Riley Adams's Blog, page 133

An Update on How Various Publishing Platforms and Approaches are Going

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Just a quick wrap-up today of my thoughts on various formats/platforms I’m using to reach readers, an idea for a format I might explore in the future, and a general thought on the production process.

Wattpad:  Wattpad lists free books, so I can’t gauge if it’s having an impact on the sales of my other books.  But it’s been an interesting experience for me so far because I’m reaching a completely  different audience than I ordinarily do, by decades.  So I’m at 131 reads right now (woo-hoo!) and these are folks who probably don’t usually read my genre…maybe I can even help introduce a few new readers to cozy mysteries.

Amazon Foreign Sales:  Japanese Amazon sales are suddenly, inexplicably, as strong as my European sales.  Absolutely no idea why.

Nook, Smashwords, Apple: Steady sales but not nearly in the same league as the Amazon sales.  Nook is usually about 5% of my Amazon sales.

ACX:  I have no quibbles here because what I make at ACX (audiobooks) is pure profit—I invested nothing in the production, having chosen a royalty share deal with my narrators.  ACX has also recently branched into the international community (more information on that in Joanna Penn’s May 1 post, “Audiobooks: Tips For Distribution With ACX And Marketing Ideas”).  I’m unhappy that they lowered royalty rates (covered here in Porter Anderson’s March 6 article, “A Most Audible Alarm: ACX Chops Royalties”), which gave me the uneasy feeling like…well, like Amazon could do the same for their ebooks.  But that’s why I’m diversifying.  In addition, ACX’s sales can be pesky (audiobook authors don’t set price) because it does mean lost revenue.  But, in all, I make a decent income there with my four books…and again—it’s all profit since I sunk nothing into production.

Print: Always steady sales.  It’s almost exactly a year since I branched my self-pubbed books into print on CreateSpace—it was the best decision I made.  Again, I do have an older readership which may have contributed to the success, but the one-time investment of cover design (adapting the ebook cover to a print cover with a spine and back cover) and formatting was certainly worth it for me.

Production-related thoughts:  I’m effectively approaching work like my trad. publisher does and contract book design labor before the current WIP is finished as long as my outline seems pretty firm and I’m not going off in some crazy, unplanned direction.  Since I’ve had to wait on covers before because designers so quickly get booked, this has helped me out the two times I’ve done it now.

Summing it all up…I’m still thinking diversifying is key to what we’re doing.  Not having an all-our-eggs-in-one basket approach.  Trying different things. Figuring out different approaches with production.

Hugh Howey effectively blew my mind the other day with his May 28 post, “The Beauty of Booktrack.” This isn’t necessarily a way that I want to experience books (with a soundtrack), but I can totally see how it could be very appealing to other people, especially younger readers.  His post introduces Booktrack a bit.  There’s more information here (FAQ) and here (video tutorials).  It’s free and your book must be listed free there.

That’s my run-down on what trends I’m seeing currently with my own sales as we head into the summer months.  Are you looking into trying any different formats for your books?  Have any insights into what’s working or not for you and your books?

The post An Update on How Various Publishing Platforms and Approaches are Going appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Adjusting to a Summer Writing Schedule

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Summer. In some ways, it’s a relief to me because it means I don’t have to keep up as much with the kids’ activities and school-related needs.  But it’s also a time that I regroup.  Because our schedule changes, I’ve found it’s better and I get more done if I’m flexible enough to change my schedule, too.

A blog reader asked me if I could write a little bit about how I’ve changed my summer writing schedule in the past.  Considering I’ve changed it up since my nearly-13-year-old was one, I’m thinking I’m probably qualified to comment on this issue.  :)  But a proviso that this won’t work obviously for all kids or all parents. 

Ages and stages:

Toddlerhood (and preschool is out).  I put my kids in preschool very early. When she was at home (and not much of a napper, ever), I kept my page goal to one double-spaced page a day….so around 250 words.  I found I could hit that pretty easily by two different methods—Sesame Street (she only liked Elmo, though, so I had to pretty much put Elmo on repeat for the 20 or so minutes a page took me at the time) and “nap time” which meant that she and I needed a mental health break from each other and she would have quiet time in her crib with board books for 20 minutes.

The thing I don’t think you want to do here is make a complicated goal.  Make the goal a no-brainer.  If you go over the goal, great, but make sure the next day is a clean slate and you hit your goal again. Don’t sweat missed goals…just pick up as usual the next day without trying to make up for it.

Elementary school:  

My kids were always early risers and so I either needed to get up even earlier than they did (which I could sometimes accomplish), or else I needed to write with them around.  So here were my methods:

Set a visible reminder that I was working:  a sign on the door (a drawing or with words, depending on the age group) and a timer that was ticking.  And I’d make sure to explain that I could be contacted if it were an emergency.  I gave many examples of potential emergencies and examples of things that were not emergencies. Mystery writer Alan Orloff had a wonderful idea for keeping children away when you need to work. He puts a sign on his office door that says: Please come in so we can get started on chores.

Rewarding them by playing a game or reading a book if they were good while I wrote/worked for those 20 or 25 minutes.

Writing earlier than they arose (depending on the age, again, this could be tricky).  If your kids stay up late at night during the summer, see if it’s possible to put your sign/timer outside the door and have a quick writing session (I’m not great in the evenings, so this was less-successful for me).

Writing in a crowd.  Although this may sound counterintuitive, I found that if I invited my children’s friends over, put a bunch of snacks and drinks out, and then retreated to the background with my computer, I could actually get a lot done.  The friends will need to be the sorts who aren’t fond of drama and aren’t easily bored.

Older elementary school/middle school:  

Writing on the go.  Again, this meant bringing friends into the equation.  It also meant that I couldn’t care what I looked like in public.  I took the kids and their friends to the indoor skating rink, bowling alley, or indoor inflatables business, put snacks and drinks out and worked on my laptop.  Found some interesting characters to write about then, too.   I’ve also written at the swimming pool…with my laptop.  Sometimes a notebook is better at the pool, as long as I didn’t write beyond the point where transcribing it would be a pain.

A note on this—I got extraordinary amounts of work done this way. I think being at home can be more distracting than being in public with a bunch of people.  I’m not sure why.

Other considerations:

Can we cut back for a summer schedule?  Maybe not with our writing, but can we cut back whatever promo or social media or blogging we’re doing?

Can we keep our writing and writing-related tasks relegated to certain times of the day so that we don’t feel as if we’re not doing fun family things?  Can we make an official quitting time so we’re not dragging everything out throughout the day?

I think cutting back on blogging during challenging times works really well…the key is to let readers know what our new schedule is.  We could announce it on our blogs, put it in our sidebars, etc.

For me this means:

I’m still planning on beating everyone up to write.  Instead of 4:45 a.m., this may fall back to 6:00 a.m.

I’ll be blogging each Monday and Friday in addition to my Sunday Twitterific and an occasional Wednesday guest blogger on my blog (so cutting out one blogging day during the summer–probably until September).

I may post a lighter Twitter feed during the summer (other bloggers cut back in summers, too, making content sometimes more difficult/time-consuming to locate/curate).  So instead of scheduling 18 tweets, maybe it will be down to 14.

I’m going to make sure my kids (who are 17 and almost-13 now) understand when I’m working.  I’m sure it’s frequently hard for them to tell.  When I’m on a laptop, I could be doing almost anything: responding to an email, reading blogs, writing blog posts, working on my book, or checking news sites.  If I have 25 or 30 uninterrupted minutes, I can get so much done.

That being said, I need to make sure that the 25 or 30 minute blocks are totally focused.  So I need to disconnect my Wi-Fi if I think I might cheat.  No being distracted by bright, shiny objects online.

I’ll try to make sure that when I’m with my kids and husband, I’m completely present when I’m “off duty” for the writing related work.

If I’m traveling, I’ll write earlier than my hosts get up.  It’s good to start the day with an accomplishment.

I may reassess what I’m doing after a month.

This was a parent-centric post, but many writers experience other types of schedule interruptions in the summer—vacation, travel, the allure of being outside when the weather is nice, etc.  How are you adjusting your schedule for summer—if you are?

Image: MorgueFile: shannontanski

The post Adjusting to a Summer Writing Schedule appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Why Is The Media Ignoring Author Exploitation By Publishers? http://ow.ly/xsDMq @DavidGaughran

“Do I Have Writing Talent?” You’re Asking the Wrong Question:  http://ow.ly/xmhxG @writerunboxed  @suzannahwindsor           

Editing Etiquette | The Steve Laube Agency:  http://ow.ly/xmj9z

5 Ways to Get to Know Your Character:  http://ow.ly/xmhME @Janice_Hardy

Book Clubs Mean Business http://ow.ly/xmiWI @NicholeBernier

3 Insights That Lead to Successful Publishing Careers:  http://ow.ly/xmix9 @Janefriedman

5 Steps To Reading Critically:  http://ow.ly/xmj14 @woodwardkaren

Self-publishing authors and literary agents – do they mix? http://ow.ly/xmi7u @Alison_Morton

15 Articles on Cover Design for Self-Publishers: http://ow.ly/xmhJz @jfbookman

Will the Hachette/Amazon Battle Encourage Authors to Self-Publish? http://ow.ly/xmi3d @Goodereader

Inside a Screenwriter’s Mind: ‘Vomit Drafts’ and ‘Land of Lost Scenes’:  http://ow.ly/xmit7 @BAHjournalist

Melville had everything a young author could dream of. Then he wrote Moby-Dick and ruined everything:  http://ow.ly/xmhPG @mental_floss

Things a writer wishes he knew about creating characters when he started writing:  http://ow.ly/xmjpB @ChrisAndrewsAU

Marketing & Selling: The Same? http://ow.ly/xmic4

Writing Agreement # 1: Be Impeccable with Your Word: http://ow.ly/xmjBu  @KCraftWriter

How to Use Reader Feedback to Improve Your Writing:  http://ow.ly/xmjg8 @CKMacLeodwriter @CarlaJDouglas

10 Common Types of Writer’Â’s Block (and How to Overcome Them Quickly):  http://ow.ly/xmhqt @NikkiWoods

How to structure your story: tips from Joseph Campbell’s mythology http://ow.ly/xmYGr @nownovel

Writers’ Anxiety: Less Prozac, More Presence http://ow.ly/xmZdZ @bentguy1 @writerunboxed

Creating Archetypal Characters:  http://ow.ly/xmZfv @glencstrathy

So You Want to Write a Cocktail Book… http://ow.ly/xmYqH @dietsch @seriouseats

Writing Warfare in Fantasy: A Guide to the Battle Scene:  http://ow.ly/xmYSW @mythicscribes

What It’s Like to Work for J.D. Salinger’s Agent:  http://ow.ly/xmYyl @NewYorkObserver @kbsmoke

3 Times You Should Stop Writing:  http://ow.ly/xmYmC @EmilyWenstrom

Should Authors Stick To One Genre? An Interview With Linda Gillard:  http://ow.ly/xmZ8S  @joannegphillips

Self-publishing is not revolutionary – it’s reactionary: http://ow.ly/xsDx3 @guardianbooks

Screenwriting: Why Joe Everyman is A Terrible Lead:  http://ow.ly/xgJTS @DrewChial

Creating Stunning Character Arcs: The Resolution:  http://ow.ly/xgJuf @kmweiland

Do Self-Publishing Authors Earn More?  http://ow.ly/xgKqD @OrnaRoss

On Writing Secondary Characters:  http://ow.ly/xgK8m @carlywatters

Simultaneous subplots:  http://ow.ly/xgJ8N @vgrefer

Advice On Writing For Writers From Writers: http://ow.ly/xgKJu @NikkiWoods

4 Signs That You’re Not Writing Enough…and 4 Things You Can Do About It:  http://ow.ly/xgK3p @naturithomas

The Tenured vs. Debut Author Report:  http://ow.ly/xgJ5x @HughHowey @AuthorEarnings

The Straight Dope on Publishers Marketplace:  http://ow.ly/xgJiO @literaticat

What’s in a Pen Name?  http://ow.ly/xgJG2 @John_Wray @newyorker

Author Entrepreneur. Why Being An Indie Author Is A Great Business Model:  http://ow.ly/xgJzE @thecreativepenn

Do Men Receive Bigger Book Advances Than Women? http://ow.ly/xgJcQ @JaneFriedman

Trigger Warnings and the Novelist’s Mind :  http://ow.ly/xgJpD @jaycaspiankang @newyorker

15 Greatest Character Names In American Film History http://ow.ly/xgIYq  @whatculture

Should Writers Compare Themselves to Other Writers?  http://ow.ly/xgJwv @noveleditor

Know Your Genre: Tips and Secrets from the Experts for Writing Bestselling Genre Fiction: http://ow.ly/xgK0R @RuthHarrisBooks

“Dying Clues” in Crime Fiction:  http://ow.ly/xqGOX @mkinberg

How To Market A 99 Cent Ebook Sale On The Cheap:  http://ow.ly/xn6iy @mollygreene

Beyond the shoot-em-up: how gaming got killer stories: http://ow.ly/xeEAB @SimonParkin

10 English Words And Phrases That Folks Use Incorrectly:  http://ow.ly/xeE4d

Symbols for Writers: the Snake:  http://ow.ly/xeL6u @CherylRWrites

Tips For Writing Action http://ow.ly/xeENw @joecraiguk

What to do when you feel out of touch with your creative energy: http://ow.ly/xeDX4 @gointothestory

How to Make Word Behave Like Scrivener http://ow.ly/xeLfB @byondpapr

Owning Our Words: Gatekeepers and Gender in Children’s Books http://ow.ly/xeEtf @KateMessner

Alice Hoffman: 5  tips to help you write your novel :  http://ow.ly/xeKEz @salon

When to Consult a Medical Expert for Our Writing:  http://ow.ly/xeKz8 @JordynRedwood

The War Of Art:  http://ow.ly/xeLaj @write_practice

The internet isn’t harming our love of ‘deep reading’, it’s cultivating it:  http://ow.ly/xeEIT @stevenpoole

Writers Sometimes Make Up a New Word. Here Are Some of the Best:  http://ow.ly/xeEnN @bluepencil2

The three ages of becoming a writer:  http://ow.ly/xeKZX @roz_morris

‘I am not accessible’ :  http://ow.ly/xeKQh @haleshannon

7 Tips for Writing Better Sex Scenes:  http://ow.ly/xeLyr @wordsprof

Some Hollywood Advice for Shakespeare:  http://ow.ly/xeE9T @kaskew

Walking Away from the Stress of the Big Release�: http://ow.ly/xmEDf

9 Poems To Change Your Mind About Poetry:  http://ow.ly/xbKDo @_RobbieBlair_

Do your characters exist beyond FADE OUT?  http://ow.ly/xbKvq @gointothestory

The retailer-publisher chill:   http://ow.ly/xmdQF @Porter_Anderson @DavidGaughran @author_sullivan

Author Tips and Tricks: http://ow.ly/xbL91 @AuthorKSBrooks

How To Pick The Right Genre For Your Novel (And Why Your Sales Depend On It):  http://ow.ly/xbKrN @writetodone

Despair, Depression– Give up or Fight back?   http://ow.ly/xbKMy @SR_McKade

How Not to Begin Your Novel:  http://ow.ly/xbLCg  @jawlitagent

Help with accents and dialects: http://ow.ly/xbM6y

Underlying themes in crime fiction:  http://ow.ly/xmcDj @mkinberg

Treating Your Writing Like A Full-Time Job:  http://ow.ly/xbLqV @Jen_328

10 Truths for Self-publishers:  http://ow.ly/xbKZi @AP_Fuchs

Using Photographs to Tell Your Story: http://ow.ly/xbKTL @cateartios

8 tips to get the most out of attending a writers’ conference:  http://ow.ly/xbMmd @michellerafter

What Makes a Good Book Marketer?  http://ow.ly/xbKm2 @selfpubreview

The Writer’s Force – A Word on Depression:  http://ow.ly/wXLOg @MikkiKells

How to Show a Character’s Internal Journey:  http://ow.ly/wXL9v  @jamigold

7 Famous Authors Who Were First Published After 50: http://ow.ly/wXL0L @phildiederich

Nonfiction: How to Write Good Sales Copy for the Back of Your Book:  http://ow.ly/x9xg8 @NonfictionAssoc

The 15 Principles Of Highly Successful Authors:  http://ow.ly/x9vgb @thatwritergirl

How To Write A Terrific Murder Mystery: http://ow.ly/x9u8Y @woodwardkaren

Nonfiction: How to Write a Competitive Title Analysis:  http://ow.ly/x9vjG @NinaAmir

How to Use a Sprint Journal:  http://ow.ly/x9wXM @ramonadef

Sentence Writing 101 – Excision:  http://ow.ly/x9v0r @Massim0Marin0

Tips for stripped-down writing:  http://ow.ly/x9vsB @NakedEditor

Publishing: Rules are Rules (except when they aren’t)  http://ow.ly/x9vIi @rchazzchute

2 Plot Tips for Tying Character Motivation to Theme:  http://ow.ly/x9uKZ @plotwhisperer

BEA’s new Author Hub schedule:  http://ow.ly/xjcLY  @Porter_Anderson #BEA14

15 Things to Know About Book Events:  http://ow.ly/x9uss @jennymilchman @btmargins

The Psychological Benefits of Writing:  http://ow.ly/x9woE @GregoryCiotti

The Subplot – Not Second Place, but Side by Side:  http://ow.ly/x9vAI @AnthonyEhlers

How music affects your productivity:  http://ow.ly/x8VjV @GregoryCiotti

Why do we write?  http://ow.ly/x9u4a @momentumbooks

How to Be a More Concise Writer: http://ow.ly/x9wgZ @ErinMFeldman

The Author’s Public Face:  http://ow.ly/x9v8u @megmims

Amazon v Hachette: Don’t Believe The Spin:  http://ow.ly/xgIUF @DavidGaughran

Author Platform: Here’s What All the Fuss Is About:  http://ow.ly/x6Llq @thewritelife

Tips for Cleaning up a Manuscript: http://ow.ly/x6LfN @noveleditor

Is Dialogue Really That Important?  http://ow.ly/x6LbJ @screencrafting

How to handle disagreements with your editor:  http://ow.ly/x6I0L @rachellegardner

Who is Goliath in Publishing?  http://ow.ly/x6JBK @HughHowey

The Responsibilities of a Small Press Author:  http://ow.ly/x6J58  @AlyConnerBrown

3 Things to Know About Exposition & Telling:  http://ow.ly/x6J8h @victoriamixon

5 Things Filmmakers Should Stop Doing Right Now:  http://ow.ly/x6IhI @vidandfilmmaker

Product Review: Scrivener: http://ow.ly/x6Luv @chris_shultz81

When can novelists break the rules?   http://ow.ly/x6IVV @wendylawton

Working a Paranormal Element into Mysteries:  http://ow.ly/xgzYk @MarsaliTaylor

7 Free-to-Enter National Writing Competitions:  http://ow.ly/x6JKo @writersdigest

What tools did famous authors use to write their popular books? http://ow.ly/x6Iq0 @chrisrobley

Out of the Woods:  http://ow.ly/x6JU5 @Kathy_Crowley

Good Online Author Etiquette for Blogging, Twitter, Comments:  http://ow.ly/xg2n1 @alexjcavanaugh

5 Techniques To Develop Your Short Story Into A Novel:  http://ow.ly/x6LEG @writersrelief

Embracing The Imperfect with Annie Lammott: http://ow.ly/x6JXF @ornaross

5 Lessons In Creativity And Crime Writing From Jo Nesbo:  http://ow.ly/x6Jm9 @fastcompany @JessGrose

Book Boss Jane Friedman Talks Tech, Ebooks and Why Content Still Rules: http://ow.ly/x6Ixs @JaneORIM @forbes

Keys to Revising Your Script for 1st Time Screenwriters:  http://ow.ly/x2X81 @screencrafting

Don’t Ever Do It For the Money: A Conversation with an Agent:  http://ow.ly/x2XmG @EdanL

Writer’s Resource: Create a calendar (with moon phases) for any month in history:  http://ow.ly/xfdyx @sarawhitford

Story Arc in a Nutshell http://ow.ly/x37KX @lihauthor

Will the Agency Model Survive?  http://ow.ly/x2XCz @passivevoiceblg @PublishersWkly

How To Write a Book from Start to Finish: http://ow.ly/x2XGR @joebunting

An Agent on Posting your work for online crits: http://ow.ly/x2XXk @janet_reid

The post Twitterific Writing Links appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Exercise and Writing

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve never been a fan of exercising, although I’m trying to do better.  I’ve read a slew of articles lately about the connection between exercise and creative thought.

One of these articles is this one by Fiona Macrae, a science correspondent at the Daily Mail.  The article is:  “If you’re looking for that big idea, just go for a walk: Study reveals people are up to twice as creative when on their feet.”

The article states:  Dr. Oppezzo, of Santa Clara University in California, did a series of experiments in which people undertook tests of creativity, such as playing word association games, while walking or while sitting at a desk.

In one experiment, the volunteers came up with twice as many clever ideas when walking.

When I’m walking, my mind usually wanders to the current work in progress.  I was about ¾ of a mile away from my house last week when I realized that I had a plot hole involving Myrtle’s cat, Pasha in the current scene I was writing.  I didn’t have my phone on me, so I spent the rest of my walk murmuring, “Pasha the cat” to myself.  It’s a wonder the neighbors haven’t called the men in white coats to come pick me up.

So that’s specific to walking.  But, of course, there are other reasons to exercise besides stimulating creativity.  Writing is a sedentary activity, although there are some who have made the change to standing desks.  Sometimes I’ll write at the kitchen counter, in lieu of a standing desk.  (More about “easing into standing desks” in this article by Thorin Klosowski for Lifehacker.)

Galley Cat ran an article a couple of years ago (written by Jason Boog) called “Don’t Let the Writing Life Kill You.”  The article linked to five free fitness and workout apps for smartphones.

For those of us who are more limited to a desk during the day, WorkAwesome blog posted “Five Desk Exercises for Your Busy Office Life.”  The exercises work, among other things, our lower backs, shoulders, and abdomens.

One of my favorite finds was, again, at the Lifehacker blog.  They linked to an app called the 7 Minute Workout App.  It works just fine on a laptop, too.  The Lifehacker link shows how to properly do the exercises (which I’m sure I wasn’t doing correctly until I watched the video).  My favorite thing about the exercises is that they’re only 30 seconds each.  :)  Although it’s possible I might cheat on a couple of them, just the same.

So, that’s my public service announcement for the month—let’s try to exercise.   Which reminds me of my last public service announcement…back up your work.  If we do both these things as writers, we’ll likely be a lot better off.

Do you have an exercise regimen, or are you kind of all over the place with exercise, like I am?  Have you found that exercise, specifically walking, helps you with your writing?

Image: MorgueFile: Keyseeker

The post Exercise and Writing appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Walking Away from the Stress of the “Big Release”

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Kirkus Reviews interviewed me Tuesday for an author profile in the indie section they’ve got now.  I had a nice talk with Sarah Rettger, who is writing the story.

One question flustered me, though, and usually does whenever I’m asked it.  What type of promo has worked well for you? I answered, as I always do, that I don’t actually really promote.  I do build up my name as a platform online (Twitter, blogging), but that’s mostly to increase my profile in Google rankings so that readers can easily find me.  This strategy appears to work since readers seem to have no trouble finding me.

My lack of promo is something that I’ve always felt guilty about, though, especially for my Penguin books. I feel, there, as if I’m letting an entire team down by not promoting.  I don’t feel that way for my self-published books because no one is making profit on my sales except me…and whatever retailer sold the book.

I’ve been encouraged in the past by Penguin to do some small-scale promoting.  I suspect that they’re baffled by my platform, which is clearly writer-centric. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not marketing to writers…I’m connecting with them.  But it makes things difficult when Penguin does ask me to do a bit of promo—a tweet, for instance, for a giveaway they’re doing for one of my releases.  I’ll do it when asked…but I’m tweeting writers.  You know?  It doesn’t make sense to me.  So what I’ve done is  promote their giveaway on my Riley Adams Facebook profile instead.  That’s a place where I’m mainly connected to readers.    If they directly ask me to do something, I’ll try to figure out a way to do it (usually).

What I’ve done in the past as promo:

Radio interviews

Skype interviews

Podcasts

Blog tours

Reader conferences (I’m with my author friends at the circa 2010 Malice Conference in the photo above…and we did have fun. Always love spending time with writers.)

Guest posts on Penguin’s various blogs

Emails to extended friends and family (ugh)

Facebook updates

Goodreads giveaways

Bookmarks

Author panels at libraries and bookstores

Signings

Postcards to bookstores and libraries

The absolute worst…cold calls to bookstores

As a side note, I never paid for ads. Not in magazines, not on local radio, not on Facebook, not on Goodreads.  I didn’t feel as if I was making enough to justify ads.

But I even, for my first Penguin release, went on a very centralized book tour with several other Penguin authors.  I enjoyed being with the other writers…although public speaking and appearances are stressful for me and I was exhausted afterward.  There was an additional problem, too—I guess some of us are just going to feel guilty no matter what, because while I was feeling good about the promo I was doing, I felt guilty about not being at home with my kids.  Parents can’t win in the guilt department, of course.

And, y’all, this sort of promo is expensive.  The tour, the conferences.  I’m a midlist writer.  I should have been writing.

And don’t think any of the promo really did any good. I haven’t noticed that sales have declined since I’ve stopped this stuff. And I have a lot more time to write and am a lot less stressed.

At some point I hit upon the perfect excuse.  I frequently had three or four releases in a year…was I seriously going to do heavy promo for each launch?  I figured that promoting that number of releases would irritate friends and family and spam readers and writers. If readers wanted to find out about releases, they could sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook…I didn’t need to try to stick my new release in front of them.  Besides, Amazon’s marvelous algorithm (however it works) always seems to kick in after a few days.

What I’m doing now:

Goodreads giveaways occasionally

Facebook announcement of releases

Updated website

Reader newsletter

Fussy Librarian

As for ads/paid promo, one exception is that I may consider BookBub soon since I’ve heard some good stuff about it (Joanna Penn’s piece from April of last year, for example).

The biggest thing that I do to promote is to write more books.

With my book releases for my publisher, I did feel pressure to promote in the first few weeks after the launch.  That could be tough to do—especially if I was under deadline for another book at the time (which was frequently the case).

With the digital revolution, there’s now the so-called “long tail” of publishing.  The important thing is to look at sales as something that take place for a long time…over the decades of our career.  Writer Joanna Penn interviewed industry expert Jane Friedman and there’s a fascinating transcript of their conversation on Joanna’s post “Money, Writing And Life With Jane Friedman.”  I’ve read the article several times over the past couple of weeks and found something different and interesting each time.  Highly recommended for any career-minded author.  Regarding the topic of promo, Joanna Penn stated: “…most books sell very few copies every day, whether you’re indie published or traditionally published, but hopefully that continues for a long time, that is the business model, small over time.”  Jane Friedman responded: “Right, and I hope that traditional publishing gets away from this launch mentality. I think slowly we’re getting away from that. I think the independent authors have been so good at pointing out to the larger community, ‘Let’s not focus on the first three months or six months, because the real potential is over the career.’”

So this is where I am with the issue. Convinced enough that promo doesn’t help to avoid doing it…but still susceptible to guilt when asked about it!

How about you?  What sort of promo have you done…and what were your thoughts on the outcome?

 

The post Walking Away from the Stress of the “Big Release” appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Working a Paranormal Element into Mysteries

Guest Post by Marsali Taylor, @MarsaliTaylor

The world is a more interesting place than our science can explain.

I’ve always been at ease with the idea that the world is stranger and more interesting than our present scientific knowledge can account for.  Maybe it’s because I’m Scots; one look at old ballads shows we’re a people used to second sight, omens, superstition, ghosts, devils and companies of the Elven folk.  French friends assure me there are no fantomes in French castles, whereas no self-respecting Scottish castle would have fewer than three.

Maybe it’s my own family.  My sister has a story of meeting a kilted man who seemed to vanish when she turned her back on him.  My mother recalled my granny’s wheelie shopping bag falling from the back of a high shelf at the moment she had a heart attack in hospital; with my artist father, an easel which nobody was near fell over at the time his mother died.  I vividly remember having an awful, choking cough one night, and being raised and given a soothing drink which took it completely away.  When I bounced downstairs the next morning and asked, ‘What was that drink?  It worked like magic!’ my parents stared at me blankly …

On top of that, I’ve subscribed to the wonderful magazine Fortean Times for over thirty years.  I’m not sure the world is quite as odd as that, but I’m certainly prepared to be open-minded about the frequently-seen big cats in the British countryside, showers of frogs and sea-serpent sightings.  I’m convinced we have a household boggart, and talk to him occasionally, though I’ve not gone so far as to leave milk for him.

Cass, my main character in my detective novels Death on a Longship and the newly-published The Trowie Mound Murders, is a liveaboard sailor with ten years experience of roaming the world’s oceans.  In Death on a Longship she recalls having seen a ‘mer-horse, off Fiji, with a glistening neck and blind, saucer eyes’ and in the book currently being edited, A Handful of Ash, she remembers having seen a ghost ship, with ragged sails and dead men climbing the rigging.  The sea is a good place for seeing strange things, especially from a silent sailing craft.

Cass grew up in Shetland, which is rich in traditional lore.  Her friend Magnie, a retired whaling-man who taught her to sail, is full of good stories, or yarns.  When two visitors spot a grassy mound which they think may be a Neolithic chambered cairn, Cass tells them that it’s known as a ‘trowie mound’ (the word trow comes from the Scandinavian troll), and urges Magnie to recount the story of the fiddler who was invited to play for a trowie wedding:

It was Magnie’s best story and he told it well, from the midsummer-eve opening by that green hillock, when a local fiddler was asked by a small, brightly clad man if he’d come and play at a wedding, through the description of the trowie celebrations to the man awakening by the knowe again, to find the landscape changed around him, old houses gone and new ones grown. ‘And he went back, that man, to his ain hoose, and the folk there stared at him, until the auld man by the fire minded tales o’ his own grandfather, who’d disappeared one night and never been seen again, and that was this very man.’

‘And what happened to him then?’ Sandra asked.

Magnie’s rare smile wrinkled up his weathered face. ‘You’re thinking he mebbe withered up in front of their eyes? Na, na. Well, they asked him to bide, he was their own kin, but he never settled. There was naebody he kent, you see. In the end he spent day after day ida kirkyard, joost lookin’ at the graves. Then, when midsummer came round again, he said he’d had enough. The trows would be glad o’ a good fiddler, he said, and midsummer eve they’d be out and about, if ever they were. He’d go up to the knowe and ask to be taken in. So that night up he went and that was the last they ever saw o’ him. But sometimes you’ll hear – and I’m heard it myself – you’ll hear a strain o’ fiddle music coming out of that very mound, or see lights moving around it, and I’m seen that too.’

Magnie’s story is a traditional one; I’ve had the very cottage pointed out to me.  The moving lights he describes are a feature of my own village.  They were at a house called Slyde, and I’ve been told they were common enough for folk to detour on the way home from a dance ‘to watch the Slyde lights.’

‘Just like people coming down the hill carrying a lantern,’ one person told me.  ‘You’d see them from the other side of the voe, but the old man that lived there, he never saw them at all.’

Interestingly, our voe, or sea loch, is right on a fault line – we’ve even had an earth tremor here, centred just two miles from our house.  I wonder if the Slyde lights were some form of piezo-electricity?

Another of Magnie’s tales that’s featured in The Trowie Mound Murders is a selkie (seal-human) story which gives Cass troubled dreams:

I’d dreamt last night about Magnie’s selkie wife, one of those dreams that left you with a sense of foreboding that clung like a dark mist for the rest of the day. I’d been that selkie wife, born a seal and delighting in the roughness of the waves, yet shedding my skin to be a woman on shore, and dance on human feet in the moonlight – until a young fisherman had hidden my skin and kept me for himself. In the dream, I’d loved him, and melted into his arms. I wasn’t going to give the face a name, not even to myself. But my selkie wife had grown gnawingly, achingly, heartsick for the sea, and I’d searched for my skin in the bare house with its driftwood furniture, in the cluttered byre under the old dogskin buoys and tangle of lines, until I’d become frantic, thinking he’d destroyed it, and I’d be trapped on this heavy land until I died of longing. I’d run into the sea, leaving my baby wailing in its cradle, and awoke gasping as my mouth filled with water –

I knew where the dream had come from. My friend Magnie had been telling ghost stories, and one of them had been of the wailing baby, the selkie wife’s deserted child, which had sickened and died without her. I knew why too. It wasn’t hard to analyse. After a dozen years at sea, as yacht skipper and dinghy instructor, I’d decided to go for a commercial qualification at the North Atlantic Fisheries College in Scalloway, Shetland’s ancient capital. … I was dreading it, a year of school, of being trapped day after day ashore, stuck in this northern climate, with no chance of tiers of white sails above my head, and the southern cross bright before the prow in the blue-black night. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it, that the call of the sea would be too strong…

Later in the story, Cass and her crew Anders hear the crying baby for themselves … and when one of her sailing pupils goes missing, Cass sets off to discover the secrets of the Trowie Mound.

It’s fun weaving another world into my stories.  There’s a tradition in detective stories that the world has to be rational, and everything has to be explained in the last chapter; but I want to keep resisting that.  The murderer is unmasked, of course, and the plot explained, but Cass still knows that she lives in a world which includes a mer-horse, off Fiji, with a glistening neck and blind, saucer eyes.

Death on a Longship and The Trowie Mound Murders are both published by Accent Press, and available from Amazon as book or e-book.  Cass’s third adventure, A Handful of Ash, is set in the ‘witches’ town’ of Scalloway, and will be available as an e-book from July.

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She lives with her husband, five cats and two Shetland ponies on Shetland’s scenic west side. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland’s distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women’s suffrage in Shetland. She’s also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group. 

 

The post Working a Paranormal Element into Mysteries appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

How to Know If You’re Editing Too Soon:  http://ow.ly/wXLkF @losapala

Promoting Your New Book with Promo Websites: http://ow.ly/x8p9v @silas_payton

“Don’t Let Your Hurt Stop You” :  http://ow.ly/wXLXz @PiaPadukone @writersdigest

17 Lost Manuscripts: L. Frank Baum, Ernest Hemingway, John Milton, and More:  http://ow.ly/wXL3c @BookishHQ           

How To Think Like A Writer:  http://ow.ly/wXLoI @carolyn_greg

How to Break Out of the Slump and Finish Your Book:  http://ow.ly/wXKZb @shaynakrish

10 Quotes to Inspire Writers:  http://ow.ly/wXLbO @bethvogt

Tips for making your books discoverable:  http://ow.ly/x6N03 @jakonrath

The Value of Editing For Authors:  http://ow.ly/x5QS6 @BryanThomasS

Do Negative Thoughts Give You Writer’s Block? 5 Ways To Cut Loose:  http://ow.ly/wSx19 @writetodone

Kindle Publishing: A Step-by-Step Guide for Selling Your Book Through Amazon: http://ow.ly/wSxDh @Heathervdh @alexisgrant

How To Break Up With Your First Draft:  http://ow.ly/wSyt4 @chrstnejschmdt

Series Readers€”What they Really Want to See in Our Books:  http://ow.ly/x6P0e

Crafting Memorable Characters:  http://ow.ly/wSB10 @QLindseyBarrett @Missouri_Review

4 Danger Signs To Search For, Before Sending Off Your Novel:  http://ow.ly/wSvFN @charliejane  @io9

Feed the reader inside the writer: http://ow.ly/wSAtc @noveleditor

‘Creative Ideas Aren’t Enough: —You Need the Courage to Act On Them.’ http://ow.ly/wSzc9

How Thinking Like Johnny Depp Can Help Your Writing:  http://ow.ly/wSyUj @WriteToSell

The Focus Drought and How to Get Your Focus Back:  http://ow.ly/wSwy4 @missafayres

Simon & Schuster Embraces E-Book Subscriptions:  http://ow.ly/x6MhA @mashable @sfiegerman

All Character, No Plot:  http://ow.ly/wSxUW @mooderino

Search Engine Ranking- The Value of Social and Search: http://ow.ly/wSyH2 @jim_devitt

Initiative to get indie books into libraries + new author earnings info: chat at #EtherIssue: 11 am ET/4 pm BST (now) with @Porter_Anderson

The Accomplished Creative’s Afflictions:  http://ow.ly/wSxeZ @JeffreyDavis108

Tips for writing epilogues:  http://ow.ly/x0WmV (from the Clever Girl Helps blog):

When police must dig into flawed investigations in crime fiction: http://ow.ly/x5Wag @mkinberg

Writing lessons learned from Divergent:  http://ow.ly/x5QIu @JulieMusil

7 secrets about editors every freelance writer should know: http://ow.ly/wFavA @michellerafter

Tips for Writing a Fiction Series: Developing Spin-Offs and Sequels:  http://ow.ly/wF8WJ @AdriennedeWolfe

4 Ways Fictional Romance Sometimes Reads False:  http://ow.ly/wQRCY @vgrefer

What Scandal Can Teach Us About Plotting and Tension:  http://ow.ly/wF860 @Janice_Hardy

4 Reasons Why Your Hero Needs A Special Skill or Talent:  http://ow.ly/wQRIM @angelaackerman

University Presses Under Fire:  http://ow.ly/wQV7A @TheNation @scottesherman

6 Things Every Hero Needs: http://ow.ly/wQQkr @bang2write

How a writer’s name can make or break the popularity of their work:  http://ow.ly/wQPH3 @NewStatesman @ofarry

Self-Published eBook Authors May Out-Earn The Rest By 27%:  http://ow.ly/x4C39 @HughHowey @Porter_Anderson

A response to the statement: ‘The novel is dead.’:  http://ow.ly/wQRW5 @acrossthemargin

An agent answers query questions:  http://ow.ly/wQVxB @MsMariaVicente

Tips for marketing on Amazon:  http://ow.ly/wQUUn @noahkagan

How to create the perfect trailer (for films–useful for books as well):  http://ow.ly/wQVlw @creativebloq

The Whys, Whens, and What-Nots for Opening a Story:  http://ow.ly/wQPoL @jodyhedlund

3 Things to Know About Exposition & Telling: http://ow.ly/wQVJK @victoriamixon

Initiative to get indie books into libraries + new author earnings info:  http://ow.ly/x3amb @HughHowey @Porter_Anderson @cjlyonswriter

How to self-publish a print book, worldwide:  http://ow.ly/wQPle @Belinda_Pollard

Is there a “best day” to buy books, or promote books, in the Kindle Store? http://ow.ly/wQQv2 @BookGorilla

May 2014 Author Earnings Report:  http://ow.ly/x38ec @authorearnings @HughHowey

Tips for New Authors (Finishing Your First Book):  http://ow.ly/wQRfD @AOwenBooks

7 Writing Lessons Straight From Jennifer Weiner’s Mouth :  http://ow.ly/x2Y3h @galitbreen

Write It : Don’t Fight It! (The answer to: Are you a writer?) http://ow.ly/wQRwY @adderworld

The New Golden Age of Short Fiction: 12 Reasons to Write a Short Story This Month: http://ow.ly/wQSzo @annerallen

The No-Stress Way To Create Your Story’s Logline:  http://ow.ly/x00qW @PBRWriter

3 Tactics to Stop Letting Inspiration Rule You:  http://ow.ly/wNKum @EmilyWenstrom

3 Ways Nonfiction Can Be the Fiction Writer’s Greatest Resource: http://ow.ly/wNM3h @livewritethrive

The Story of Story: How 1 Writer Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Structure: http://ow.ly/wNQdK @justinismorrow

5 Ways to Create Conflict in Your Story:  http://ow.ly/wO0dI @screencrafting

Agents – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:  http://ow.ly/wNOad @ClareLangleyH

Storytelling Strategies: When In Trouble, Reach for the Deadline: http://ow.ly/wNR8O @scriptmag

Top 10 tips for being a literary agent: http://ow.ly/wNZHr @JonnyGeller

The 5 Essential Story Ingredients:  http://ow.ly/wO0p8 @writersdigest

If You Don’t Write That Book, Who Will? Deciding What to Write:  http://ow.ly/wNQTI @JanetKGrant

A Balance of Strengths to Take Your Story Higher: http://ow.ly/wNMXm @writingeekery

3 Tips for developing theme:  http://ow.ly/x0Vjb  (by Jack Smith)

Fantasy and How the World Ought To Be:  http://ow.ly/wNNei @mythcreants

Advertising on Goodreads:  http://ow.ly/wNL4g  @AuthorMelindaC

Sympathy for a Good Villain:  http://ow.ly/wO0NL @DrewChial

Our Young-Adult Dystopia:  http://ow.ly/wNOij @michelledean

Planning Your Novel with Google Maps:  http://ow.ly/wZZSk @ClarissaDraper

How James Patterson Works With His Co-Authors:  http://ow.ly/wNZZA @woodwardkaren

Persuasive charmers–a character type found in crime fiction:  http://ow.ly/ @mkinberg

Screenwriting: The Bourne Identity’s Everyman that Isn’t:  http://ow.ly/wNN4t @cockeyedcaravan

Writing Groups and How They Can Go Wrong:  http://ow.ly/wYqeS @VictoriaAddis

Why no one is seeing what you post from your Facebook author page:  http://ow.ly/wKsat @chrisrobley

The 10 Worst Pieces of Writing Advice You Will Ever Hear:  http://ow.ly/wKsp5  @manzanitafire

Raising the Tension in a Flat Opening Scene http://ow.ly/wKtHZ @Janice_Hardy

The Thrill of the Write:  http://ow.ly/wKtfj  @wordsxo @writerunboxed

1 Writer’s 5 Favorite Pieces of Writing Advice:  http://ow.ly/wKsIO @OakleyColleen @womenwriters

‘Trying’ to Self-Publish:  http://ow.ly/wKr3g @hopeclark

Why Tumblr is Useful for Bloggers:  http://ow.ly/wKsAJ @ava_jae

Time travel cliches:  http://ow.ly/wKtBh

Why you & your art need a creative adventure:  http://ow.ly/wKttc @FortheCreators

7 Book Marketing Strategies Guaranteed Not to Lead to Sales:  http://ow.ly/wKtmJ @NathanielTower

Amazon Launches New Kindle Store Section Devoted to eBook Singles – Short Reads:  http://ow.ly/x9xxf  @thDigitalReader

Narrative Arc: Shaping Your Story:  http://ow.ly/wXLiQ @fcmalby

Amazon’s Disappearing Reviews:  http://ow.ly/wXLTi @kcrosswriting

Publishing is More than Books:  http://ow.ly/wXLQB @HughHowey

Which Is More Important? Writing or What We Write?  http://ow.ly/wXKPS @KMWeiland

3 things to know about out-of-print books. http://ow.ly/wXKVz @wweek

eBook Pricing: What’s Wrong with Free? http://ow.ly/wXLe3 @lorcadamon

A new-old Amazon scam for the unwary reader: | Indies Unlimited:  http://ow.ly/wXLhw

How to Write More:  http://ow.ly/wXKNh @writersdigest

Why ‘Game of Thrones’ Writer George R.R. Martin Uses an Old School DOS Machine:  http://ow.ly/wXSVG @nofilmschool

Screenwriting for Readers vs. Audience:  http://ow.ly/wXSWw @scriptmag @ruth_atkinson

Movie Scripts: 8 Animations Scripts For Screenwriters: http://ow.ly/wXSYC @goodinaroom

The Best Method to Break Writer’s Block:  http://ow.ly/wXT1c @joebunting

What Is Your Story? http://ow.ly/wZ9o1 @jenlouden

Why 1 Writer Reads Reviews… Even the Soul-Crushing Ones:  http://ow.ly/wZ9Mt @GwenHeasley @MartinaABoone

The Little Things Holding a Story Back:  http://ow.ly/wZa1A @Janice_Hardy

Epilogue tips:  http://ow.ly/wZ9Ee

How to really get readers to care about your characters:  http://ow.ly/wZ9zL @onewildword

Not-So-Risky Business: Book Promotion on a Budget:  http://ow.ly/wZ9Xe @TeeMonster

Taxes 101 for Authors:  http://ow.ly/wZ9y1 @susanspann @rmfwriters

Portals in science-fiction:  http://ow.ly/wZ9uS @victoriasicoe

Do You Know Your Novel’s Theme?  http://ow.ly/wZa2r  @Janice_Hardy

Writing and the Creative Life: Boundaries of Space, Boundaries of Time:  http://ow.ly/wZ9AK @gointothestory

10 Steps To The Best Cover For Your Book:  http://ow.ly/wZ9Cq @Mal_Rock

The difference between a commercial and a literary plot:  http://ow.ly/wZ9wK @writers_write

Jot Down Writing Ideas With Six Word’s:  New iPhone App:  http://ow.ly/x0RV4 @galleycat

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing a Book that Doesn’t Suck: http://ow.ly/x0NQj @brandonclements

5 Tips for Setting Up a Writing Space:  http://ow.ly/x0Pvp @StacyEnnis

Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Indie Publishing… #4: You Need An Agent to Sell Overseas:  http://ow.ly/x0OpJ @deanwesleysmith

Evernote’s Moleskin: Analog to Digital Notebook with Plenty of Space for Play:  http://ow.ly/x0QHb @appnewser

Great Character: Sam Shakusky (“Moonrise Kingdom”):  http://ow.ly/x0QWN @A2Jason

13 steps to creating a writing-centered life: http://ow.ly/x0S9i @collectiveself

Romance Writing: 6 Types of Alpha Heroes:  http://ow.ly/x0Q1L @JackieAshenden

The 7 habits of highly effective writers:  http://ow.ly/x0O8e @pubcoach

Gimbling in the Wabe – Why Do People Read Bad Books?  http://ow.ly/x0R9T @LitStack

Psych for Writers: Emotional Scenes and Unreliable Narrators:  http://ow.ly/x0PIM @SkyeFairwin

How To Market Your Book To The Locals – 4 Secrets: http://ow.ly/x0Qu3 @KristenEckstein

How to Charm the Pants Off an Editor with the Power of Your Words: http://ow.ly/x0QmL @pshares

The Amateur’s Guide a Professional Book Package: http://ow.ly/x0S0p @DIYMFA

5 Tips To Edit Your Own Screenplay:  http://ow.ly/x0P8W @bang2write

Nonfiction: how to plan and outline your book before writing the first word:  http://ow.ly/x0Rn8 @NinaAmir

How to save a bundle on editing costs…without sacrificing quality:  http://ow.ly/x2Xu3 @jodierennered

How James Patterson Works With His Co-Authors: http://ow.ly/x2XJ4 @woodwardkaren

On Quitting Writing: ‘I Can’t Go On. I’ll Go On.’  http://ow.ly/x37B5 @TheReviewReview

How to Get Boys to Read Books | Children’s Literacy Foundation: http://ow.ly/x37tL @cliforg

How to Hack the Habit of Creativity http://ow.ly/x37ay @mythicscribes

10 Things That Make A Reader Cringe: http://ow.ly/x2XbO @dmoncrief0131

Self-publishing will save literary fiction: http://ow.ly/x37wb @HughHowey

The post Twitterific Writing Links appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

The Power of Covers

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I think by now most of us have agreed that, whether they should or not, covers have a tremendous impact on what readers purchase.

In a split second, a good cover indicates a book’s genre.  This is probably the most important role of a cover, in commercial fiction.

As Mark Coker of Smashwords states in his free ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success:

Your cover is the first impression you make on a prospective reader. It’s the visual embodiment of everything your book represents. Great covers, through their imagery alone, can communicate genre, topic, mood and setting. A great cover image makes a promise to prospective readers. It helps them recognize your book as one they’ll enjoy reading.

I actually received an email from a reader recently.  She’s an avid reader of the Myrtle books and also enjoys the Southern Quilting mysteries.  She hadn’t, oddly to me, ever commented on my Memphis Barbeque books (and I knew that she was aware that I write that series under a pseudonym).  She told me in her email that the Memphis books looked very “serious” and she’s a fan of humorous mysteries. She decided to give them a go recently and told me “I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover” since she’d enjoyed the books and found them the humorous/bordering-on-campy reads that I usually create.

In her email, she particularly referenced this Memphis cover as one that had given her pause:

I had a conversation in the comments with writer Meg Wolfe last week about tone in our books.  I mentioned that the title above, Hickory Smoked Homicide, had had a darker tone to it—because I was in a dark mood, for some reason. I had nothing going on in my life to justify the dark mood, except the fact that this book was incredibly difficult for me to write and I think the struggle, weirdly,  came out in the tone.  This was the book that I nearly deleted several weeks before deadline out of complete frustration.  Then I had an epiphany after speaking with a friend who had grown up in the culture I was writing about, and the book ended up working out really well.

But!  The cover designer at Penguin totally picked up on the tone and you can see it in the cover.  It did scare away some cozy readers of mine, I’m sure.  But I ended up receiving more emails from male readers than I ever had.  So maybe it ended up working out for me in the end.

I definitely have a particular feel in mind when I’m contracting a cover for my self-published books.  This is a cover that I got back on Wednesday from my current cover designer, Karri Klawiter for a book that will come out this fall (yes, I’ve found it smart now to go ahead and get covers for books that I haven’t even finished writing yet):

To me, this is the kind of cover that clearly indicates a light mystery.

We know it’s important, but how do we connect with a good cover designer if we’re self-published authors? Well…it does take a little research.  Most authors are great about sharing on their blogs who did their covers—considered a nice plug for the designer they worked with. So, if you browse your genre on Amazon, paying special attention to the lower-priced books (because, the way the current climate is, those are still more-likely to be self-published books), make note of the book titles that reflect the cover look you’re going for.  Then you can click on the author’s Amazon Author Central page, which ordinarily connects to a blog.  Then you can search the blog for keywords like “cover designer.”

I also maintain a free spreadsheet of ebook professionals, which include cover designers.

So, these are my observations from a non-designer side of the business.  What observations have you made about your own covers and what works?

The post The Power of Covers appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Series Readers—What they Really Want to See in Our Books

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve just finished the latest Southern quilting mystery—book five in that series, due to release in late 2015.  So that means, right now, I’m no longer under a contract until Penguin decides if they’d like to acquire more books for the series (likely something they would determine after seeing sales figures for book four, coming out in August).

For the first time…ever, really…the only project I have to work on is my self-published Myrtle Clover series.  I started book seven at my usual full throttle, and then slowed my writing pace down a bit and decided to take a more thoughtful approach. 

I have a completed outline for the book.  The mystery looks pretty sound.   Readers told me they especially wanted more humor and the book’s outline has plenty included.

But then I remembered some of the other emails I’ve gotten.  Readers have been writing me and mentioning things they’d like to see in my Myrtle stories. Others wrote that they were “so glad to hear more about____”.   I remember reading these emails and being baffled because the elements the readers liked and wanted to hear more about seemed very incidental to the story.

But I know by now that anything readers like, even if it seems incidental to me, is simply a sign that I’m not getting it.

I started looking more closely at those elements and what I saw was that they were interested in seeing more glimpses of what everyday life is like for my recurring series characters…when they’re not solving a mystery.

Someone mentioned wanting to find out if Myrtle’s sidekick, Miles, had children and grandchildren and what they were like.

Someone else wanted to know where the yard gnomes all came from and how long Myrtle had been collecting them.

The things they’d  mentioned fell into a couple of groups—information that I identified as background info that’s up in my head but never written about, and information that I had honestly never even considered.

What’s curious to me is that there is so many articles out there warning against extraneous detail and how readers don’t want it cluttering up a story.  That’s one of the main writing “rules” that we all read about over and over again—dump the backstory.

So I’m wondering if there’s a point in a series where readers suddenly are really very interested in this extraneous backstory.  Because it still has no bearing on the mystery or subplots.  And, unless I work it very carefully into a story, it still would resemble an info-dump.

What I’d rather do is to work a story around some of this information that readers have become curious about and make them either important to the mystery or important to the characters’ general personality—have it be something that either gives the readers some insight as to how they ended up being the way they are or show more about them as they are now. Maybe I could even pull some of the info into a subplot—extra points if I can connect the subplot to the main plot.

I do enjoy glimpses in characters’ pasts in other long-running series.  Elizabeth George has done a nice job showing us working class cop Barbara Havers’s background and how her background is now impacting her present.

What I did was make a Word document with a list of questions.  The questions were both what I thought readers might be interested in knowing and what they had already indicated to me that they’d like to find out.  They included everything from the unnamed street where much of the action in the stories takes place to what book literature-loving Myrtle is currently reading.

I’ll set about incorporating some of them into this story, some of them into upcoming stories.  I’ll try to make the information significant, too, because there may be some new readers happening into the series for the first time.

As a reader, is there a point when you start becoming interested in extraneous detail?  As a writer, when have you started adding some of this backstory into your series?

Image: MorgueFile:  ARTG33K74

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Developing Thematic Ideas in Your Fiction

Guest Post by Jack Smith

I tend to like fiction that can be read on several different levels.  It’s not just a good story; it also points to abstract ideas of various kinds—to themes beyond the literal level of character and plot.  Perhaps it suggests something about the nature of evil, about personal identity, or about the nature of freedom.   How heavy should the machinery of idea be?  Naturally, this depends on what your purpose is and who your audience is.  I won’t take that question on here, but I will say that there are several thematic techniques that can work seamlessly with story.  You don’t have to trowel on ideas like icing on the cake.

What are these techniques?  I’ll deal with three.

Repetition.  When a given word, thing or place, or action is repeated several times, it can begin to mean more than what it would mean if it occurred just once.  For instance, if the story has to do with freedom from different types of oppressive situations or environments, and if the word “cramped” is used in several different contexts, the reader may get an existential sense for the various ways humans can be cramped.  Perhaps your character feels cramped in her small house; perhaps her menial job cramps her; perhaps she feels cramped in her marriage.  And then perhaps synonyms of the word cramped can be introduced: “hampered,” “hindered,” “impeded.”  The cluster of words centered around this idea of being cramped can help illuminate the various kinds of threats to human freedom—and the nature of freedom itself.  It’s possible to find ways to thread your story or novel with the ideas suggested by a given key word.

If a particular thing, or place, is mentioned repeatedly, it can also take on meanings beyond its literal existence.  For instance, if your protagonist’s house has a view of the mountains, and your protagonist is often at her window looking out at it, this might suggest a desire to break free from life’s ordinary, mundane restraints and embrace the wildness and freedom of nature.  What are the various properties of nature that suggest this freedom?  The mountain could become symbolic of all the qualities of freedom she seeks, whether she can obtain this kind of freedom or not.

An incident, if it is repeated several times, can also take on larger meanings beyond the literal.  If the protagonist’s husband is always leaving the house to go to his high- powered job, and the protagonist feels stuck there with little future ahead of her, then this constant exiting of the husband can take on larger meanings.  It might suggest different societal spheres for men and women: the opening of opportunities for men in career fields (as the husband steps outside) and the closing off of opportunities for women (as the door shuts each time on the wife).

Development of key events with suggestive imagery.  Imagine that your protagonist undergoes a sudden illness.  If you provide enough suggestive details, you can point to an idea at a more abstract level—perhaps the fragile nature of human existence.  Your story isn’t just about this one sick person with this sudden illness; it’s also about human vulnerability period, the tenuous nature of human existence—or rather it can be.  Through apt metaphors—comparing the illness to falling in a manhole, having a plane crash on one’s house, being hit by a stray bullet—the reader will begin to see your story at a more general level: how humans can suddenly be struck down with no apparent defense.


Key passage.  Sometimes character thought or reflection can suggest a larger frame of reference, especially if the language is metaphorical.  Imagine that your protagonist is a vulture capitalist—already a metaphor.  He thinks to himself: “I’m the spider and they’re the fly.  It’s a matter of sucking them dry.”  With this image and others, one might get at the very essence of vulture capitalism—beyond the surface-level story of the machinations of a particular vulture capitalist.

A work of fiction that takes on multiple meanings is, to me, more interesting than one that has only a character and a storyline.  I want to think beyond these to larger implications.  A story has to work as a story first, though, with a strong character and an interesting character arc.  But look for ways to raise your short story or novel to levels beyond the literal.  Don’t force it, but when you see opportunities, take advantage.

Jack Smith is author of the novel Hog to Hog, which won the George Garrett FictionPrize (Texas Review Press. 2008), and is also the author of Write and Revise for Publication: A 6-Month Plan for Crafting an Exceptional Novel and Other Works of Fiction, published earlier this year by Writer’s Digest. His novel ICON will be published in June by Serving House Books.

Over the years, Smith’s short stories have appeared in North American Review, Night Train, Texas Review, and Southern Review, to name a few. He has also written some 20 articles for Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, as well as a dozen or so pieces for The Writer. He has published reviews in numerous literary journals, including Ploughshares, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, American Review, Mid-American Review, and the Iowa Review.

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