe when I'm back home on a secure internet connection I'll order it and do a follow-up report...I just have to remember to put a reminder of that guarantee three months in the future on my calendar.

Beware the self-publishing hype and misinformation! - part 1

Here's part of an offer I received via email today, about self-publishing for Kindle. My comments are in red. 

"You would be surprised at how easy it is for anyone to get published on this new platform and the industry-crushing royalties paid directly to you, the author, make traditional publishing a thing of the past." True, pretty easy. Traditional publishing isn't ready to die yet, but let's read on.

"You see, where traditional publishing offers their authors a mere 7% to 15% royalties on average, you can get up to a 70% profit share just by publishing on the Kindle Marketplace." Yes, that's true.

"And while the big publishing houses refuse to adapt to the change and keep pricing their digital copies for just a few dollars less than their print counterparts, independent publishers are stealing the market covertly with #1 best-sellers selling for just about the price of a good coffee." Name authors are still doing very well with e-books priced not much below the paperback version. There have been some number one best-seller e-books from unknown authors charging much less. So..mostly true.

"For this reason, we are seeing an explosion of new authors publishing their works of fiction as well as non-fiction and making a killing with cheap digital books." The explosion, yes. A killing...true for a very small percentage of self-publishers.

"Do not miss out on this revolution that can make you a fortune." Can you make a fortune from self-publishing? Sure. You can also win the lottery, be left a fortune by an elderly lady you once helped across the street, or find a cache of old gold coins in your back yard. 

THIS IS WHERE IT STARTS TO GO WRONG

"Thousands of amateur authors are doing it already. Take Amanda Hocking for example. She started less than a year ago, and now has a handful of paranormal and romance titles on Kindle."  Hold it! Amanda Hocking didn't start less than a year ago! She began self-publishing in 2010! She doesn't now have a handful of titles, she wrote 17 novels in her free time, and in her first year self-published nine.

THE SITUATION HAS CHANGED 

An article in the New York Times reflects why this offer would prefer to cite figures from 2010 rather than current ones: 

"Now, though, the world has more stories than it needs or wants to pay for. In 2010, Amazon had 600,000 e-books in its Kindle store. Today it has more than three million. The number of books on Smashwords, which distributes self-published writers, grew 20 percent last year. The number of free books rose by one-third.

 

Revenue from e-books leveled off in 2013 at $3 billion after increasing nearly 50 percent in 2012, according to BookStats." 

 

"Most of her books sell for a reasonable $8.99. That means she gets around $6.30 for every copy sold." Wrong! She priced her books at either 99 cents or $2.99, that's one reason she was able to sell so many--a low risk for the buyer. Also, a very important factor was timing. She came along when lots of people were buying their first iPad or other tablet and wanted things to read on it, but there weren't yet that many titles available. Much less competition than exists today. 

The promoter, Trent Steele, Editor of the Write Street Newsletter, also doesn't mention how much marketing Amanda Hocking did. I've read her own account of this, and she was a marketing demon. By the way, she no longer self-publishes. After her self-publishing success, she signed a rich deal with St. Martin's Press, so clearly she doesn't agree that traditional publishing is a thing of the past. 

"Even a relatively small book, selling for $2.99, and selling just 500 copies a month - which is very realistic - would bring in an extra $1000 a month, or $12,000 per year." That's more than the vast majority of self-published authors earn and it's hardly the killing or fortune mentioned earlier. 

AM I OUT TO DISCOURAGE SELF-PUBLISHERS?

Not at all. I'm all favor of controlling your destiny and self-publishing is one way to do that. However, you have to go into it with your eyes open, with a plan...and with accurate information. I've emailed Trent Steele (I don't know if that's a real person or a marketing persona) to ask why they're sending out information that is out of date at best, and misleading at worst. I'll let you know if I hear back from him/them.If you know someone who isc 

>the next post: more hype aimed at writers--be aware!

Two ways to keep your mind sharp as you get older

This is the season when we tend to appreciate even more than the rest of the year that the best gift any of us can get is good health, but unfortunately it's not something anybody else can give us.

As I enter middle age (I'm taking a very optimistic view of how long I'll live...) I look for anything that can help ensure that I will be able to keep my mind nimble for as long as possible. I suspect that's a high priority for you as well, and that's why I'm passing along the following:

Tuesday, December 23, 2014. The December 2014 issue of the journal Atherosclerosis revealed an association in older men and women between higher levels of the lipid-soluble antioxidant coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and a lower risk of developing dementia.

Kazumasa Yamagishi of Japan's University of Tsukuba and colleagues conducted a case-control study of individuals aged 40 to 69 years upon enrollment in the Circulatory Risk in Communities Study between 1984 and 1994. Serum CoQ10 levels were measured in 65 men and women who developed disabling dementia between 1999 and 2004, and in 130 age- and gender-matched control subjects.

An association was observed between higher CoQ10 levels and a decline in the risk of developing dementia. Subjects whose CoQ10 levels were among the highest 25% of participants had a risk of dementia that was 77% less than those whose levels were among the lowest 25%. When the ratio of CoQ10 to total cholesterol was examined, a similar relationship was observed.

"This is the first prospective study to examine the association between CoQ10 and incident dementia in a general setting," the authors announce. They observe that CoQ10 has lowered brain oxidative stress and amyloid plaque in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, and that rats with damaged areas of the brain experienced a reversal of markers of oxidative damage with CoQ10 supplementation."

CoQ10 supplements are available without a prescription. I'm not a doctor and this post does not constitute medical advice. Before taking supplements, check with your doctor, especially if you are taking medication.

EXERCISE HELPS, TOO

Exercise has also been shown to be associated with a delay in the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's. In one study with  1760 participants over the age of 65, all without cognitive impairment at the start, persons who exercised 3 or more times a week had a 32% reduction in risk for dementia compared with those who exercised fewer than 3 times a week. (Annals Of Internal Medicine, January 17, 2006, Volume 144 Issue 2, pp 73-81.)

 

 

Why it's OK to be nervous when you present your ideas

Writing on the thnk.org site, Robert Wolfe makes an interesting observation about how storytelling can gain power when the teller reflects the hero's journey in the way he or she tells the story:

This journey is a structure underlying many of the world’s tales and myths, uncovered by Joseph Campbell. In short, the hero leaves the safety of the village on a quest and deals with failure and near death to eventually overcome his or herself, find the elixir, and come back a changed person. Stories are about going out on a limb and they are about change. So during the course of telling of a story, we ideally expect the storyteller to make that journey in front of our eyes. Hence we don’t want them or their bodies to be in a position of power throughout the telling. In a sense, it should be a journey away from safety, to where it is unknown and dangerous and then back to find the world is changed, either outside or within. From strength to vulnerability and back again, or to somewhere else altogether.

When I thought back to some of the best pitches and presentations I've heard, that rang true. 

If the person doing the pitching hits you with 100% of their power right from the start, it can feel overwhelming, like they're over-acting or trying too hard. I experienced this once at a conference. At a time when most of the audience was still kind of waking up (many came in with cups of coffee), the first speaker of the day launched into her talk with maximum energy and enthusiasm and expected the audience to be with her right from the start. We weren't. Her attempts to get us to respond to her questions (which we all recognized as rhetorical anyway), fell flat. People near the doors fled.

In a presentation, the introduction of the speaker can be considered the 'normal' phase, the speaker coming on to the stage is the call to adventure. The speaker's initial nervousness reflects the impulse to resist the call, and spotting a friendly face in the audience is the equivalent of finding a mentor. 

In a pitch, the small talk preceding the actual pitch is the normal, then the start of the pitch is the call to adventure, a time when it's natural to feel a bit nervous, and noticing that the other person is listening and perhaps nodding helps you feel you have an ally. At points in the story where there is maximum danger or conflict, your body language can reflect that as well. 

In either situation, we can warm up to the story, tell it in the way that's natural to us and mirrors the content, gather strength from the attention of the audience, and finish strong. 

 

The beer that helps you solve problems

You may remember a while back I wrote a post about how beer (in the right quantity) can enhance your creativity. Now a creative person has figured out a way to cash in on that.

According to research by Jennifer Wiley, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the right level of blood alcohol for improving creativity is .075%, and a new beer (so far available only in Copenhagen) features a chart on the back of the bottle that tells you how much of it you need to drink to reach that level, based on your weight and gender.

The beer is called "the Problem Solver" and has an alcohol content of 7.1%, so it may not take too much of it to get you into the right creative state.

The beer was the brainstorm of creative agency CP+B Copenhagen and Rocket Brewing, also of Denmark. 

They do warn that if you go too far over the ideal level, the beer might become the problem creator instead of the problem solver!

If you have trouble sleeping, try this (non-drug) method

As somebody who suffers at times from insomnia, I've always been on the lookout for solutions.

Taking melatonin at bedtime makes little, if any, difference. I still take it because a doctor I trust told me it may help stave off dementia and Alzheimer's. 

I've tried herbal supplements, too. No effect.

I've stayed away from prescription sleep aids because they are habit-forming, can have side effects, and tend to be less effective the longer you take them.

That's why I was happy to find a non-drug approach (and, no, I'm not selling anything). It's an app that uses brain entrainment to guide your brainwaves down to the levels associated with sleep. I've found that it helps me to get to sleep in the first place, and also to get back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night.

You can play this on a smartphone or tablet (I use an iPad) that you tuck under your pillow. Keep the volume just high enough to be able to hear the tones--it won't be loud enough to disturb anybody with whom you share a bed. If you have wireless earbuds that are comfortable enough, you can use those to get the stereo effect that is supposed to be what makes the process effective. But whether or not it's the placebo effect, the under-the-pillow placement works for me!

The app I use is called Binaural Beats Master Collection. It has tracks for general sleep induction, power nap, and from high stress to deep sleep. It lets you adjust the amount of time you want the selected track to play.  You can click off the screen display to save battery power. 

It also has settings for energy boosts, meditation, increased creativity, and ridding yourself of a headache. I haven't tried any of these yet, but I'll report back when I have.

The basic version just for sleep, Binaural Sleep Beats, is free and you can upgrade to the additional tracks if you like (at least that's true at the time of this writing). 

This particular app combines the binaural tones with other sounds--not quite music but not annoying, either, at least to me. Some of the others available don't have music or additional sounds at all, while some use classical music (for instance, binaural Beethoven). It's a matter of finding which works best for you. 

There are apps that claim to use the same principle to improve your IQ, prompt lucid dreams, increase your motivation, and lose weight. I'm more skeptical about those, but probably I'll try a few just out of curiosity. 

There are similar apps available for Android and the other operating systems. 

Some of you may remember that some time ago I wrote about using a brain machine. Those work in the same way, but add blinking lights to the sounds. I'm finding using the audio app much more convenient.

If you give one of these a try, please let me know whether it helps, either in the comments section or via email to [email protected]. 

An epidemic of word conflation!

There seems to be an epidemic of word conflation:

"China and Russia Will Takeover Economic Lead"

"How this model can takeoff"

"Become an e-learning rockstar" (recognized as one word in the Urban Dictionary, otherwise it's rock star).

And a few bloopers:

‘[he] didn’t fair so well, either."

 "Newer double-pained, energy-efficient windows/doors..." 

and my favorite, from USA Today:

"The Oakland County Animal Control Office took the dog in custody and will be put to sleep." 

The first sensible thing I've read about the Sony hack and movie

North Koreans (or somebody very much like them...) hacked into Sony's systems and revealed emails that upset a bunch of high-paid executives, producers and actors.

Boo hoo.

In response to a vague threat of violence by the same people, all the major cinema chains decided not to run the movie that is the cause of the attack. 

If they make a vague threat against the Super Bowl, will it be cancelled? How about the next Olympics? Or all the malls in American the week before Christmas? Or your cousin Sheldon's bar mitzvah?

The first sensible thing I've read about this whole situation is an interview with cybersecurity expert Peter W. Singer by Jason Koebler at Motherboard.vice.com. Here are a few of Singer's observations:

Sony has labeled what happened to it as cyberterrorism and various media  have also described it as cyber terrorism. The reality is having your scripts posted online does not constitute a terrorist act. The FBI describes that as an 'act that results in violence.' 

...We need to distinguish between threat and capability—the ability to steal gossipy emails from a not-so-great protected computer network is not the same thing as being able to carry out physical, 9/11-style attacks in 18,000 locations simultaneously.

By caving in, [Sony] may think they're cutting their losses, but they're setting an absolutely horrible precedent that makes every other company less safe moving forward.

In a follow-up post, Jason Koebler points out:

North Korea (or whoever it was) used code that has been described by Cisco's security intelligence group as "simplistic, not very complex, and not very obfuscated" to steal social security numbers and intellectual property from a company that stores its passwords in an unencrypted Excel file called Master_Password_Sheet and saves unencrypted, plaintext listings of the unencrypted servers holding its employees’ social security numbers.

If you leave your keys in the car, don't be surprised if it's gone when you finish shopping.

 

The sane response would have been for Sony (and every other company) to take this is a wake-up call, strengthen the security of their systems, and let the movie run. 

 

 

 

 

Free? No, I'll pay, I insist!

The Senate Select Committee report on torture by the US is available free in PDF form, but Techdirt.com reports that it's selling rather briskly in a $2.99 Kindle version anyway. You can read PDFs on a Kindle but many people may not know that, or can't be bothered to figure out how to get a PDF onto their device.

The article recalls what happened when Norton published the 9/11 Commission Report, which also was in the public domain and downloadable free. They agreed to keep the price low--$10 for a book that ran over 500 pages--and had to pay extra for rush printing and distribution. Sounds like a formula for losing money, right? Well, in the end they made a profit of $600,000, which they donated to charity.

A paper-based version of the torture report will also be coming out shortly from at least one publisher. 

As for the content...what a sad and shameful story, and not one that can be whitewashed with protestations that "that's not who we are." We are what we do, not what we say.

 

 

 

 

 

Irony, headlines, and the ugly 'below'

IRONY 1:

How's this for irony: Che Guevarra's son is offering motorcycle tours of Cuba in honor of his father's love of motorcycles (as shown in the film, Motorcycle Diaries). The nine-day tour goes for $5,800, flights not included. 

I wonder whether he also offers t-shirts that say, "My father started a revolution and all I got was this lousy capitalistic travel agency that exploits his memory?"

IRONY 2:

The great writer, Maurice Sendak, who happened to write children's books, left his collection of rare books to the Rosenbach Museum and Library. The collection includes several books by Beatrix Potter, but Sendak's executors don't want to give those, calling them "merely children's books." 

That spinning sound you hear...

***

Headline I spotted the other day:

"Masked Men Wanted for Home Invasion."

I applied, but the positions had already been filled.

***

Headline I never got past: "Ignore Those Ugly Rumors About Mulch."

***

Tim Ferris wrote a post about the great writer and teacher John McPhee. Ferris hoped that if McPhee saw the post he wouldn't find it wanting. However, the post included the phrase, "the below piece" (as opposed to "the piece below"). Most dictionaries consider that wrong usage, but a couple now accept it.

I don't care whether it's accepted or not, it sounds ugly. I feel on fairly safe ground guessing that McPhee would agree.

 

What's happened to Smokey the Bear? (Random Sunday thoughts)

Do you remember Smokey the Bear from your school days? Friendly-looking bear teaching you to be careful not to start forest fires? 

Look at him now:

The glassy eyes, the vacant stare-what do you think, drugs?

And what's with the smoke coming out of his mouth? Smoke inhalation? Or is he smoking weed to deal with all the stress of having to cope with careless campers for so many years?

Maybe a drug-addled bear with a shovel in his hand is a better deterrent than one who looks like a teddy bear...

This kind of letter makes it all worthwhile...

A couple of my books have been translated into Russian, and today I received an email from St. Petersburg that reminded that even though very few authors get rich from the royalties, there are other things that make writing books worthwhile:

Dear Mr. Wolff!

First of all I want to apologize for my English. My native language is Russian, and with it I haven't problems.

I am writing to thank You for the wonderful books with tips for writers.

For a long time I feel creative crisis, struggle with phobias, can't begin to write again. Only after your books I wanted to get down to business again, no matter what difficulties and obstacles will I meet on my way.

I promise You that someday I will write something special and this will happen only with your help.

Thank You so much for this.

I wish you continued success and happiness.

Best Regards,

Milada,
Saint-Petersburg.

I believe with this kind of spirit, Milada will write something special.

How Nick Hornby deals with the long process from script to film

It can take ages for a screenplay to become a film and of course a lot of times the production never happens. Nick Hornby, whose most recent adaptation is Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, deals with it by using the time in between to write his novels.  

An article written by Joe Berkowitz for fastcreate.com points out, "what once seemed like a dealbreaking burden [the delays] has turned into a boon for the prolific author's productivity." 

Yes, he does have the advantage of being a best-selling novelist and Academy Award-nominated (for An Education) screenwriter, but I think there's a useful lesson in there for the rest of us as well, namely to figure out how to make the downsides of the business part of our craft work for us rather than against us.

Hearing back from agents and publishers can take just as long as the gaps and delays experienced by screenwriters. I think the lesson is to have another project ready to go when we send one out into the real world...which also helps cut down on the amount of time we spend thinking about the first project's fate!

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Audio Q&A: 'Wild'