Write that Novel 3!

Looking for a story idea? Here are a few titles that just might get you started.

• Courage in the Face of Commas
   
• All’s Well That Doesn’t End in Murder
   
• It’s All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses Their (His/Her) Life
   
• Romancing the Keystone State
   
• The Top Ten Things I Really Shouldn’t Have Had for Breakfast
   
• Zen and the Art of Golf Ball Fishing
   
• Monster Sandwich
   

So write that novel—but what’s the plot? Share your craziest idea for a book with any of the above titles in the comments!

Photo by Malik M. L. Williams

Fulfilling audience expectations on every page

As we’ve started to talk about marketing, we’ve mentioned how important your genre is. Your genre gives you a built-in audience—with built-in expectations of books in that genre. Those expectations will vary with the genre. In genres that have a fairly standard plot formula—romance (cute meet, conflict, HEA), mystery (crime, investigation, unmasking the criminal), etc.—that’s certainly part of the expectation, but in every genre there are even smaller expectations that we must fulfill to give our readers a good reading experience.

On the macro level, as we talked about in marketing,

we give readers an experience they want: excitement, fun, connection, contemplation, novelty, etc. That “emotional interest” that nonfiction creates is built in for fiction: it’s emotion itself.

Or as author/blogger/marketer Kristin Lamb wrote also last week:

Why do readers buy fiction?

One of the reasons readers are so loyal to authors is because of how that author’s stories made them feel. James Rollins makes me feel like I’ve had an exciting adventure. Sandra Brown makes me feel love is worth fighting for. Amy Tan makes me feel hope and power. J.K. Rowling’s stories make me feel heroic.

Fiction authors are brokers of passionate emotion.

While these emotional experiences are important on the story-level, we need to remember the experiences readers want on each page, or we run the risk of readers giving up on our books long before we can show them the story-level emotional experience.

Rewards Per Page

While we might not be able to fully capture heroism or adventure on a single page, or on every page, there are many, many other emotional experiences that “reward” readers on every page. Vince Mooney points out that a reader “is buying a ‘basket of feelings’” (though he narrows this to romance readers, I really feel it applies to all genres). Beyond the overall payoff of the plot, Vince says that every page should hold “rewards” for the reader—and after studying more than a thousand novels (hello, corpus literature!), he’s come up with 100 types of page-level rewards for readers.

Here are a couple of my favorites rewards he shared on Prairie Writer Chicks and Seekerville:

• Give the reader new experiences, or interesting little factoids
• Anticipatory Events (AEs): create situations in which the reader looks forward to finding the resolution. (And paying them off, especially quickly.)
• Sparkle—beautiful, fresh writing
• Humor

Vince also suggests looking at your own manuscript to find how many rewards you’re giving to your reader per page.

While the ones he lists on those blogs are fairly universal, there are going to be many rewards that vary by genre. Just as the emotional experiences readers are looking for depends on the genre, the payoffs and rewards do, too.

For example, in a romance, a romantic gesture, especially one tailored to these characters and this situation, rewards not just the characters but the readers, too. (EX: after a fight, he sends her favorite flowers, rhododendron—or better yet, mindful of her flower and food allergies, he sends a GFCFSF cookie basket.)

In a mystery, on the other hand, finding a clue is a type of reward. It can be even better if it’s a clue only a very attentive reader would notice—if the main character is distracted or has a very good explanation for it (making your characters look dumb to make a reader feel smart is not a reward—it’s actually frustrating for the reader). This might be considered a variety of an anticipated event.

And as with all other genre expectations, the best way to figure out the rewards that are most applicable to your genre is to read widely within your genre.

What do you think? What kind of rewards do you see in your genre?

Photo credits: I <3 Mr. Darcy by Jamelah E.; rhododendron by D. Mott

Marketing 101: When do I start?

So, now that we’ve established that we’re designing marketing strategies instead of aimlessly using disparate tactics and touting the emotional benefits of our novels, let’s talk about when we need to start marketing. The answer is pretty simple: today. And also tomorrow.

Before you sell a book

Before you sell your first book, you can begin marketing. A lot of that marketing will be in the form of query letters, pitches and other interactions with publishing professionals. But once you’re ready to query, you’re ready to market the one thing you do have: yourself.

While I do know people who have had editors approach them based on the excerpts on their websites/blogs, most of our audience before we have a book (or a deal) won’t be agents and editors. You definitely need to make your online presence professional, especially if you mention your site in your query or email signature—but you also want to keep in mind your audience, often other writers.

One way to do this, obviously, is a blog. You do NOT have to blog about writing unless you really want to (I did and I do). But when you’re ready to enter publishing, a blog is a great way to start putting yourself out there, making yourself known. We’ll be talking more about blogging soon, but one more note before we change the subject: I also recommend approaching blogging before a book deal as a way of networking. Make friends with other writers! Aside from not feeling like a lonely schizoid, you can help and get help from writer friends in strengthening writing craft, finding critique partners, researching and just having fun.

If you feel your writing is ready to submit to agents and editors, then it’s probably ready to put a sample up on your site, too. Because that’s what it’s all about, right? However, you don’t have to treat your blog audience as potential book buyers. They may or may not be—and before you have a book, they won’t be.

When you have a book!

Whether you’re going with a traditional publisher or self-publishing, marketing a book falls pretty heavily on the author’s shoulders.

Naturally, once you have a book in the works, you want to start working on promotional plans. Of course, with a traditional publisher, you will probably have a long lead time—and even you will probably get tired of hearing about your book by the time it comes out if you spend a year or two in hard sell mode. It’s a weird state of limbo—and where I find myself now. My biggest marketing activity right now is polishing up my strategies and tactics for sometime next year. But whenever I can share some good news about the process—a release date, turning in edits, a cover—of course you know I will!

But as your real live release date gets closer, you’ll want to start putting your bigger plans in action. A couple years ago at the LDStorymakers writing conference, author Heather B. Moore recommended this timeline for marketing an upcoming release:

6 months before release: get endorsements—blurbs on the book and on your website (yes, even before the book comes out)

4–6 months before release: line up newspaper reviewers and prominent blog reviewers for a national release and get those ARCs out ASAP

3 months before release: line up reviewers—newspapers and blogs—for regional releases

1-2 months before release: schedule launch events and book signings

Also prepare your marketing materials (bookmarks, fliers, postcards, etc.) well in advance! Check on your printer’s schedule and allow plenty of lead time to have your materials in your hands (or in bookstores) when your book gets there, or a few weeks before.

When your book releases:

• Get books to remaining reviewers (some don’t want ARCs)
• Hold a book launch at bookstore, library or other location that is related to your book
• Issue a press release (you MUST hit on something unique and interesting—AKA a hook—to have any hope of getting this published) or a news item—line up writer friends to feature your announcement in their newsletters
• Schedule future book signings—talk to store owners

Now, this timeline is built for a traditional publishing schedule. If you’re self-publishing, you don’t necessarily have to wait 6 months to drum up interest first—but starting your marketing 3-4 months before your release (a bare minimum of one month) is definitely a good idea to help get your name and your book out there.

You don’t want to pour too much promotion effort into a book that might not ever see the light of day, and you don’t want to overwhelm the good information and content on your blog with self-promotion—but there’s most lkely something for you to market right now, whether that’s yourself or your upcoming release.

What do you think? When did or will you start your marketing?

Photo credits: handshake—Lea Hernandez; calendar—Tanakawho

Author photos!

Yesterday, I paid a friend to shoot me. Fortunately, he used a camera.

Okay, so my photographer isn’t just a random friend. He happens to be Jaren Wilkey, the 2011 Photographer of the Year for the University Photographers’ Association of America. (Just in the 2011 UPAA print competition, six of his photos also won prizes/honorable mentions including two 1st place finishes.) I’ve seen him take lots of pictures before—and had him take some great pictures of my family—but after working with him yesterday, let me tell you, the man knows his stuff. I mean, just check me out (and these are just straight from the camera):

(okay, I photoshopped fixed my hair a little in this ^ one)

These are three of the just under 500 photos we shot in 90 minutes. I am now armed with reaction shots for any possible blog topic. For example, murderous rage:

I will say this a thousand times: if you have the money or the contacts, get a professional to shoot your author photos. (And the same thing goes a million times for your wedding photos. Still grumbling about mine.) There is no substitute for someone who understands how to really work a camera and use lighting and backgrounds and poses to make you look your best.

In case you’re wondering, taking your author photos is pretty cool and can be a lot of fun, but no, it doesn’t make you feel like the real deal (yet).

Any faves here? How do you want to do your author photos?

In case you missed it, photos by Jaren Wilkey

February Thinky Links!

Over the month of January, I collected the stories I found on Twitter and in my feeds that were just too good to miss and put them together for you! Welcome to “Thinky Links“!

Author Janice Hardy offers some good advice on how to cut a scene without hurting your story

Kristen Lamb gives a really good example of how to start in medias res.

The Editors’ Blog looks at the use of coincidence in fiction, why it’s bad—and how to fix it.

I’ve been working hard on revising my Nano novel, so I’m really far behind on my feeds, but I did happen to see two good posts on EditTorrent recently, the kind that make me want to run around telling people “I’ve been vindicated” in an imaginary battle I was having with no one. The first covers showing versus telling in an interesting way (i.e. not writing 101), including that was is not always bad and is not the same thing as passive voice, and the role of telling in exposition.

The second is how to avoid that obnoxious “As you know, Bob” (or Alphonse) dialogue by slipping in backstory, characterization and other information through subtle cues. I LOVE working on this, and Alicia gives great examples!

Although I’m now with a traditional, regional publisher, I still find self-publishing very interesting. So for two different perspectives on that this month, Daniel J. Friedman takes a hard look at the numbers behind self publishing: what they make, what they’re worth, and what they’re selling. On the other hand, Joanna Penn interviewed Adam Croft on How To Sell 130,000 Books Without A Publisher. And for some perspective on both sides, Future Book looks at Why Amanda Hocking Switched, with some interesting notes on how her publishers are working for her.

And to close, here are a few of my favorite posts on this blog from Januaries past:

• A perennial favorite of mine, how to spot and avoid the most common (empty) gestures in writing
• Another one I still use extensively, creating and editing with a scene chart
• And a few from the series on tension, suspense and surprise:
  • Choosing whether plot elements should be set up strongly to create suspense, or should remain a surprise
  • One I should probably study a little more: creating suspense in Act I
  • What creates tension and suspense?

What’s the best writing/marketing/publishing advice you‘ve read lately?

Photo by Karola Riegler