Time to Write

If It Hasn't Happened for You Yet

It can be frustrating to keep on writing while waiting for your break. Sometimes we wonder whether we're just wasting our time. All those days, weeks, months, years with nothing happening.

Of course, it's not really that nothing is happening. You're constantly learning, improving, and bringing new stories to life. The part that hasn't happened yet is the recognition from others, like editors or producers, of the value of what you're creating. And that hurts.

I have experienced this myself, and at times it has put me off even submitting material. I love the process of creating. The process of marketing? Not so much. But, of course, we have to do both. Both call for patience. Here's what the poet Rilke wrote about that:

"Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!"

That's the lesson I have to learn and re-learn. Maybe it'll help you, too.

 

Secrets sell books and screenplays

I noticed a pattern today in the "free reads" books featured by Amazon Prime this month. Here are the log lines of a few of them:

"A novel of secrets, memory, family, and forgiveness..."

"A chilling story of a woman with a forgotten past and a town with dark secrets."

"A double homicide and a missing woman lead a detective to unearth disturbing secrets in this gripping thriller..."

"A woman unlocks the mystery of her father's wartime past in a moving novel about secrets, sacrifice, and the power of love..."

THE SELLING POWER OF (SUPPOSED) SECRETS

The theme of secrets shows up a lot in messages from people trying to sell us stuff, too.

They' offer us the secrets of writing a great novel, or having hair that shines, or getting a promotion.

Some of them add a conspiratorial dimension by adding that these are the secrets some "they" don't want you to know.

It seems corny but it must work or else copywriters wouldn't keep using it. We keep falling for it despite repeated disappointments. I've yet to find a book or course that has revealed actual secrets that the Illuminati or anyone else is actively trying to keep me from finding out. 

DON'T KEEP YOUR SECRET A SECRET

In fiction, a big secret in the story suggests that something unexpected will be revealed. We do love to be surprised and in that sense, a plot twist is a kind of secret from the reader or viewer.

Beyond that, being able to incorporate the notion of a secret in your logline may help your project sell.

Obviously it has to fit the story you are telling, but if it is a feature or you can make it one without affecting the integrity of the story, be sure to point it out when you're writing your logline and your query letters.

The man with 21,000 rejections

A man who's collected 21,000 rejections? What a loser, right?

Nope, very, very wrong.

Jacob M. Appel is a doctor, lawyer, bioethicist, author, professor, and tour guide. He has seven master's degrees, a JD from Harvard Law School, an MD, and is a practicing psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

His short fiction has been published in 215 literary journals, his debut novel won the Dundee Prize in 2012 and raves from Philip Pullman and Stephen Fry. He's published 16 books and written ten plays. Next month he's making appearances at literary events in Connecticut, Virginia, New York, and Ohio. 

Can we agree this guy must be a genius? 

Maybe, then, you'll be surprised to hear that in addition to all his awards and accolades, he's had 21,000 rejections.

That means he's submitted work 21,000 times (actually more, because not all were rejected). He's 46 now.

I don't know at what age he started submitting work but let's say it was early, at 16. That's 30 years. That's 700 submissions per year, about two per day. And he still had time left over to become a doctor, lawyer, teacher, and tour guide. 

Very few will ever match Appel's abilities and achievements, but I think there are four things we can learn from him:

1. You have to produce.
2. You have to get it out there.
3. You will get a lot of rejections.
4. You can't let the rejections stop you.
   

Is your script or novel idea any good?

How can you tell whether your idea for a screenplay or novel will interest anyone?

The other day I taught a 'taster' session for my Script Coach workshop that's running again at Raindance in Central London starting on October 15, on the topic of "How to use loglines to help you write and sell your screenplay.' One of the things we discussed is how to use loglines to test the appeal of your stories.

WHAT'S A LOGLINE?

A logline is a one or two sentence summary of your story (minus the ending), written in a way that piques the curiosity of the person who hears or reads it.

A logline should reveal your protagonist, your antagonist, and the basic conflict. For example, here's a logline for E.T.:

A lonely young boy befriends an alien and has to protect it from the authorities and help it get back home before the conditions on earth kill it.

THE COMPONENTS OF A LOGLINE

A logline should include:

The protagonist - "a lonely young boy"

The antagonist(s)- "the authorities" and "conditions on earth"

The conflict - protecting the alien and getting it back home. Loglines are so short that you don't have time to get into details, but we can imagine that both the authorities and the conditions on earth will create conflict for the boy.

DOES IT PROMPT CURIOSITY?

In this case, if we haven't seen the film, we might be curious about what the alien is like, how an alien can be friends with a boy, what kind of battles there might be between the boy and the authorities, and what he'll have to do to get the alien back home.

Having a logline that arouses curiosity is crucial because usually the goal of sharing a logline is to get an agent or producer to say, "That sounds interesting--tell me more!"

USE THE LOGLINE TO TEST YOUR IDEAS

Loglines are also a great tool for testing your ideas before you start to write, whether you have in mind a screenplay, novel, or children's book. Most writers have more ideas than time, so it's useful to know which one has the most appeal.

You can try out your loglines with friends. You should be able to tell the difference between a polite response and genuine interest. 

HOW TO GET GOOD AT WRITING LOGLINES

You can read lots of loglines at IMDB.com (International Movie Database). Just type in the name of a film and you'll see brief descriptions that you can practice re-shaping into loglines.

For instance, here's their description of E.T.:

"A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home world."

I the earlier version is better because "a lonely boy" is more specific than "a troubled child." "Summons the courage" is kind of abstract. Also, they don't mention the conflict with the authorities, which is a key part of the plot.

TRY REWRITING THIS LOGLINE

Your turn: here's their description of "Get Out!":

"A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point."

"Simmering uneasiness," "their reception of him," and "boiling point" all are vague. If you've seen the movie, how would you rewrite the second half of the description to be more specific but without giving away the ending?

If you haven't seen "Get Out!", do the exercise with the IMBD description of a film you have seen.

MORE TO COME...

You can also use the logline to help guide you in the writing process, but I'll save that for another post.

 

Self-doubt and how to overcome it

Two Types of Self-doubt

In a TED talk, organizational psychologist Adam Grant mentions that there are two types of doubt. One is positive, one is negative.

Self-doubt tends to be paralyzing. If you continually question whether you are up to a task, the odds are that you’ll get stuck and give up, perhaps continually moving on to different projects instead of seeing any through.

However, “idea doubt” can be useful because it leads you to think about all the possible things that could go wrong and develop backup plans and alternatives.

Self-doubt works against you

We sabotage ourselves when we get the two kinds of doubt mixed up. For example, if you write a first draft of something and decide it’s really bad, you can come to either of these conclusions:

“I’m a crappy writer.”

or

“This is a crappy first draft.”

The draft itself only provides evidence for the second conclusion. But what if this is the fifth or tenth first draft that you’ve written, and they’ve all be bad, and you’ve given up on all of them? You still have a choice of beliefs:

“I’m a crappy writer.” This kind of conclusion often spirals down into depression and existential angst.

Or

“I’m crappy writer of first drafts.” By putting a fence around your crappiness, this conclusion is not so damaging—in fact, it implies a solution.

Again, the evidence supports the second conclusion, and there’s something you can do about it: find an appropriate book, writing group, course, or writing coach so that you get help in identifying what you’re not doing well enough, and find out how to do it better.

The best friend solution for self-doubt

I’m no stranger to self-doubt but when I start to jump to conclusions I try to remember to use the best friend solution: describe the situation as though it pertained to your best friend.

We know that men and women typically respond a bit differently to hearing a problem. Women tend to empathize, men tend to give advice.

Embrace both your feminine side and your masculine side. First, if you’re beating yourself up, be kinder to yourself—just as you would be with your best friend.

Then come up with the constructive advice you’d give them. This harnesses the fact that we are always better at giving other people advice than knowing what to do ourselves.

If you write down that advice and follow it as though it came from an expert (it did), often that gives you the confidence to move forward and engage in the constructive kind of doubt that focuses on the task, not on your basic right to exist.

Why I want more rejections of my novel

I admit it. My YA novel, Reptile Nation, has been rejected a mere 14 times so far, but I'm hoping for more.

There are only two good stories about rejections:

"My novel was accepted by the first agent or publisher I sent it to."

or

"My novel had 99 rejections before it was accepted by an agent or publisher." (Admittedly, this one is good only if the book then turns out to be a success, but let's be optimistic.)

Since I missed the first one, I'm going for the second. 

The balancing act every writer faces

Should you write that novel or screenplay that's burning a hole in your head but probably isn't commercial, or should you opt for a safer story that doesn't ignite your passion as much?

In an interview on the Get Into the Story blog, screenwriter Gary Whitta had this to say:

"I think in the end, it’s a lesson that in trying to find that balance between creative and commercial appeal, you always err on the side of what excites you creatively. That’s the only way to write honestly. A lot of people like to chase trends. They see a hit movie, and then they want to try to emulate that movie. That does not feel creatively satisfying to me at all."

The lesson he refers to was that he wrote "The Book of Eli" as a spec script without discussing it with his agent or manager, thinking they'd talk him out of it since the idea didn't have obvious commercial appeal. Going with his passion paid off, since the movie was made, with Denzel Washington in the lead role.

He mentions a couple of other scripts that were much more obviously commercial and sold, but haven't been made. 

Related articles

A great source for character information for writing your novel or script

Mo Willems on Writing for Children and Other Unembarrassed People

Will people pay for a book you gave away?

There are a variety of sites on which authors can showcase their work and get feedback from readers. At one of the biggest, Wattpad, readers can comment on your work, follow you, and vote for their favorites.

The site is geared mostly toward fiction for teens and young adults. One of the stars of Wattpad is Jerilee Kaye. She had more than ten million readers and more than 11,000 comments for Knight in Shining Suit, her chick-lit/romance novel.

That attracted attention from some traditional publishers, but she decided to go the independent route. She self-published the ebook using Smashwords (a popular self-publishing site), with a price of $2.99. She left ten chapters on Wattpad as a sample and to ensure the book’s continued presence on the site. She also created a trade paperback edition with CreateSpace (an arm of Amazon).

If ten million people had already read it on Wattpad for free, would there be anybody left to buy it?

The answer was a resounding yes. It is one of Smashwords’ top twenty-five bestselling titles ever.  That didn’t happen by accident, though. Kaye told Publishers Weekly that getting reviews from bloggers, advertising on Goodreads and doing a paperback giveaway with them, and interacting with her readers online all were critical to her success. She also posted more material on Wattpad, which found new readers, some of whom then bought her book. 

This is not the usual experience for a self-published author but it shows that having had free exposure for a book on a site like Wattpad can work for you rather than against you.

Writers and Artists are not Beggars! (Don't make the corn flakes cry)

I'm working on a new online course, Profit from Your Creativity, and one section is about mindset.

One myth I'm writing about is that somehow people who publish your book or give your paintings space in their gallery are doing you a favor. Let's go to the supermarket to see if this is true...

At the supermarket you are confronted by an entire aisle of cereals. There are more cereals competing for your attention than can ever win it. It's a buyer's market.

If you choose the shredded wheat, are you doing it a favor?  No, you're choosing it because you think it will taste good and/or be good for you.

It's a win for the shredded wheat and for you.

DON'T MAKE THE CORN FLAKES CRY!

Should the corn flakes take your rejection personally? Does it mean they should slink back to the Kellog's factory, knowing that nobody else will ever buy them?

Silly, right? Yet that's the attitude a lot of writers and artists have when their work is rejected. 

All it means is that the person who rejected your work doesn't get it. It's their opinion that your work can't make any money for them. They may be right. If they are not excited about your work they wouldn't be any good at selling it to a publisher (if the rejector is an agent, for instance). By rejecting you, they are disqualifying themselves. They have shown they were not the business partner you were looking for.

If they do accept your work, they are doing it because they think they can profit from it. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but it underlines the fact that it's a transaction from which both parties can profit. It's a relationship of equals. 

WHAT KIND OF GIRL SCOUT ARE YOU?

You may think that your attitude is not that important--it's the work that will determine whether or not it is accepted. However, the way you present it, for instance in a query letter or pitch, can have a major influence as well. Certainly it can influence whether or not the other person ever reads or looks at what you are offering. Three girl scouts will show you how that works.

At some point or another you've probably been approached by Girl Scouts selling cookies. Imagine three Girl Scouts with three different opening lines and think about how you'd respond:

Girl Scout A: "Hi, we're selling cookies. You don't want to buy any, do you?"

Girl Scout B: "Hi, we're selling cookies. Do you want to buy some?"

Girl Scout C: "Hi, we're selling cookies. Which do you like better, chocolate chip or brownies?"

It's really easy to agree with Girl Scout A: "No, I don't, thank you."

Girl Scout B's approach is better, but it still makes it very easy to say no.

Girl Scout C doesn't give me the chance to answer no right away. Instead, she prompts me to think about cookies. Which do I like better? If I like brownies, her question probably makes me think about (and maybe visualise) eating a brownie. Yes, please!

Unfortunately, a lot of writers are like Girl Scout A. Their query letters include negatives, like "My work hasn't been published yet, but...." Or in a pitch they say something like, "I haven't worked out all the details yet, but..." If you do that, nobody is going to buy your cookies.

THESE COOKIES WILL [not really] CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

I'm not suggesting that you go to the other extreme: "This book will outsell Harry Potter because it's the most exciting blah blah blah!" That's a turn-off too. It smacks of delusion or desperation, neither of which looks good on a writer or artist.

Instead, you want to use a form of presentation that reflects your enthusiasm for your project...and a potential win-win for equals. 

 

(Would you like more useful information about writing, all the way from the idea through to publication? You'll find lots of useful help in my book, Your Writing Coach. It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

Richard Linklater's no-formula movie plots

At fastcreate.com, Director Richard Linklater, recently feted for his film, Boyhood, shares his approach to coming up with the structure of his films:

"There are a lot of stories in the world, and I spend all my time thinking about how to tell them. That, to me, is the cinematic element. That's the hard part: the right narrative form on every movie is the thing I have to break. New forms have always been a part of my thinking. 'Could you ever tell a story this way?'"

In other words, he starts with the story, not a predetermined structure. In the case of Boyhood, that was a real challenge:

"The idea for Boyhood was one of those 'aha' moments that at its core was problem-solving. The film's structure emerged out of trying to solve the problem of how to express that story over a long period of time. It's very straightforward, but in a way that hasn't been done before, because it's just completely impractical."

STRUCTURE VS. PLOT

Linklater is not saying that a film can be made without a structure, but that we don't have to stick to the most common plot shapes:

'When I write a screenplay, I've diagrammed the architecture of the story. There's really got to be a structure; art demands it. I care more about structure, less about plots. Anything plot-driven feels a little more man-made, more manufactured. I'm always going toward something that's a little more true to life."

HOW TO LET THE STORY BE THE MASTER

Linklater's approach mirrors what I often say in the screenwriting classes I teach: Let the story be the master, not the servant. For instance, don't start by trying to squeeze the story into the steps of the hero's journey. Instead, explore the story long enough to discover what it's really about and then figure out a structure that serves it. 

Asking a few questions can help you do that:

1. Who is the most interesting person in this story?

2. What happened before the part of the story I intend to tell, and what happens after it?

3. Who and what changes as a result of the incidents in the story?

4. What do I want an audience to feel while watching this story?

Often we are eager to start writing right away. Doing so can be another way of finding the answers to these questions, but it's tempting to regard what you've written as THE way to tell the story, rather than an exploration. That's why I recommend exploring these aspects of the story before you start to write. As a result, you may find yourself ending up with a different protagonist, or telling a different part of the story than you had in mind, or even switching it to a different genre. And you're likely to end up with a script that doesn't seem a carbon copy of existing scripts.

WARNING: RESISTANCE AHEAD

Linklater has a lot of freedom in the stories he chooses to tell and how he tells them. As a writer without his track record, you may well meet resistance if you pitch a story that has a structure not immediately recognizable as the three act structure or the hero's journey.

However, it's also the stories that are told in a fresh way that stand out, and I believe that in the long run you will be well served by emulating Linklater.

Related articles

Richard Linklater on 'Boyhood's' Shaky Origins: 'I Had Pretty Much Given Up'

Why self-publishers are selling less--and what to do about it

At TheDigitalReader.com, Nate Hoffelder summarizes the challenge that self-publishers (and even traditional publishers) are facing:

"As 2014 draws to a close indie publishing finds itself at a crossroad. There's a growing consensus that the supply of indie e-books is beginning to exceed demand, leading to the textbook micro-economics result [falling revenues]."

WHAT WORKED ISN'T WORKING 

He lists three conclusions:

"One, the days of releasing the first title in a series as permafree have passed. All that accomplishes now is to flood the market and make it harder to sell e-books.

Two, the idea of writing and publishing your next book as the best marketing strategy is also going to have to be reconsidered.

Three, getting into or out of Kindle Unlimited isn't nearly as important as some thought it was a few weeks ago. As I noted when I first reported on this story, this problem is affecting authors both in and out of KU."[Kindle Unlimited is a plan in which, for a monthly fee, readers get free access to many of the e-books available on Kindle. Authors have reported that joining this plan has resulted in lower sales and that the revenue they get from KU has not been enough to make up the difference.]

To this I would add that, for most authors, using social media to promote their fiction doesn't work unless they put an enormous amount of time and effort into it. Yes, you can do blog tours, take part in forums, have a blog about your book, etc. but all those face exactly the same problem as the books themselves: too many people doing the same thing. 

Also, just as giving away your book in hopes that this will attract readers to other books you have written or will write doesn't work now, neither will lowering the prices--that will just result in a race to the bottom. 

SO WHAT WILL WORK?

I don't have a magic plan, but I think based on what's happening now we can safely say to get attention in this ever more crowded marketplace you have to do something different. A few examples:

* Some authors have used crowdfunding as a way to create an audience for their book before they finish writing it. They set the financial bar low to help ensure that their target will be met. However, getting attention for your funding effort also requires a lot of effort, and works best for high-concept books. Two important elments are how creative you can be with the pitch video that you put on the crowdfunding site and the kinds of rewards you come up with for the people who pledge funds. (I'll be doing a series of posts on crowdfunding at some point.)

* When everybody is trying to use new media, it may be the right time to go back to using old media. Local newspapers, local radio, magazines, and other old media are still alive and get a sizable audience. The hook for getting their attention usually is something extreme about the work or about you. Think of oldest, youngest, longest, shortest, cheapest, most expensive, an unusual origin, an unusual experience, etc. 

* There may be piggybacking opportunities, but usually you have to create them yourself. For instance, if you have written a romance in which one of the protagonists suffers from an illness or medical condition, is there a charity or support group that might help you promote the book if you donate 10% of your profits? Obviously this would work only if they felt your portrayal was accurate and might help promote understanding. 

* There may be unusual sponsorship opportunities. For instance, hotels, restaurants and even train lines have had writers in residence. The main value isn't that residence, but the opportunity to leverage it for publicity. Again, you need to be proactive--why not suggest such a scheme to a business that's not doing it now, rather than waiting to hear about one and then having to compete for it?

 DON'T LOSE HEART!

In any crisis, there is opportunity. I'm convinced that authors who are as creative about their marketing as they are about their plots and characters will find a way to cut through all the noise. 

(To find some great techniques for coming up with creative ideas, see my book, Creativity Now, published by Pearson. For 100 case studies of unusual and inexpensive market techniques, see my book Do Something Different, published by Virgin Business Books. Both are available from your favorite bookseller.)

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. 

 

Want to pitch an idea? The one most important thing to remember.

The other day I got an email from a writer who had an appointment to pitch her movie idea to a producer and she was in a panic. She asked what tips I could offer. The biggest one:

Keep It Simple!

When I was in a position to hear pitches the most common problem was that the person telling the story knew it so well that he or she went into far too much detail.

Since I'd never heard the story before I couldn't tell which of the many details related to the core story and which were parts of the subplot or just digressions.

THEY SNORE, YOU LOSE! 

When you confuse people hearing your pitch you've lost them and it's very hard to get them back.

Of course how detailed you get will depend partly on whether you're giving the "elevator pitch," the two or three-minute version, or the complete story. But even for the latter it's a good idea to stick to the spine of the story.

If your story moves back and forth in time, often it's better to indicate that but tell the story in a more linear way.

For instance, you might say, "As Maria's relationship with Andre disintegrates, we see episodes from her childhood that reveal the abuse she sufferend at the hands of her father. When she is five (describe what happened), and on her tenth birthday (describe what happened). Finally, on the day she graduated from junior high school, she found the courage to resist and (describe what happened)."

Even though those episodes may be spread out in your screenplay or novel, grouping them in the pitch can make the story easier to follow.

THE KEY POINTS TO REVEAL

You might be surprised to hear how often people pitching a story leave out one or more of these essential bits:

What is the genre?

Who is the protagonist?

What's happening at the start of the story? This may or may not be the first thing that happens chronologically in your character's life. For example, you may want to bookend the story with someone remembering a major incident that had led them to a dramatic moment in the present.

What are the key problems the protagonist encounters and how does he or she respond?

Who or what represents the obstacles--sometimes the obstacles are internal but especially if you are writing a screenplay you have to find something external to represent them.

How does the conflict escalate and what is the highest point of conflict?

How does it turn out?

Ideally the story itself will reveal the underlying theme but sometimes it doesn't hurt to allude to it as well. The danger is that themes can sound quite banal when stated straightforwardly, as in "crime does not pay," or "once lost, trust is hard to regain."

However, you might say something like, "(Title) is a thriller about two brothers and the price of lost trust," and then go into your story. 

A QUERY LETTER IS A PITCH, TOO

These essentials also work in a query letter. However, that format is closer to the elevator pitch and you would not go into as much detail about the escalating conflicts and you may just set up the final conflict but not reveal how it turns out.

As I know from experience, writing a synopsis that covers the key points and also sounds interesting rather than like a list of plot points is challenging, especially if you've already written the whole novel or script. In fact, it may be the hardest thing you write!

(For a supportive guide from idea right through to publication, get a copy of my book,Your Writing Coach, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

Why "free" is on the way out for ebook authors

Marketing guru Ramit Sethi recently said that if you send people a link for something free they may find interesting, most of the time they won't click on it. This may not be true of your family and closest friends; then again, it may apply to them as well.

Why not, when it's free? For example an article, a report, a YouTube video.

People already have so many demands for their attention that it's easier not to click on yet another link, or to leave it for later (= never).

Sethi says these days you have to "sell free." You have to show people that it's something that will benefit them, just as you do when you're charging. In marketing terms that means there had better be a very good prospect that putting in the effort to sell free will result in income at some point down the line.

HOW THIS WORKS WITH EBOOKS

When there were not so many ebooks around, free worked well. If you had several books available, offering one free in hopes readers would like it and would pay for your other ebooks was an effective strategy.  

It does still work for some people, but I think it's on the way out.  I subscribe to two sites that send out daily emails listing free or highly-discounted ebooks. I very seldom download any of them. I already have enough to read and these books are by unknown authors. They may well be better writers than some of the well-known authors but I don't have time to download and sample these books. 

WHAT COMES AFTER FREE?

If I had sure-thing answer I'd be selling it instead of giving it away for free :). However, my guess is that a new author will have to work even harder to develop a platform--to get known by potential readers first, and then offer them the chance to buy his or her books for a reasonable fee. 

This will make things harder for authors who like to write in a variety of genres because each genre has a different target audience and they don't all hang out at the same places. 

IT'S TIME TO BE A CONTRARIAN

I believe that in this as in a lot of other things it will pay to be a contrarian. When everybody else is on Facebook and Twitter, those are not the places to be if you want to stand out. If others are still flooding the marketplace with free ebooks, you don't want yours to be considered part of that group. 

What are some places most people consider untrendy? Here are a few:

* Newspapers (yes, they're dying but they aren't dead yet). In this category I include feature stories, display ads, and classfied ads.

* Magazines - same as for newspapers

* Radio

*  Local television

 * Podcasts

Having a website will still be important, but not the typical site that has just the cover of your book, your bio, and maybe a blog about how you came to write the book. This may sound harsh, but nobody cares--that is, nobody who doesn't already have some kind of connection with you. 

In future posts I'll go more deeply into some ways that I'm starting to build a platform in Young Adult fiction, which is a new format and genre for me. I'm sure this will include things that don't work as well as things that do. I hope that will yield some information that will be useful to you as well. 

In the meantime you may also find it helpful to get a copy of my book, Do Something Different, published by Virgin Books; it contains 100 case studies of people who came up with creative, mostly very low cost, effective marketing strategies. It's not free.

 

 

Why use a pen name?

I read the other day that J. K. Rowling submitted the first Harry Potter book with the name she normally used, Joanne Rowling.

The publisher warned her that boys might be reluctant to read a novel written by a woman, thinking it was intended for girl readers, and advised her to use her initials. 

Did it help? We will never know, but we can be pretty certain it didn't hurt.

That got me thinking about pen names. I'm just about to submit my first YA novel to agents and/or publishers and thinking about doing so under a pen name, instead of Jurgen Wolff, for a couple of reasons.

NAMES AND PERCEPTION

Multiple studies show that someone's name influences how they are perceived by others. Dictionary.com references one such study conducted in the US:

"Participants of the study were asked to guess the success of students with various names on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most successful.

The highest scoring names turned out to be Katherine, scoring a 7.42, and Samuel, scoring a 7.20. With a score of 5.74,

Amber ranked lowest among female names while Travis ranked overall lowest with a score of 5.55.

As John Waggoner, a researcher from Bloomberg University, points out: “Katherine goes to the private school, statistically; Lauren goes to a public university, and Briana goes to community college. Sierra and Dakota, they don’t go to college.”

In the UK, Richard Wiseman conducted a study, asking 6000 people about their perceptions of names. The most successful sounding ones were Elizabeth and James, the most attractive ones Ryan and Sophie.

Writers often take this into account when deciding on names for their characters, especially for their protagonist and, if applicable, their villain. They don't usually think of it in terms of their own names.

THE NAME ON THE BOOK

Research suggests that people decide alarmingly quickly whether or not to pick up a book (or in the case of online listings, whether to click the thumbnail image). They base this on the title of the book, the image on the cover, and the author's name. 

I wasn't able to find any studies specifically on the extent to which the name of an author who is not famous impacts sales.

This kind of test has certainly been done on possible titles for a book. Timothy Ferriss tried out several names for his first book. He put ads online that described the book in exactly the same way, varying only the title. The clear winner was The Four Hour Work Week. Since the book wasn't actually available yet, the people who responded where told they'd be notified when it was.

It would be interesting to do the same thing, but varying only the name of the author...If I give that a try, I'll report the results here.

POSSIBLE FACTORS

The factor that seems most obvious to me is that it helps if the author's name is congruent with the genre of the book. I'm guessing if one thriller cover featured an exciting image and the author name Mortimer Feeney and another version was exactly the same except that the author's name was Jack Chase, the latter would outsell the former (apologies to any Mortimer Feeneys reading this).

There may also be cultural factors. My first name, Jurgen, is German, and although the recent World Cup win seems to have created a blip of goodwill toward Germans, overall I think there's some negativity associated with German names in the UK, if only subconsciously. 

One additional factor based on your surname is that in book stores novels usually are shelved alphabeticalliy by the last name of the author. If your surname starts with W, your books tend to end up on the bottom shelves, where it's less likely to catch the eyes of browsers.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

Of course there are lots of exceptions--authors who have unusual, unpopular, or foreign-sounding names whose books became best-sellers. In fact, it can help to have a somewhat unusual name because it will be more memorable. 

IF YOU USE A PEN NAME

Based on a bit of quick research I've done, it seems that the etiquette of submitting material to agents and publishers suggests using your real name in your query letters unless you've already had something published under the pen name.

In a way this is too bad because probably agents and publishers are just as much influenced by names as anybody else. Some sources do say that it's OK to add your pen name on the title page of your manuscript, like this:

written by Mortimer Feeney

(writing as Jack Chase)

THE BOTTOM LINE

Ultimately it's a very personal decision--some authors feel that it's a betrayal to thei family name to use a different one--but compromising paid off for J K--I mean, for Joanne.