Good times

. I think these are pretty good times for writers.

I know there’s a recession on, and it seems like there’s going to be some very dark times before we come through it, but I think for writers, we have a bright future.

For a start, commentators are saying people aren’t going to go out so much, they’ll entertain themselves at home. They mentioned DVD’s, but books are half the price of DVD’s, and they keep you entertained a lot longer.

Books are selling fast. As an example, I went into my tiny little local bookstore one Monday, where there was a pile of about 20 of each of the Twilight series. I was still unsure of whether to buy them or not, so I went away to think about it. Overnight, I decided to give in to temptation (I don’t know why I prevaricated, I always give in to temptation!) and went into the bookstore the very next day to buy the books.

There was one copy of Twilight left, one of Eclipse, two of Breaking Dwn and none of New Moon. This is a very small bookstore, and it sold 36 copies of the Twilight series in 24 hours – and those weren’t the only books selling well. I missed the last few copies of Inkdeath, and had to order it, and only just managed to grab the last copy of Rebecca.

As movie writers move to TV, with 24 hours of time and lots of characters to play with, movie makers are turning to books for inspiration. Most of the big movies in the past few years have been based on books, and as a result, publishers are always eager to get new, possible money spinners. Also as a result, people are reading more books, first the originals the movies are based on, then on to other books by the same writer, in the same genre and so on.

And then there’s the bookclubs. Oprah has one, and so do Richard and Judy in the UK. I was a bit dismissive of the Richard and Judy one at first (to my shame, now) but I noticed the books I liked turning up on the list. It turns out they have very good books on the list, and those book sell very well.

And those awards… book awards used to just consist of the winner announced quickly on the news, if there was time. Now both the long list and short list of the Booker Prize, the Costa, the Carnegie, the Whitbread are covered, and analysed and reported on, and sometimes the ceremonies are even filmed.

A few years ago people said reading was dead. But not any longer. I believe reading is undergoing a radical resurgence, that once again the pleasure of a good book is a major part of people’s lives. And that hunger for new tales can only be good for us writers.

Querying and selling your work

Well, it’s official – my vacation is over.  While the weather is still very much summer – 38 degrees here in Sydney - the return of my students today marked the end of my vacation.  

Along with my break from the kids and blogging – I’m now faced with a return to querying and trying to land an agent/publishing deal. 

This is only my second attempt at selling a manuscript.  This time last year, I attempted to sell my fiction manuscript Plan B to the American agents.  No success there.  In fact, by about mid year, I reached a point where I stopped querying because I’d had enough rejection.  Yes, I know…rejection is part of the journey – I get it – but there’s only so much rejection this little black duck can take.   The net result of all that rejection was positive, I realised I needed to do more work on the MS, which is still in progress.  Thankfully I scored a couple of writing wins towards the end of the year which have boosted my confidence and willingness to try again. 

Along the way I co-wrote a non-fiction how-to/job success manual (which I fully believe will sell) so that’s what’s on the sales agenda now.  

I plan to blog-ument my querying and sales journey each week.  I’m going to share the process I use to select publishers, how many queries I make and the responses I receive.  I’ll also share the other side of it – the emotional journey.  I plan on being open and honest about how I’m feeling throughout the sales process.  I’m doing this as a form of rejection therapy and in the hope that my honestly will help others who are going the through the same gut wrenching process.

Buckle up kids, think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Free Places to Promote

    I’ve made no secret of my promotion budget–smaller than a newborn’s finger nail.  So if like me, you’re trying to be creative about how you promote–this post is for you.  I’ve run across a couple of new places this week that I’d like to spread the word about.  But I’m going to start with a place that has been on the net for a while–Author’s Den  They offer a free website–think of it as another way to have a web presence.

  Ning has lots of stuff for authors.  One I found out about on Facebook recently was ReviewABook.  This is a new site where authors exchange reviews for each others books.  To be honest, I’m still figuring this one out–and as I said it looks very new, but I really like the concept. 

    Another site I just heard about this week was AuthorsPromotingAuthors.  This site will post a jpeg of your book cover, a buy link, a blurb and a website link.  In return all it asks is that you promote (by posting on your website or blog) the author who was featured before you.  They are branching out now and asking for articles too–it all looks pretty good.

    I do articles for other places as a way of promoting, but I have noticed that it is the ones I do because  I want to (I love the subject) that leads to a real leads to people coming to my site.  I did an article for map my run  back in May that continues to lead people to my website.  It was just a fun story about what I say to myself to keep myself motivated to run–but it has helped a bit–whether it translates to sales–I don’t know.

     Tell us about the places you promote–free would be nice–lowcost is good.

Like Dancing

. I don’t just write in my spare time – I dance too (hold on, I’m going somewhere with this). Lately, I’ve been learning belly dancing, and I’m pretty good at it.

So when I saw someone trying to do what they thought was belly dancing, but getting it totally wrong, I had an interesting reaction. My muscles, without any conscious thought from me, started to twitch, in the correct order and the correct way to produce the move the girl on stage was trying to do.

I’m not saying I stood, did an Egyptian travel, followed by a lateral eight, a camel and finishing off with a shimmy in the middle of the Fortean Times convention. But my body knew what it would need to do, and without any conscious prompting from me, started to do it.

And when I see good belly dancing, the same happens – only this time, my body is trying to copy.

Now (and here’s where it makes sense) I know writers who refuse to read books in their own genre because they say they don’t want to be influenced by them. I see it differently. I think reading books, as a writer, is like learning to dance. When you read a badly written book, your writing muscles twitch, showing you subconsciously, how it should have been done, how you would have done it. If you read a book written well, your writing muscles strain to copy – not exactly, just as no-one dances exactly like someone else, but copy the moves, the tricks, how you can use that particular style – whether it be playing with the timeline, or switching narrator, or something else new – to improve and expand your repetoire.

And reading someone else’s writing is like watching someone else dance – you’re itching to get up and try it yourself.

And now that I’ve done my dance/writing analogy, I’d like to point you towards a speech about libraries and books that Barack Obama made before he was president. I found it pretty inspirational.

Barack Obama Speech

Promo, Promo, & More Everlasting Promo

As I get closer and closer to the print release date for Safe House the promo tasks begin to seem overwhelming. It didn’t help that I was locked out of Twitter this week for having clicked on the wrong direct message.  I had to start a new account, find all the people I had tweeted with before, and start over. And I thought social networking sites would save me time connecting with others.

I have also been sending out ARCS for review.  This is also a time consuming process, just figuring out who to send to and when. Some review sites, like Foreword and Kirkus want ARCS months beforehand, some want them on publication (Midwest Book Review is one of them.) Meanwhile, I’m looking for blogs who will host me for a blog tour, and putting together an email press kit to mail to book stores in my area to try to arrange signings and talks.  Which means I need to figure out what to talk about and how not to stammer and stutter my way through the talks. I have started a database list of radio shows that I will also send to.

I have said publicly and on other blog posts that this time I was giving myself permission to take time to promote and to not be obsessed.  I LIED.

I am a perfectionist.  I am not able to cut myself that much slack.   I am more and more aware that authors have to sell this book to be able to get the next one published.  And my next book is my favorite so I really want to get it published. So I want to do it ALL. If I only knew what it all is and how to do it.

What are you doing for promo? And why do you think it’s a good thing? C’mon, give me a clue–I could use one.

Dream it

. Stuck for inspiration? No idea where your story is going to go next? No idea how that important scene will play out? There’s only one thing to do.

Go to sleep.

Almost every Twilight fan knows the inspiration for Twilight came to Stephanie Meyer in a dream. You may know that when Charlotte Bronte wasn’t sure how to write a scene, she would try to dream it. Many of Tanith Lee’s short stories are just her dreams, written down. One of my most popular Stargate fanfics came to me entirely in a dream (Ahem – bit of self-publicity here -

Alone In The Darkness;

Here’s a few tricks to use your dreams in your writing.
1) Keep a dream book by the bed, and write down your dreams as soon as you wake up. You may think you’ll never forget such a wonderful dream, but you will, and very quickly.
2) If you want to dream of a specific thing, for example, dragons, you’ll need to program yourself. This is the technique Charlotte Bronte used (it’s also good for programming yourself to wake up at a certain time). Lie in bed, get comfortable, and breathe deeply. As you breathe out, think about what you want to dream about eg ‘dragons and fairies’. On your second breath, think ‘Remember the dream’. Do this three times, or more if you can. This doesn’t always work straight away – Miss Bronte had to do it three times before she dreamt Lucy’s drug trip in Villette.
3) Make sure you’re going to have an uninterrupted night. Don’t eat before bed (unless, like me, you’re a horror writer, and want a nightmare. In that case, I highly recommend cheese). Make sure you’re warm and cosy, go to the toilet before bed, and try to choose a night where you won’t be woken by an alarm. There’s nothing worst than having a fantastic dream shattered just before that vital moment (like the 1950’s mystery dream I had, with the dashing detective – I was woken up just before the murderer was revealed!)
4) Practice. Dream programming, and even remembering your dreams, does not come overnight (so to speak….). You need to regularly be trying this. But when you do, you’ll be amazed what your subconscious plays out before your eyes in the night – and you’ll be so eager to get it on the page.

Happy dreaming!

Cutting Writing Costs? There Has to Be A Better Way

I’ve seen a number of posts on the ‘net lately about how writers can cut costs.  There was even a discussion on Sisters in Crime about authors who were giving up their web sites.  Others said they were cutting out conferences.  One discussion I read on another writer’s blog said she had cut down on her writing organization memberships.

I definitely need to cut costs.  I even took on a seasonal job doing taxes to try to boost income.  But as someone who has been around small businesses all my life, I have to say that I believe cutting anything that advertises you as an author or helps you network to find those advertising or signing opportunities is a bad move. People can’t read your stuff if they don’t know you’re out there.  Many e-authors even contract to maintain a website when they sell the book.

You can move your website to one of those free services (or your blog–obviously we think that works). See Georgie B’s blog for thoughts on blog advertising. If you keep your domain name (that costs a big 12.00 from most places) your readers won’t know the difference except for the ads added to the site.   Learn how to do HTML so you can update it yourself.

Conferences can be pricey–so choose ones closer to home–offer to help out on some of the organizing or teach a class to get a discount.  Many mystery conferences that I know of will do that.  When Bouchercon came to Denver,  many moons ago, I did that.

As to quitting your writing organizations, do it if they aren’t working for you anymore.  But review carefully, you may find that you got more helpful tips from them than you think.

That’s my two-cents–discounted for the current economy.  Tell me how and where you are cutting costs.

I Didn’t Get Involved–Until The Murder Trial

                                                    By Cheryl A. Schwartz

     Her frantic screams begging for him to stop sounded muffled, as if through
a pillow. What seemed like furniture being thrown against the wall jarred the
floor under my feet. It felt like a small earthquake.

My friend and I looked up at each other for a moment during the commotion,
then without a word focused back on the work we were doing at her dining room
table in the condo next door.

Thirty minutes into the screaming and thundering upheaval my friend and I
met eyes again, “This happens over there all the time,” she said.

After an hour I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Do you know who lives there?”
“Does anyone ever call the police?” “Shouldn’t we do something?”

 

“No.”

I knocked over my chair tripping to my friend’s front door, ran out and
started to knock on the fighting neighbors’ door. I stopped. Suddenly I began
assessing possible danger to me — this wasn’t my space — I didn’t know who or
what was behind that door.

Whispering to my friend back in her living room I told her I had never
before shied away from getting involved when lives were at stake. But this one
confused me terribly. I felt I should be doing something to intervene but
decided not to based on my friend’s assessment that they were always fighting
next door. Ninety minutes of ferocious battle had finally quieted. I went
home.

The next day my friend called. “Guess who’s dead?”

The husband was charged with the murder of his wife. He beat and strangled
her to death, dragged her bloody, broken body up stairs to the bathroom, washed
her in the tub, re-dressed her in clean clothes, then shoved her body back down
the staircase where it landed in a heap on the living room floor.

My God! I had heard her being murdered! The woman had been screaming for
her life! 

I phoned the district attorney, told her what I knew, and became a witness
for the prosecution.     

 

Tears dripped down my face as I spoke from the witness stand. I starred
straight in the eyes of the murderer during my entire testimony. He was found
guilty.

The names of the people involved in this domestic abuse case aren’t
important, except for the victim. She had a name. It was Catherine.

# # #

Cheryl A. Schwartz, aka aeropolowoman, is a former print and broadcast
journalist from Los Angeles. She is now a blogging journalist from Clearwater,
Florida. Contact her at: http:/twitter.com/direct_message/create/aeropolowoman,  or  cheryl.schwartz@alumni.uc.edu

Writing really IS like love!

. I read Narelle’s post about writing being like love – if it hurts, you’re not doing it right – with interest – and I immediately emailed Narelle to point out that as someone supremely unlucky in love, it always hurt!

But the more I think of it, the more the original simile holds true.

When we fall in love, we gather up the best parts of our heart and soul, and hand them over to someone else for safekeeping. When we write, we take that same heart and soul and lay it out on the page. But rejection comes, as it does to all of us (except for the blessed, lucky, charmed few). At best, the person we loved gives us a kindly no. At worst, they give us a detailed, precise account of our many faults. And when we send off our work to the publishers, back comes that rejection slip – at best a kindly no – at worst…..

And then there’s 4a.m.thoughts, when you lie awake, in cold cruel clear dawn light, the same bleak thoughts running over and over through your head. Why won’t he/she love me? What’s wrong with me? Will I ever get published? Am I any good, or just fooling myself? What’s the point of it all?

And then there’s the disappointments. That great passionate love affair dwindles into mundanity. The truly great novel you were writing turns into a turgid mess.

Until finally, defeated and frustrated, we crawl under our duvet, shut out the world, and swear we’ll never try again.

But this is where writing becomes exactly like love – for us writers, that is. It keeps tapping us the shoulder. It keeps whispering the words into our ear. And one glorious, wonderful day, standing in the rain, or in the shopping queue, or on the bus, it hits again. That urge to write, like the urge to love, struggles up to the surface, and we give in, because, despite all the disappointment and rejection, we deserve our happy ending, damn it, and we’ll try our hardest to get it!

So I agree with Narelle’s original simile – with one change. Writing is like love – if it hurts, you’re just going to carry on anyway, because in the end it’s worth it.

Writing is a bit like love.

During a recent text conversation, Linda (a new friend), said she was writing the first draft of a story. Naturally I asked her how it was going.  She said it was hard work. I told her that I think writing is like love…if it hurts, you’re doing it wrong.

I’m glad this was a text conversation, otherwise Linda (who doesn’t seem like a violent person) may’ve been tempted to clock me.

I really wasn’t trying to be annoying or patronizing and in the days following this conversation, I had cause to eat my words. I was editing the second draft of a non-fiction manuscript and I was feeling every single word. It was nothing short of a g-r-i-n-d.  I shared this information with Linda, she seemed pleased.

I’ve thought more about my assertion that writing is like love and have refined it a little. I now realise that (for me) writing the first draft is like love. Here’s how:

It demands courage, faith and willingness;
It requires great commitment;
It thrives on honesty;
You can’t force it or make it happen;
You can’t rush it – it takes time to fully develop;
It benefits from compassion and wisdom;
It’s powerful, energizing and uplifting;
It’s consuming and deeply satisfying;
It feels really good when you’re doing it right;
It makes your heart and soul sing;
Sometimes you need to step back to regain a healthy perspective;

So, that’s where I stand on the issue.  I wonder if I’ve left something off that list?