I don't like to blog much...

You can probably tell by my infrequent posts that I'm not a big blogger.  So today, in free form style, I'm going to explore why that is.

Writing is hard work.  There's that.  Not just the typing, I mean, that's easy for anyone who can type 72 words a minute.  But the mental preparation required to write takes discipline, and most important of all, confidence.  I kinda lack both.

Discipline means being able to get yourself focused to the task at hand.  Knowing you have something to say and a strong will to make sure it gets said.  Confidence means you don't think what you have to say sucks.

I have a discipline problem because I have a confidence problem.  It's hard to stay focused on what you want to say when there's a big part of your mind telling you "No one cares what you have to say."

Anyone else hear that voice?

Thought so.  So here's what I'm going to try to do from now on.  I'm going to write despite what that voice says, and I'm gonna say what I wanna say regardless of who listens or who cares.  Because here's the most important perk of writing that no one tells you about:

It's your way to capture your thoughts, your dreams, your characters, their thoughts, their dreams, all down on paper (or digital) forever.  It's a manual recording device for your brain.  That's it.  Some will read it and love it, some will read it and hate it and some may read it and not understand a word you're saying.  But that's like you, isn't it?  Does everyone immediately "get" you?  Even after meeting them do they fully "understand" you or know exactly where you're coming from?  No.  Some will meet you and love you, some will meet you and hate you and some will meet you and not understand a word you're saying.

But that's ok.  That's what makes us unique.

So after just getting rejected from an agent for the bazillionth time, I'm going to try working on a new book that hopefully may make some of what I'm saying a little more clear.  I may have mentioned the book before:  Dealing With Dudes and Chicks.  It's something that's been brewing in my mind for close to 10 years, but I've never had the guts to self-publish it, because it's a controversial way of getting teens to think, based on my ideas as a parent.

Well, I've got the guts now.  So keep an eye out for Dealing With Dudes and Chicks.  Coming to Amazon soon.


.....and in the meantime, if you haven't, check out my Timepiece Chronicles and Under a Broken Sun...  :)

Read it outloud!!

Final phase of editing before releasing it to the public in book form, and this, my friends, is the single most important part.  Read your entire book out loud.  Pretend you're making an audio book.  Do voices if you want.  Mumble on the bus to work like I did for two weeks straight.  It's ok.  It's winter.  Throw on a tattered hoodie and forget to shower and people just think you're a crazy person.


Why is it so important?


Because our brilliant mind can auto-translate and buzz over misspelled words without us even knowing it.  Reading your book isn't good enough, because the mind works too well and efficiently:  you need to slow yourself down, and reading out loud does that.  It forces you to go line by line.


Take, for example, this little beauty I picked up in my own book after reading it to myself, oh, seven or eight times:
 

I pulled Bill back a bit.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Giving you a chance,” Bill said.

“Yeah, but this isn’t really a ‘giving you a chance’ kinda moment.  This is serious stuff.”

“Do you honestly think there’s anything out there you can’t handle?  Worse than the lake?  Worse than what you told me about in Pittsburgh?  You’ve seen the worst nature has to offer, and you’re still here.  Anyone who can cover the ground you’ve covered, keeping his team intact, is ok with me.”

I stood there, frozen and confused.  Me?   I looked around the room.  Ashley didn’t smile, she just put her two pistols into her jeans.  “He’s right,” she said.

Louie looked down at his shoes.  “I don’t want to go with anyone else.”

Tommy hoisted his sniper rifled on his shoulder and gave me a nod. 

The general shook his head.  “Not these three.  Bill - for chrissakes, they’re just kids.”

“Not anymore sir.  They stopped being kids a long time ago.”

No argument from anyone.  The room grew quiet.  “Fine.  Bill, you’re in charge, Dawson’s second in command.  Get those people organized and get ‘em ready.  Let’s move.”

Did you catch it?  Don't feel bad if you didn't, like I said I buzzed over it seven or eight times.  Spell check accepted it because it's a real word (although it doesn't make any sense in context), and my mind saw it and instantly dismissed it because it knew what it should've said.


If you read it out loud, you go line by line.  Slowly.  And then you catch it:


Tommy hoisted his sniper rifled on his shoulder and gave me a nod. 


RIfled.  A d.  One simple letter that doesn't belong. 


There were plenty of other examples that I caught by reading the book out loud.  It does take time, it slows you down to a crawl and burns inside your "get this thing out as quickly as you can" center, but it's well worth it.  Trust me.


So read it out loud, and WRITE ON!

How to spot a "show don't tell" violation

More revisions?  Like to find those areas you could improve, like searching for the word "was"?


Search for any narration that includes distance.  Words like "about", "miles", "feet", "yards".


These are boring descriptions that leave the reader trying to imagine what 100 yards really looks like.  Ever notice how many times people refer to football fields when talking about distance?  It's because we can visualize a football field. 

About is usually a dead give away, unless you're describing what something is about.  And again, it's ok for characters to use this, as people do this all the time, but the narrator shouldn't.  It's just boring, because we're not interested in metrics or area or what have you. 

For Example:

The road stretched for about two miles ahead of us.  First of all, I can't visualize two miles, because even in the flattest heartland of Kansas, you may not be able to actually see two miles.  But regardless, this is boring.  The road stretched out ahead of us until it shrank into itself on the horizon gives you a better visualization.  When Andy Dufrane crawled through a half-mile of the foulest smelling shit you could think of, Stephen King made sure we knew that was "five and half football fields". 

That's a long way.

If something is about a hundred yards away, you could say the person of interest was so far away they appeared slightly larger than my thumb.  Or Jim Lovell used to block out the moon with the tip of his thumb, indicating how far away something that big was.

How deep is the ocean?  Don't answer in miles.  Someone going two miles below the surface of the ocean is hard to visualize.  Someone going so deep in the ocean that the sun, without a single cloud to block it, vanished like God had pulled the string and clicked it off, is in pretty deep. 

A little flowery, I know, but you get the point.  Watch for places where your narrator is telling us about distances and you'll find plenty of gold pieces you just need to dust off.

So?  Go get crackin' and WRITE ON!

Search for the WAS

How to find weak writing in your manuscript?  Search for the word WAS.


Most of the time, as I'm going through my book, I find this word describing something, which is the antithesis to the "Show, don't tell" mantra.  It definitely tells, most of the time.


When I find it, usually there are three things that are happening:

1. I'm being lazy, and can beef up the action verb more.  "The sun was setting", for example, versus "the setting sun exploded color...". The verb went from "was" to "exploded" which is much more engaging.
2. I'm using the passive voice.  Never good.  "The building was blown up by the militants" instead of "the militants destroyed the building".  Again, a more exciting action verb.
3. I'm trying to use a metaphor, but again, being lazy:  "she looked at me like I was crazy" as opposed to "she stared at me like my head had just sprung open and butterflies flew out". 

HOWEVER, there are times when I keep the WAS in.

1. In dialogue.  Yes, it's not as exciting, but that's how people speak.  Take any of the three items above and put quotes around it, and you've just made your teen sound like a Harvard grad.
2. When it's require for past-perfect tense.  Like when a character is rehashing an event prior to the one they're in, or when they're remembering something.  "I remember he was running down the corridor" is perfectly ok because it's part of the past perfect tense. 

So I'm searching through my manuscript now and every time I see a "was" I look for these different items.  This is when the rubber meets the road, where your writing skills are really tested.  This is where an author could spend an hour on a single sentence.  This is what separates the pros from the unpublished.  So get searching, and

WRITE ON!

3 Fears That Keep Writers from Writing

Ok, these are my three, and I'm no psycho-analytical genius, so take them for what they're worth.  But c'mon, every one of us that has either not been published or has self-published have stopped writing at some point, right?  We may call it writer's block, but there's something deeper than just trying to figure out another word for "like". 


We're afraid.


Of what, you may ask?  Why, if I love writing the way I do, would I possibly be so afraid as to STOP writing?  You can't be published if you stopped writing.  In fact, 100% of all unfinished novels that have never seen the light of day are UNPUBLISHED (that one's a fact.)


So why do we stop writing?

1.  FEAR OF SUCCESS.

This is a weird one, so I thought I'd throw it out first.  What does Fear of Success mean?  Who the heck would ever be afraid of success?  Money, fame, fortune, a beautiful model on each arm (depending on the tolerance level of your spouse).  Sounds great, right?


Wrong.  What does Success really entail?  CHANGE.  Imagine your book finally getting published.  Selling.  Through the proverbial roof, in fact.  What does that mean?  Changes to your lifestyle.  And I don't mean a brand new Porsche.  I mean possibly quitting your job.  Having to look for health insurance as a self-employed individual.  If you have kids, it might mean less time with them.  More time writing, but with greater, stricter deadlines.  Flights to weird places.  Book signings.  Marketing work, all while you still try to hang on to your crummy day job that you can't wait to quit but you have to keep because the royalties from last month just paid for a new printer and not much else.

How do you overcome this?  You face the fear, you imagine your life as a success, and you plan for it.  You organize your future life to understand what the change will mean, and make the change less of a scary "oh my God my life will be totally turned upside down" and more of a "man I can't wait."

Fear gone.  Until it's replaced by:

2.  FEAR OF FAILURE.

Yes, this is something that every author has so I won't bog you down with clichés and obvious points.  You know what this means.  You know how it feels.  You see the rejection letters, hear the "It was good" reviews from your closest friends, and you know you've just dropped your drawers in front of three agents at a writer's workshop and had each of them laugh at you.  You've failed.


So how do you overcome it?   EXPECT FAILURE.  Welcome it.  Relish the rejection letters, and never accept a critique of "it was pretty good".  Failure means progression, pure and simple.  Without it, you can't recognize what needs to change.  Without it, you only know you're NOT doing something.  Like Edison famously once said, "I didn't fail 1000 times, I found 1000 ways to NOT make a light bulb".  Find those ways.  Don't, of course, drive yourself to failure.  That'd be silly.  But realize each time you think you've failed, that you're a real writer.


And then, you'll only be left with:

3.  THE FEAR OF EXPOSING YOURSELF

This is an altogether different type of fear, based on the reason WHY you're writing.  We write because we love the act of creating worlds, characters, being charge, playing God, whatever.  But really, deep down inside, we write because we have something to say.  My author friends, the published ones, have written very personal narratives that touch on social issues they feel people need to be aware of.  K.M. Walton's CRACKED, about not just bullying but why someone might bully, is a very relevant social topic.   SPEAK, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a wonderful story about a very troubling social issue of rape.  Even if the story isn't that heavy, like my book The Timepiece Chronicles (link above), there still is a theme to our writing that we want others to come away with (in my book it's about the importance of not fighting what happened in the past).


But what if your theme causes controversy, or you're seen as an expert when really you just wanted to express your opinion?  Or what if people argue against you, or challenge you?  That can be scary.


So, again, how do you overcome it?  TRUST YOURSELF WITH THE STORY.  You've written about this for a reason.  You know it in your heart to be true, no matter how many people take offense, or challenge you, or want more from you.  Hopefully, in your research, you've become somewhat of an expert, and hopefully you are passionate about it that you won't stop learning more.  You can stand your ground, accept the challenges, or promote your idea from the highest mountaintop if you believe in yourself, and believe in your ability to deliver the message.


We're all messengers.  Every single one of us that writes has a message to send.  Trust yours, and trust yourself to deliver it.

Decisions, Decisions.

I got an offer from Permuted Publishing!  A three book deal for Under a Broken Sun, which is pretty exciting!

So why am I not bouncing off the walls?

Because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING!

Is it a good offer?  A bad offer?  What do I look for when signing my rights away?

The challenge of being a self-published author.

I'm searching for agents, but if you go to an agent with a publisher in hand, they're less likely to work with you, especially if it's a smaller niche publisher like Permuted (they are strictly post-apocalytpic).  Plus an agent knows the big boys - Simon & Schuster, etc, which means bigger advances.

In other words, I don't want to jump at the first person expressing interest.

BUT, do I risk turning them down just to have them disappear?  And then maybe never get another offer again?

WHAT TO DO!?!?

Leave advice via the comments.  It's free, and will be taken as such.  :)

Oh well.  Book 2 calls.  WRITE ON!

Great discussion with a social media coordinator

Yes, there are groups and organizations out there that will manage your social media presence for you, and believe me, it's worth it.

I haven't signed up yet for it, but this guy's giving me a free look-over on my Facebook ads, to see if 1) I'm targeting the right audience and
2) I'm sending out effective ads.

Here's what I learned about Facebook advertising:

- You can have a campaign consist of multiple ads, each one targeting a specific audience with different images, words, etc.  Once these go out, you can use the results to identify your best target audience.  And if you set a dollar limit on your campaign, your ads will accumulate to that limit and no more.

- Broader scope is not better.  You may think targeting 58 million people would be great, and you may jack up your likes to your page, but that doesn't necessarily translate into sales.  Many people like a page just cuz they like it, or they like everything that comes their way, but they're not the ones buying your book.  A broad reach may get you 100 likes on your Facebook page and no sales, whereas a niche target may get you 25 likes but 25 sales.  Likes don't pay.  Sales do.

More to come once I get the feedback from my social media coordinator.  In the meantime, if you have a chance to consider Facebook advertising for your on-line book or self-published book, DO IT.

And most importantly, WRITE ON!

The key to overcoming writer's block is...

...to stop writing.

No, I don't mean forever.  There wouldn't be any writers left in the world if we did that.  No, I mean, don't stare at your screen or typewriter (for you hipster writers) "trying" to write.  Stop.  Step away from the computer.

It's ok.

Now, that's all well and good, but how do you get back on track?  Well, in my experience writer's block usually comes from an uncertain direction forward.  What now?  What plot point can I throw in?  What's the subplot?  How can I move the story forward?

Screaming is a good place to start.

This happened to me on the bus the other day whilst writing Under a Broken Sun II - Mammoth Caves.  The hero's group pulled off the main road for the night, into a barn.  They split up, some to check out the farm house to see if anyone was alive there, some to get wood.  Some stayed in the barn to start a warming fire.

And then....

......uh.....

....um.....

Yeah, I got nothin'

So, what did I do?  Well, I happen to have a playlist of songs that are the "soundtrack" to my story.  I listen to them in random order, over 150 songs, when I write.  When I'm blocked?  I stop writing, and start listening.

I closed my eyes (all on the bus, remember), listened to the soundtrack, and put myself in the scene.  It's cold.  Biting cold.  The three men go out to cut wood.  So they have axes.  They talk about the previous scene.  Danger.  Need danger.  What's dangerous about being in the middle of trees with no electricity and cold?  Not hypothermia.  To easy to avoid.  Not in-fighting, doesn't suit the characters.  I watched the movie in my head.  And suddenly -

- there was a growling.  Slow.  Deep.  Then another.  A guttural harmony.  

Block avoided.  I won't tell you what happens because then you won't buy the book figuring you already know it all, but suffice to say, I was off and running again.

So to get over your writer's block, stop writing, start listening, start observing.  Go into your story.  However you can, however you choose to do it, close your eyes, and BE there.

And then?

WRITE ON!

And your story will hug you.

Amazon vs. Nook for Self Publishers

Not that I'm an expert, but I have tried over the past two months selling on both Amazon and Nook, and here's what I can tell you:

Nookie books just ain't worth it.

In the time since I've set up a Nook sale, versus amazon, I've sold 1 book on the Nook site.  265 on the Amazon site.  Now that's not a scientific study, and if I pushed it more with direct links to the site on Facebook (see previous posts on advertising on Facebook), maybe I would've gotten, I dunno, maybe 10.  Point is there's a night and day difference.

Among them:
1)  Amazon was a HELLUVA lot easier to format the document to their specs.  Nook has a manual process that almost allows you to either type in the document (like someone's gonna type 80,000 words on a web page) or upload a document, which is translated into a document to edit.  The chapter breaks were all messed up, which I set up by simple page breaks.

2)  Amazon has better marketing for self-published authors.  The KDP Select program, which I dropped out of to get onto Nook, has some promotions opportunities to take advantage of like free giveaway days (5 per every 90 days) and a countdown promotion (the price of your book starts low and gradually increases, which seems a little backward, but whatever).  The point is, when you're doing these promotions, Amazon is pushing it for you.   How?  Because...

3)  Amazon is linked to by a ton of freebie sites.  When you offer your book for free, hundreds (maybe thousands, I didn't count) are updated automatically for people looking for free good reads.  That adds to your readership, which increases your chances of reviews, which increases your chances of more readers.

4)  Amazon's reach is obvious versus Nook.  Barnes & Noble should be commended for trying to stay in competition with Amazon, but with the Kindle Fire going gangbusters and the multiple Kindle offerings, Nook is on life-support, and someone's gonna pull the plug.  You never want to see a monopoly form, and iBook from Mac still has a chance due to the popularity of Apple, but Nook just can't compete.

5)  As the article linked above also mentioned, Amazon is much more global in reach.  For me that's not as huge a deal, since my books both take place in America and are more or less American-centric, but I did have a huge amount of sales in the UK, as they are a great target audience for secular or atheistic post-apocalyptic stories like mine.  And the freebies have sent my book to 8 different countries.  That's exciting, if nothing else.  Great to say my book is in 9 countries.  (Not translated into 9 languages, though.  That's BIG time.)

There's more, and I'd be happy to take questions based on my brief experience, of if self-published authors have other experiences, let me know.

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Writing to music...

I can't write without headphones on.  I need the soundtrack, and in fact have even created playlists specifically for whatever book I'm writing, even specific moods.

Here's my top three songs that were instrumental in my writing Under a Broken Sun.  Check them out - they're incredibly intense:

1. Mazzy Star - Into Dust.  Originally heard this on an episode of House, and instantly fell in love with its haunting simplicity.  Hope Sandoval's voice is quiet, and with minimal effort and few words, highly impactful.
2. Linkin Park - The Little Things Give You Away.  Some say the band's most emotional and powerful song ever.  Written after the band saw the destruction of Katrina, this piece also could be interpreted as a son remonstrating his father for ignoring him all these years.
3. Willy Porter - You Stay Here.  Although this is a cover of a Richard Shindell piece, Porter's phenomenal guitar playing again makes the complex sublime.  The lyrics are apropos enough for a post-apocalyptic book, but the force in Porter's voice adds a tremendous amount of anger, uncertainty, and longing in this dystopian future.

More music to write by in later posts, but in the meantime, give these three a listen and see what story pops into your mind.

Advertising on Facebook

If you're a self-published author and you're not familiar with advertising on Facebook, you should be.

It's really not that complicated, but ensuring you're getting your money's worth is.  It's easy to set up a daily budget, so you could reach thousands of people on just a buck a day.  However, here are some observations that I've found after four months of advertising on Facebook:

1. Likes on your book's page (and your book SHOULD have it's own page) do NOT translate to sales.  In fact, in some areas that I've targeted (like India), people just seem to like pages at random.  However, it certainly doesn't hurt.  I noticed a definite drop in daily sales when I wasn't advertising.
2. It can get away from you.  Facebook encourages you to set up advertisements that run continuously, which is fine, but if you're self publishing and monitoring your own sales, you should make sure your marketing spend doesn't exceed your sales.  I'm using almost dollar for dollar any money I make via Kindle Direct Publishing to increase marketing spend.  At $30 a week in sales, I'm definitely not in it to be a millionaire.
3. Choose your target audience wisely.  Spreading yourself out to seventy-million people just because they all like eBooks isn't going to translate into sales as much as 6 million people who like your genre.  You may generate more likes for your book's page, but see #1 above.  You may be paying for likes, not links.
4. I have two ads going: one for the book's Facebook page, where my marketing guy writes book-appropriate blurbs and quotes (Brian J. Sheridan, in case you're looking.  Great guy), AND I have a direct link to the amazon page where the book is.  I haven't done enough of an analysis to say which is more effective, but I'd venture to guess the clicks to the amazon site result in more sales than do the likes.

I'll keep posting observations, but if you have any questions, feel free to comment below and I'll let you know what I'm experiencing.  Like I said, this isn't a real scientific study on the effectiveness of Facebook campaigns, but it is a valuable tool for any self-published author.

And we're off...

4000 words written so far, and the opening to Under a Broken Sun II - Mammoth Caves takes place in Chicago during a blizzard.  Because the environment is completely screwed up.

Needless to say, I'm a little freaked by the weather we're having right now (google polar vortex).  But I guess it's a good thing if your writing scares you.

Interesting part of writing a sequel:  how to include the exposition required for new readers without boring your old readers.  J.K. Rowling was really good at this, but even then you find yourself buzzing through the exposition wondering who in the hell would be reading book three WITHOUT knowing Harry Potter is the boy who lived?

So I like to incorporate the backstory slowly over the first few chapters.  If you leave it vague enough, and interesting enough, new readers might even put down the sequel to read the first one.  But really, who leaps into the second book in a series?