Holiday Promo by Christine Duncan

I know a lot of writers who are revving up for the holidays. Some of them are offering their books as gift-wrapped bundles at special prices. Some of them are doing special holiday contests on their blogs. Many romance writers seem to do this one, and often it involves readers going on a bit of a blog tour as the writers do a group contest. One woman I know is gearing up to sell her books at Holiday craft sales.

I have done the holiday contest thing. It was fun, but I didn’t really see an uptick in sales. As for the special price on both of my books, gift wrapped, I don’t think my publisher would be too happy.

I haven’t done the holiday craft shows mostly because the only local craft shows that I know about seem to involve art juries deciding who gets to participate. Still I’m going to look into it, because the writer who is doing it seems to have a pretty good success rate at it.

So what am I doing? I’ll be doing a podcast on Monday at 5:00 central on Murder, She Writes and I’m hoping to do a bit more blog touring. I’m still trying to arrange some local things.

The thing is, not much in the way of advertising is going to influence my buying patterns this year. I’m going to be fairly practical and very frugal (read that as cheap.) In a year where many of us had to stretch to pay the mortgage, I’m thinking I won’t be alone. But hey, I’m always open to any suggestions on promo.

Elevator Pitch by Christine Duncan

The elevator pitch is useful to a writer at just about any stage. If you really want to sell your book–work on your elevator pitch. If the book is published but you’re trying to interest readers,(sell your book) work on your elevator speech.

The difference is, I think it’s easier when you’re not published yet. The elevator speech for an unpubbed writer should be short–really short. And it should be fun and pique interest. Think of it as a tweet for Twitter. Okay that sounds hard if you got a complicated plot and hero/heroine. But it’s important. You’ll use the elevator speech at conferences where you are trying to interest editors and agents and you use it in your cover letter. So it’s a little intimidating. You don’t want to stammer here.

Trust me though. Perfecting an elevator pitch tends to boil down what you think is important about your novel. That can really help you when you’re sitting down to write too–almost like goal statements, it tends to concentrate things. I know one writer who keeps her elevator pitch right in front, taped to her monitor so she doesn’t veer off track.

If you’re wondering why it should be so important consider this scenario: You come in and sit down in front of an editor stammering, “Well, uh, my work in progress is about this guy who ah, he doesn’t like himself much and ah….” (Yeah, the editor is bored already,and if you weren’t sweating it so badly, you would be too.) Or you can say, “I’ve got a techno-vampire mystery where the hero is troubled by his vampirism, has a mortal love interest who isn’t aware of his problem and is also trying to track down some guy killing all the vampires.”

Not that that is a wonderful elevator speech, but it tells genre and sub-cross genres, gives a bit of the plot, tells the editor you know where you’re going. And you can actually spit it out if you do accidentally meet an editor in an elevator. .

By the time you’re published, people want longer elevator pitches. The typical one I’m asked for now is for radio, so it is usually around two minutes. You know, you can say a heck of a lot in two minutes. Or not enough. It takes practice.

Give it a try. Try it out on us! Give us your elevator speech.

Professional or amateur?

My husband’s family are all into hobbies, railways, models, dolls, the lot. I mean really into it, they removed walls to put in more display cabinets. When I asked Keith what should I write about this week, he said, “Writing – the cheap hobby of the economic downturn.”

He was teasing but he’s right, it is a cheap hobby. Still, just like any other hobby, you can get carried away. It’s just so easy now.

You can micro blog through places like Twitter. There’s blogging like WordPress, forums, fiction groups that do tag team writing like ASR http://boi.alt-starfleet-rpg.org , ezines, Facebook and MySpace, wikis and a thousand other ways to get your words out there. It seems everyone can do it and a lot of us are. We are living in a world where people share information at an ever increasing rate. So where should we draw the line between a writer and someone that just types a lot?

You know, I don’t think there needs to be a line. Just like astronomy, some of the best finds are from avid amateurs.

Someone writing about their passion is always worth reading. Take my mother-in-law. Types away about dolls, writes the occasional article for her local doll club, tests out new crotchet patterns for doll clothes and puts them together with a few pictures. Amateur right?

Wrong.

World-wide author Marjory Fainges. She did so well out of it, now my father-in-law writes too. And you want to know what is really interesting? Marjory was published internationally by Kangaroo Press/ Simon & Schuster. When her Encyclopaedia of Australian Dolls went out of print, she chose to release it, not in hardcopy but on CD. Made at home, she can produce a CD version herself and post it around the world for a fraction of the cost and send people updates as she researches for the next edition. It is a constantly evolving reference that the doll world is greeting with open arms and open paypal accounts.

So when is she “professional”?

What is your passion? Maybe it’s worth writing about. And maybe your blog can go from hobby to career.

Blog Tour Posts

Just in case I haven’t griped enough about the blog tour I’m doing, I have found another drawback to the whole thing. It is difficult to come up with so many different posts that showcase my writing voice. Now don’t get me wrong–I have no illusions that I have an unbeatable voice. But I do have a voice and if I am doing one of those, 3 ways to conquer writer’s block type posts, I am so bored myself that the voice is lost. (This is not meant to put down the people who can write those kinds of posts–only an awareness of my own limitations.)
After all, the point of doing a blog tour is show readers that they will want to read my stuff. I myself, started reading Donna Andrews and a couple of other mystery writers because I liked their blog posts. The ones I liked and whose books I searched for, talked to their readers about everything under the sun and did it with humor and grace.
So I know I can’t get away with a post that just says read Safe Beginnings And although a lot of my blog tour host sites are aimed at writers, the posts that I’m just now finding out to be effective don’t have as much to do with writing as with revealing something about my writing and me. (which sounds so ego-centric, doesn’t it?) Why I wrote the books, interviews with the character, and facts about domestic violence in our society tend to make me more passionate and I think that’s why it works better. On the other hand, standard interview questions about me (Ms. Duncan, have you always wanted to write?
Um, well, yeah, doesn’t everybody?) don’t work for me. I become tongue tied–or writing blocked or blank posted or something.
If you are just now planning a blog tour, I recommend that you spend a week trying the whole thing out and test posting. You’ll see what I mean. Meanwhile, I’m back to agonizing over guest posting.
Who knew this would all be so complicated? A real book tour (given some money, which I don’t have) is beginning to look good.

The Worst Thing

The surest way I have ever found to get myself out of writer’s block is to ask, “What is the absolute worst thing you can do to your character?”  Bujold put me on to the idea and I love her for it. Find the one thing that would really disturb the character and do it. This tends to work in two ways.

1. You really have to get to know their motivations to answer that question, and
2. They start to do all sorts of interesting things to avoid it.

One of my favourite characters that I have ever written was born from just this process. The world I was writing was based very strongly on survival of the fittest. So what if they met someone who was surviving quite well but was in a wheel chair? How would they cope?

To my considerable surprise, the main character fell head over heels in love with her. Who knew he had it in him? As I typed, I could see it unfold and really threw me. No one reacted the way I thought they would. I really got to know them in a whole new way and the characters became a lot more real. Just like us, facing adversity really made them grow as people and gave them substance.

            One of my favourite movies is Soapdish. A line in that movie goes something like, “I’m normal, who wants to watch me on TV?” While characters can be normal people, they should always be given something extraordinary to overcome, losing the farm, finding their father’s murderer, finding the ‘Forgotten Crystal of Doom’, whatever the genre, giving them something to battle makes them interesting. And what should they battle? Well ask yourself – what is the worst thing that can happen to them? And see what happens.

English – the “common” language

As we near the end our first year of blogging at Rule of Three, we have figured out that life still happens. We get sick or go on vacation (or is that on holiday, ladies) or take on a few more responsibilities. And sometimes that means we just can’t post. So we have asked for someone to come in and pinch hit for us on those days. Luckily Karen Fainges responded and is here today to post for Narelle.

When asked to describe herself, Karen Fainges says teacher, wife, mother and writer, though not necessarily in that order. The Shaytonian chronicles were born one day as a story to keep her cousin and sister from being bored. The spark grew through many retellings, some in short stories, some in role-play. All those years of games, tears and laughter are distilled into a much more adult version than that long ago tale. Still, the childlike wonder of life, the fierce need for acceptance that we all can feel and the belief that the universe really does revolve around us; all comes through in this irreverent stab at all those old B movies. What if out there, there really was a race of beautiful slave looking for a male with whom to rebuild the species? And what if he said, “Sure, why not?”
Here is what Karen has to say about a subject that comes up often here at Rule of Three: English.

When George Bernard Shaw said that, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language”, he never spoke a truer word. Even in this world of constant online communication, this is still true. One question every Australian writer has to answer for themselves is, “Will I leave the ‘u’ in flavour?”

For some, the characters are Australian or English and then it is easy to say yes, it’s part of the character. As a writer of science fiction/fantasy, I have to decide for characters that learnt their English at the turn of the century (and I’m talking 1300’s).

But there is more to it than that. It’s not just different countries. I have found differences even in other states in Australia. What do you call a roll of pressed meat made to put in sandwiches? Is it spam, luncheon, deli meat or one of a dozen other names? And if I call it spam, do I have the characters spend five or six lines explaining that it is meat for sandwiches, and not annoying unsolicited emails? Actually, now I think of it, that gives me a great idea for a scene, I should write that down.

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/ gives some wonderful examples of the differences in English and American. Chips, are they hot or cold? Is being made redundant becoming obsolete or losing your job?

I have found more and more that I have to pass my work on to three or four different nationalities to see if it means the same thing to all of them. I am amazed how often the same words can invoke a completely different reaction.

Some of it is tone. To an Aussie, “yeah right” is often spoken sarcastically. For us, it can mean, pull the other one, it’s got bells on. For others reading those words, the tone of voice sounds a lot different, it means agreement.

So where is the line between making your writing clear and adding way too much explanation? I guess I can post this blog and see if anyone “gets” it.

Blogbook Tour Update

I’m beginning to think a blogbook tour is actually a mental health challenge. If you make it through without being certified, you are good for life. If not….well there are some nice facilities for mental rehab nowadays.
Today’s post was supposed to be a calm update about my blog tour which kicked off Sunday. I was going to tell you how I got it all together, had all the posts written, the links up, and was now just waiting for comments.
You guys all know me better than that now, don’t you?
First off, the book is not out yet. We were waiting to get the blurb from a review, but then the reviewer needed it edited. Then the reviewer’s editor wanted a live link on Amazon or Borders or some other online bookstore, which ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN UNTIL THE BOOK IS PUBLISHED which we don’t want to do until we have the review. (it is on Fictionwise and Amazon as an e-book with my other pub, but that apparently wasn’t enough.) You see the circle?
Okay, so no print book yet since I can’t see my way out of the circle and neither can my publisher apparently. But I do have the tour lined up all the way into the beginning of June. And I have the posts written (okay, most of them. You folks who are waiting for the first week of June posts–I’m working on them. As soon as I get this post written and the one written for MakeMineMystery for the last Thursday in May and the intro post for our guests here, oh and I have to tweet and put updates up on Facebook and myspace and crimespace bout Linda Faulkner visiting here tomorrow. Okay, it’s not probably going to happen today–but I’m working on it.
I do have the first part of the tour schedule up on my website. and I’m going to list it on Goodreads and FB events and anywhere else.
Should we have a pre-order link do you think? Maybe something tasteful up on the pub’s website? Or just keep going on the blogtour until the book is actually out?
I can practically hear Narelle. Breathe in, Christine.

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.