Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 39

Be a Rockstar at Book Signings

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I recently did a signing at a major chain bookstore. Great. Kudos for me; I’ve done them before. It’s no big deal if you work it properly and do the right due diligence beforehand. Something didn’t quite set with me right, though, and as I got everything together I realized what it was: this store treated authors like music venues treated musicians. You might be thinking “I’d love to be a rockstar!” That’s not what I mean. Most modern venues typically abuse artists and seek to steal their platforms, or at the very least, profit greatly on it. It’s often called Pay to Play by bands not working the national scene and I’ll explain how it’s bad for authors and bad for music artists

For most venues since the rise of social media, the thought has gone like this:

1. Artist has friends/followers. 2. Require overtly or implicitly that their friends must show up. 3. Capitalize on the built in fan-base. 4. Require all promotion, advertising, etc. be done by artist; the venue might hang a flyer. 5. Collect money from fan-base for purchases (and possibly even require bands to pay in order to perform, some are overt, others as hidden fees for “equip/stage rental” sound-guy fee, etc.

It actually reminds me of a Spongebob Squarepants flashback episode where Spongebob gets the frycook job and negotiates an initial salary of paying Mr. Krabs $100 an hour.

Many bookstores have figured out that this model, while generating less sales, requires zero investment and no work on the part of the staff (and usually the person booking an author event is the same person who would have to do this extra legwork). This has always typically been the norm in smaller, Indie stores; it seems like relations managers at bigger chains have keyed in on this.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. The store was eager to discuss a signing and it’s in a medium-sized town about two hours from my home. The large store I was at continually asked me how much I was planning to spend on adverts and how many of my local friends I could expect to come and buy books in the store along with whatever other shopping they might do, (just like paying a cover charge and then buying drinks at the venue). After explaining how well I’d done in a sister store, I told them how many books I’d expect to sell (15-20) in my time there with a similar setup and gave them estimates on how many books they should buy. I got there and they didn’t have me setup anywhere visible to the customers as they entered, in fact, I was barely able to see or talk to a customer until after the shoppers had already checked out and headed back for the exit. (I should’ve probably asked to be moved—I did arrive early, so that’s on me, but I had assumed they would want to put me in the best place for success. That just wasn’t so, so I’m now explicit on what I’d like my setup to look like). They also ordered more than twice what I’d recommended they buy. I really tried to sell ten books—but didn’t quite make it. The store sent all the books back the next day, even though some of my contacts did go to the store mid-week looking for them (because they’d ordered so many I had to pay return shipping to the printer who destroyed the overstock and I actually lost money for every book they carried because of the slim profit margin on larger books+return shipping costs.) Was a pretty bad weekend if I was only going to make money (add in costs of travel, food, etc.)

Once the event wrapped up, I had the distinctly dirty feeling that I got whenever my band had a poorly attended concert because the venue had done nothing but hamper our cause with bad practices. I should probably note that managers aren’t necessarily intending to trip you up—they just want to do less work or perhaps don’t realize that they are turning a potentially successful event into a difficult one. Education and clear communication helps fix that.

There has to be a happy medium where stores partner with readers. Sometimes fans will come in to see an author (I usually generate a handful, but they usually have my books already) but an author is really there to help the store make more sales and connect with readers. Of those customers I did talk with, I sold more books by other people than my own via recommendations or helping direct shoppers to other parts of the store. If a store is relying only on your efforts to sell books to your existing fan-base and stick you in a broom-closet for the signing they shouldn’t be surprised when it goes poorly. To ensure better success, have a specific checklist of requests for them and be upfront that you are there to help them sell books, but will be most successful if they:

-Put you where you can make eye contact with people entering the store

-Make announcements every 30-60 minutes via intercom

-Take out a social media ad and/or tag local readers they know who might enjoy your book based on genre

-Have the signing area prepped and ready prior to my arrival (and perhaps set a copy of the books at the register with a sign stating the signing/autograph details and times—if they could do this a few days in advance that’s a bonus! You can even leave a note that you’re willing to sign books if they purchase the book prior to the event and leave them with the manager to be picked up later)

-Use wisdom and have reasonable expectations for book sales

Here’s the moral of the story: don’t do book signings to make money. In fact, be happy if you break even. Find the most economic ways to get to the signing, keep your costs down, and go with the attitude that you are there to meet, greet, and network in order to build up future success (I flew to Printer’s Row with free airline miles and split booth costs with other authors so that I pretty much broke even—do what you have to so you get out there; sacrifice, but within reason). Understand that the stores don’t really care that much about you—they are in the business of selling books. Help them do that, but also help them understand that you can’t help them if they don’t set you up to succeed. Be smart, and happy selling.

Get Your Rear in Gear (back-cover matter that matters)

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I’ve written previously about how a book’s cover must be good. It’s got to engage and set a hook. Essentially, the cover has to make them want to pick the book up; the back cover matter has to keep it in their hand. It’s really a one-two punch that makes them want to buy your book. It’s their first peek at what you have and it’s your responsibility as an author to keep them there.

Think of your book like a house. If the outside is a dump, they won’t want to look inside—that’s the cover. A blurb is their peek through the door or window; if there’s a dead hooker lying on the floor, they probably don’t want to go in—the same goes for if it looks trashed and sloppy. Buying the book is the reader’s agreement to come inside and live in this house for a while. Nobody wants to stay in a meth-house with dead prostitutes, no matter how cheap that AirBnB might be… not again.

A lot of Indie writers make the mistake of flying by the seat of their pants on the back cover (myself included). It’s easy to look at it flippantly and think dang, I just wrote 100,000 +/- words… another 200 is a cakewalk. It is not. These might be the most difficult to write well and might be your most important. You have one short page worth of text to convince someone to take this book home—it’s got to be the best page. If you’re like most Indie writers, this will probably also be the text you have at the top of your book description on Amazon, Goodreads, B&N, Smashwords, etc. It is going to be your primary ad copy so do it right.

While I write both nonfiction and fiction, I’m concentrating on fiction here on cover content advice.

What should be on my back cover?

Space is limited, so remember that this is expensive real estate and everything has to work perfectly. What goes on your back cover may be as important as what you are sure to leave off!  If you have an endorsement, it had better be a good one—someone recognized as a bona fide expert or name in the genre… anything less can become a waste of space. Make sure your short bio is written tightly and include a photo, but make it a quality headshot that is cropped neatly. A shortlist of things on your rear would include 1. Blurb/text 2. Small photo 3. Short Bio 4. One-line Hook (sometimes called a logline), single-sentence elevator pitch, or gripping headline 5. Optional endorsement.

 

Back cover elements of the primary text:

The above elements are a pretty good rule of thumb—but how do you write the actual text? Your content should be similar to the story overview pieces you might have included in a query letter to prospective literary agents or publishers. A good formula for this is to 1. introduce your characters (and any brief elements that are necessary to the environment—don’t build a world here or focus on the setting, but if it’s in the 1800’s or an alien planet, you might mention it). 2. Describe the central conflict they face and 3. highlight the stakes. Ask the question what will happen if your protagonists fail.

There are many approaches to take and many writers swear by certain elements/formulas. Here are a few elements you may want to be sure to highlight.

-keep the book “at a glance friendly.” If it looks overwhelming to a casual reader, they probably won’t wade into the text with much sincerity.

-try to provoke emotions or entice readers with questions or promises

-use a rhythm and voice that sets a tone. Think of the book as a movie and the back cover like a movie trailer—you have just a few short sentences to suck them in. Build a cadence and hook them.

-probably the most important is to focus on what your book is about, not what happens in its pages. You aren’t summarizing the plot, you are crafting a hook to the story at large

One formula you might try is proposed by author and editor Victoria Mixon (victoriamixon.com) and goes like this:

When [identity] [protagonist name] [does something], [something happens]. Now, with [time limit/restrictions], [protagonist] must [do something brave] to [accomplish great achievement]/ or [sacrifice high stakes].

Here’s what my book, Wolf of the Tesseract, looks like with this formula:

While investigating a series of strange murders in her neighborhood, college student Claire Jones is kidnapped by a handsome werewolf who claims he’s rescuing her from the clutches of an evil sorcerer. But she can’t run forever and if Claire and her companion can’t reclaim an arcane artifact to end the warlock’s reign of terror, he will unleash the dark god Sh’logath’s cataclysmic power upon the universe, shattering dimensional barriers, and devouring all reality.

Other things to keep in mind:

–The font should be readable and sized appropriately. Pick a color that stands out and is easy to read. I’ve erred here before and quickly made corrections. Sometimes it doesn’t look as nice on paper as it does on a screen; always purchase a galley copy to double check how it looks in print if you are self-publishing.

–Keep the blurb on the shorter side—it should be succinct. Think about the success of Twitter: the shorter something is, the more likely it is to be read.

–Typos, and grammar or style errors are a sure giveaway to a reader that the book was pushed out too early. I’ve found some in my own books and always go back and fix them ASAP… sometimes things get missed by editors, but it creates a huge obstacle to selling people your book. Thanks to POD, you can fix most of these as they arise, but it’s a better plan to avoid them in the first place.

–Pick a consistent voice for your text and think about your audience before you put pen to paper. If the writing comes off as pretentious or juvenile you will probably alienate readers (even if you are targeting pretentious or juvenile readers.) Some voices work, some don’t. Give it thought before you read so you can color it appropriately.

One of the better articles I’ve read about this from fellow bloggers can be read here:

https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/05/casey-demchak-back-cover-copy/

 

 

Review: Dragon Teeth

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I was super excited to come across Dragon Teeth in a bookstore while I was setting up for my own book signing. As a teen I read any Crichton that I could get my hands on, starting with Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain. For my fellow SF fans, I felt an awful lot like Admiral Adama from Battlestar Galactica as he finally completed Searider Falcon, a book he read often and never allowed himself to finish until Roslin (his love interest) asked him to. Adama never read further than a certain spot because he “didn’t want the adventure to end.” So many feels as I read.

The story is solid Crichton. Some spots are less polished, which seems likely to be the a reason that he hadn’t yet sent it to publishers… it did feel like a second to last draft in some respects, but it’s still worth a read and it makes it almost more endearing than less so, given the post-humous publication. I felt much the same as with Tolkien’s Song of Kullervo (though Dragon Teeth is much more completed than Song of Kullervo was and I can see why Tolkien seemed to have abandoned the work).

Some have speculated that this book is either a money-grab by Crichton’s family or that the book was mostly ghostwritten and has garnered some negative reviews. It’s no Sphere or Jurassic Park, but it certainly has the language and feel that Michael Crichton writes with… some of those criticisms may come from the first 30% of the story which is decidedly less polished and less important to the narrative which reads simpler. (I wonder if this was an earlier draft than we’ll ever guess and editors did all the polish work to keep us from knowing that this was his first phase for the story which would’ve been later layered with greater subplot—it is certainly shorter than any of MC’s previous dinosaur stories, but he has written with this linear plot style before [I’m thinking Andromeda Strain.] That feeling does come out with how hurried the trickery comes and goes between Wyatt Earp, Johnson, and Emily as they try to get beyond the post-Deadwood encounter with Professor Marsh.) As far as a money grab, I don’t even care. As a fan, if I knew that there was a nearly finished manuscript being held from the fandom because it wasn’t finished, I’d be upset.

If you haven’t gotten your hands on this one yet, get down to the library and reserve a copy… or better yet, click here and pick up a copy in print or ebook. And I barely even mentioned it—but it’s got Wyatt Earp in it! How cool is that. Dinosaurs and Indians.

 

State of Writing

Had an optimistic week: positive response from a literary agent, hit all my marks at work, made a cool author connection, read a great book, and edited well past the halfway mark in WotT2. I would really like to finish the second draft this week if possible (though it might not happen because of my workload: I’m at camp with a bunch of youth through Saturday this week.) I’ll have this book wrapped up and ready for beta readers within a couple weeks, though, and then onto the final draft of TKR3! (right after I finish an official query to a literary agent who seems like a good fit–what she enjoys reading seems a perfect match for what I write).

Are We There Yet? Plot Your Roadmaps.

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I’ve written before about having a plan. It’s important to have at least some sort of a plan for marketing, promotion, and also writing. I’ve been both a seat-of-the-pants writer and also an outliner when it comes to my manuscripts. I strongly recommend some kind of written track to help you get from the beginning of the story and to the end; having an outline, or at least some sort of well-rounded chapter summary will help immensely when you are editing.

This week we are talking about Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Perhaps this is the most important kind of story to have a map for your plot arcs. I read a great article recently about building a story map for CYOA storylines. As a teenage fan of them, I’d always wanted to write a CYOA… and maybe I will do just that in the near future.

In the meanwhile, I’d recommend that you check out this interesting article over here:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyoa-choose-your-own-adventure-maps

My advice for this week is to play with maps that trace out the story plot arcs. It helps keep your main focus pointed and allows you to interweave your subplots seamlessly around the primary arc and then tied them altogether in a succinct way that will have greater impact to your reader. It will also let you know where you are in your story progression so you can properly build a climax and denouement, etc.

Whatever works for you is great–just make sure that it actually works and your not just avoiding the extra work of writing an outline (but, like I always say–writers write… so when I’m playing with my thoughts and putting them on paper so I remember my ideas it’s just a matter of reorganizing them into an outline, anyway). I’ve found it’s easier and quicker to get where I’m going when I know the way there.

A second look at the Ultimate Ending (review)

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Last week I got to a book on my reading list, Enigma at the Greensboro Zoo. It’s a Choose Your Own Ending book from Ultimate Endings. I did not survive… but I was inspired. (It’s partly behind the series of CYOA blogs this week at Inside the Inkwell.) All the feels and nostalgia were present in the book.

I did like this title a little less than the one that I read last time. That might’ve been due to the theme, I’m definitely a SF/F reader above all other genres and the “weird” elements didn’t seem very quick in coming on this title (the Enigma part of the story—experiments on the animals under “Project Fusion”.) Also. I pepper sprayed a penguin…not my finest moment.

The action did seem a little more drawn out than other that I’ve read and it took a few more pages than I would’ve liked on the initial run up and between choices. Maybe I was just feeling a little ADD when I read it, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. I admit, I cheated, too. I did skim the book after coming to a few endings and found the Ultimate Ending. I had to know what was happening in this freaky zoo.

If you like CYOAs as a kid, like I did, check out their website and find a title that intrigues you! I love the format and design of the UE books, where some endings are bad, some are good, and only one is the Ultimate.

http://ultimateendingbooks.com/

State of Writing

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I decree that it’s Choose Your Own Adventure Week on Inside the Inkwell. This should be fun. In the meanwhile, a quick update on my progress last week. I actually wrote a new, early chapter last week in Wolves of the Tesseract: Through the Darque Gates of Koth and mostly finalized the cover art. I had a lot of supplemental, minor things I intended to insert in earlier chapters, but based on some of the structure I decided to write a new scene/chapter in order to put them in since they didn’t really fit as smaller, aside snippets to the action already happening. About eight of thirty-two chapters are edited now for the second draft. Hope to finish up over the next month or so and then let it simmer before my next revision when my eyes will be fresher (should also be able to get it out to my beta readers around that time. I sent a few new queries to agents as well, and did some business side of things. Forecast looks good, and I’m probably on track for my 2017 writing goals.

Book Piracy Survey

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I was selling books at my booth at a comicon and had been discussing my stories which were of interest to someone I was pitching to. He actually had the gall to simply tell me he would read it after he pirated it from the internet. It kind of took me aback for a second, but we had a chat about ethics and piracy and how some of my stories have made more money for internet pirates than they’ve ever generated for me. In fact, one of my books was reposted under a new author with the same summary description and a poorly edited cover with an altered title and my name covered with a black box and new name over it.

In retrospect, I don’t think he “had the gall” to tell me his intentions. I think I had a good enough rapport with him that he was just being honest and it kind of slipped out. When I think of books and publishing, epiracy isn’t usually something I think about right away… I always think of movies and music as being the target of pirates because our culture has told us so much about it via the media… pretty much every video since the 1980s has had some kind of FBI warning giving us consequences for intellectual content violations and the Napster scandal of the early 2000s told us that Lars, Metallica’s drummer, would personally show up at your house and beat you with a wooden shoe if you downloaded music illegally. Nobody has really talked about books… I mean, pirates can’t even read, right?

Interestingly, Nielson’s did a study on book piracy, as reported in the NYT in March 17. “E-book piracy currently costs U.S. publishers $315 million each year in lost sales.” I know this sounds pretty benign as an Indie/self-published author… but when you look at it realistically, it means that YOU are a U.S. publisher—so this has a direct effect on you.

Here are some of their findings.

The majority of illegal downloaders are 18 to 34 years old, educated and wealthy (the digitally savvy generation).
Roughly 30% of illegal downloaders either obtain their content from friends via IM, email, or flash drive or from downloading from public/open torrent sites.
Illegal downloaders acquire, on average, 13 to 16 ebooks per year—only 3 to 7 of these ebooks are acquired illegally.
Men are more likely to pirate a book then women (66% of illegal downloaders are male).
44% of illegal downloaders surveyed reported that they would be much less likely to illegally download ebooks if they believed it harmed the author.

What I found in my conversation was that this data is absolutely true: almost half of these illegal downloaders simply don’t understand how obtaining an ebook illegally affects an author. That 44% doesn’t realize that they directly impact the writer’s bottom line. The craziest thing is the mental disconnect between the wallet and the internet: “The most common age-range of an e-book pirate is between 30- and 44-years-old with a yearly household income between $60,000 and $99,000.” Heck, if I could make 60k annually from my books I’d do this full time!

If you want to read someone’s book and make over 30k per year, you should probably pay the man. If you really can’t afford it, probably just ask him or her on the condition that you will refer all your friends and leave a stellar review online! I can’t think of a time I ever turned away someone who wanted to read my stories… if you REALLY can’t afford to get it, here’s the best way (and it even helps the author)… ask your local library to get a copy. If it’s not in their network they will purchase it!

 

 

State of Writing

 

Crazy week. Like always, I guess. It was actually my weekend that nearly killed me. Here’s what it looked like:

Fri-up before 7am to volunteer in weight room with teens… work till 5pm, fix stuff around the house till late, try to go to sleep early (to no avail) leave for Twin Cities around midnight

Sat-get to Park N Fly around 3am. and catch plane to chicago, grab an Uber, setup table for Printer’s Row Festival in the AM and find a Starbucks… talk to people all day and battle the wind-tunnel that is downtown Chicago. 7pm, Uber back to the airport and try to nap for 90 min before flight–no success. coffee instead. Flight back to MPLS… three quick catnaps, but I kept waking up myself with snores (and disturbing hte other passengers.)

Sun-midnight, back in MN. get to my car for drive home… oh, now my body says it can sleep? Crawl into bed about 2:30am… can’t even see straight

I was a little tired. I think this week slows down for me… but lots of busyness and a few work meetings will keep me productive. Since I finished WotT2 recently, I’m in general editing before I let it sit and simmer for a while so that I’ll have fresh eyes on it. Hoping to have that first edit done over the next two weeks. I’m mulling over a large scene to add to Fear in a Land Without Shadows (like, 7 months after the final draft… this is why we let this rest for a while) that will really help color in a relationship between two friends in the book and reinforce why everyone is so scared of the dark.

Tuesday book reviews should be up again beginning next week.

10 low-key nonelectronic marketing ideas

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Here is an interesting graphic from the folks over at christianpublishers.net. Some of these may seem a little outside the realm of normal marketing tactics, but I’m all about finding something new. Too many people get caught up in doing the same thing everyone else is doing.

Sometimes what everyone else is doing is what has been tried, tested, and true, but often it’s an easy way to get lost in the crowd and Indies desperately need to stand out. While I can’t swear to all of the efficacy of all of them (especially since I live in a rural area and half of them aren’t even possible for me [no HOAs or local XN papers,]) anything to set you apart is worth a shot, provided its positive and well done.

A week ago I wrote about some advice given by a venerable author and linked to his blog. If you read it you may have noted his distrust of “blog tours.” Honestly, I do share that same reticence. It’s good to do it when it presents itself, but I’ve not seen much success with it for the reasons he pointed out: it seems like everyone does them and there’s not much quality control… blog tours seem an easy way to got lost in a flow of low quality stuff. Separate yourself from the noise when possible and be creative; use your ideas to highly target your audience (like my comic book I had produced as a promo vehicle for my novel, Wolf of the Tesseract.)

I particularly like the bathroom stall and cable TV ideas, especially if it helps target your niche market… does your book apply to an older generation or have localized interest? Cable TV is great (and probably free). Is it sports centered or appeal to guys especially? Many advert services provide space right above the restroom urinals where guys’ eyes are going to be locked for about 45 seconds.

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