Susan Mary Malone's Blog: Happiness is a Story, page 32

HOW TO FAKE YOUR WAY TO CONFIDENCE

Confidence. Tough to define, easy to spot. We all can see a confident person in any arena, be it on the sporting field, in the boardroom, in the bake-off competition, or in any social situation. It’s that ‘it’ factor that sets one apart.

But how to be a confident woman? Easier said than done!

 

We all compete. Often someone says, “I don’t have a competitive bone in my body.” And then we watch as that same woman takes control of a social situation, effectively “winning” the room.

 

So, what if you don’t feel confident, internally, where you live? How do you get there? What’s that magic bullet for how to build confidence?

 

We’ve all heard the term, ‘Fake it ‘til you make it.’ And the oddest thing about that, once you do it effectively, surprisingly it works! But how to actually accomplish this? We can see the results most easily through the example of competition. To succeed in competition requires taking risks. And often fear holds folks back from venturing a risk in the first place.

 

Athletes have long used the power of visualization before they compete, and we now know through neuro-linguistic studies that doing so wires the brain for success. I’ve used this many times myself, and if nothing else, I feel more confident when entering the field of play—whether at the dog show or speaking to 500 people. That extra boost as I step into the arena pays enormous dividends. When you start with confidence, adrenaline takes over and propels you forward.

 

Even if you believe you have no chance of winning, by pushing that aside and faking confidence you will absolutely produce amazing results.

 

Men have an easier time of this. The sexes are wired differently of course, and a University of Southern California study by Drs. Nicole Lighthall and Mara Mather showed this result: Women took less risk after being stressed; they made decisions more slowly and earned less money for themselves. In men, stress actually improved their performance.

 

Dang those men!

 

So how can learn from this and use it to succeed? A zillion ways exist to deal with stress, but one pearl from Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman encapsulated it for me, and took me from using the tools of faking confidence all the way to being confident. It’s an amazingly simple tool. So much so that I wish I’da thought of it my own danged self!

 

Simply put, women tend to focus on odds, and men focus on what they’ll win.

 

Doesn’t sound like such a big difference, does it? But what researchers have found is that the more people focus on their odds of winning, the less likely they’ll go for it. However, the more they focus on what they’ll win if they succeed, the more likely they will go for it.  Amazing, no?

 

And that brings confidence in boatloads. The more you try, the better you get. The better you get, the more you succeed. And the more you succeed, the more confidence grows. The opposite of the vicious cycle, this one brings huge smiles of happiness.

 

I dare you to try it: Fake it ‘til you make it and focus on what you’ll win.

 

How do you succeed?

 

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5 TIPS FOR DEALING WITH GRIEF

Of course we all know the 5 stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, depression, acceptance. We all have that t-shirt, no? You don’t get very far in life without the opportunity to face this, although I know of people my age who haven’t. Always surprises the socks off of me. A dear friend who’s sixty recently told me he’d never lost anybody but his Golden Retriever, which liked to killed him. I do understand losing the love of a dog (all too well), and how horrific this can be. But that he’s never lost anybody else? Well . . . amazing.

 

And grieving loss comes from so many different areas. Actual death, of course, but also the loss of a friendship or marriage, the loss of a loved job or career, the loss of a home and all that symbolizes. The funny thing about grief too—it doesn’t actually differentiate.

 

Loss is loss and grief is grief, no matter the origin.

 

Of course, our first (and prevalent) MO is to go around it in every way possible. It just sucks. I don’t care who you are or what your spiritual beliefs, the loss must be grieved and the only way through it is, well, through it. Hate that. It always takes me a while to get to the acceptance part of Universal Truths

 

Every loss brings up, at least for a time, all the ones before it as well. Maybe not the entire mountain of it, but spidery tentacles that switchback across your heart, forming a steep path up the mountainside.

 

So much is written about dealing with grief, and there is no right or wrong way (except the going around of it But whenever I get the opportunity to experience it again, these steps through the grieving process really help me:

1. Don’t Expect to “Get Over It”

Even though our society gives a lot of lip service to grieving, after the initial horror, people kinda expect you to buck up and go on, you know? “Life goes on” we hear a lot. Well, yeah, it surely does.

But by just “going on” without dealing with the loss, you’re just gonna carry that load back up that mountain anyway.

I don’t believe we ever actually “resolve” a death especially. We process it. Hopefully we go through those stages. But get over it? Nah.

We have an entire chapter in What’s Wrong with my Family about tragic family loss. And how that grief stays with you, in some form, forever . . .

2. Give Yourself Space

Grieving takes alone time. Yep, you need those you love too, surely. But no one can cross this river for you. It’s yours to swim, and that takes introspection and sitting with the pain. And dang but it hurts. When in the throes of it, I’ll actually give myself a set amount of time during a day to just wallow in it. Then pull my boots up and get on with things. Honoring the grief itself lessens its impact.

But again, alone. As Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Pretty much

3. Accept that You’ll Go Back & Forth through the Stages

Wouldn’t it just be fabulous if we could progress one to the next and be done with it? You know, check off those boxes and put them behind us and get back to being happy. Man, I could go for that!

Um hm. I could go for a diet of chocolate-chip cookies and being totally healthy too. If anyone finds that universe, please buy me a ticket.

There simply are no straight lines to grief. It weaves and meanders and switches back and often you think you’ve made no progress at all. But then you come around a bend and look down and behold and lo, you’re progressing up that hill. It just takes as long as it takes.

4. Seek Help

This doesn’t negate #2, but is in addition to. We need support from friends and family. And it’s never about what is said. That really doesn’t matter—there isn’t, after all, anything that can be said to make it better. It’s just knowing someone cares enough to listen, to hold a hand, even to offer awful platitudes in an effort to help and not knowing how.

Grief counseling is ever-so-helpful as well. Sometimes you need a truly objective ear to help you sort through.

Because although no one can swim that river for us, people can surely lend a helping hand, even if it’s just backstroking next to us as we fight the current.

5. Be Good to You

How hard this can seem. If we’re grieving a death, survivor’s guilt can cause us to self-sabotage in any number of ways. We’re still here and loved ones are not. Even the old ‘get on with life’ can be a way of driving you forward before you’re ready. The novel I’m working on now deals with grief, or more to the point—what happens when you don’t! Which causes all sorts of neurosis in its wake.

A dear friend of mine calls every day when I’m going through grief. She’ll always ask, “Did you sleep? Did you eat 3 times today?” Sounds silly when not suffering, but quite apropos when in it!

Do something for yourself at least once a day. The list is endless of course, but just one thing. Everybody can do one thing.

 

Because grief in the end will always be with us. It’s part of this life, and oddly, is to be celebrated for what it is—being human, and being alive.

 

Have other ways to deal? I always love to hear them!

 

 

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ARE ABUSED WOMEN HAPPY?

Along with the rest of the world, I too watched in horror the video of Ray Rice dragging his unconscious then fiancée from an elevator. And now, the video of him punching her in the face, knocking her out cold.

Spousal abuse is dramatic, horrifying, and as the video being repeated over and over shows, something we have a hard time looking away from. Like watching that proverbial train wreck.

But it’s not the fact of the abuse itself that crushes my soul. Rather, it’s Rice’s now-wife Janay’s responses to the uproar.

She is verbalizing the mantras that every woman who has ever been abused and finally got out knows all too well. I.e., she’s defending the man who beat her.

First by attacking those who are horrified she was hit: “To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his a** off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific {sic}. THIS IS OUR LIFE!” she wrote in an Instagram posted September 9.

Not anymore is this just about your life—we all watched in eerie black and white as he knocked you cold.

Next by defending her husband later that day in a brief interview with ESPN: “I love my husband. I support him. I want people to respect our privacy in this family matter.”

Love? A loaded word. Especially when the one loved has knocked you flat. Is this what we call love?

Most chilling for me (and for anyone who has come out of abuse and looked back on it with the cold hard eye of Truth), was her blaming herself: “I do deeply regret the role that I played in the incident that night, but I can say that I am happy that we continued to work through it together,” she told the press conference.

My blood ran cold. The abuser’s line is always: “You made me so angry.” “You made me do it.” “If you wouldn’t have done x, I wouldn’t have had to hit you.”

Rings a bell for every single woman ever abused by a lover or husband. He always turns it around on her. Always. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies a man hitting a woman.

And oh, don’t we know that roller coaster. The euphoria of believing he loves me! He truly does! And “it” will get better and better! This won’t happen again! The world is the problem, not him!

“If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all the happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is!” she wrote.

Dear God, save us. If that’s “real love,” all those years of therapy were pointless!

My award-winning novel, By the Book, while not about the abuse per se, is exactly about how a wife can “stay,” which is the question so many ask. We stay for many reasons. Many of these are practical. Many revolve around fear. But at the heart of the matter, we bought into it on some level. We believed we deserved it.

And it’s when you finally heal from that belief of unworthiness that you can walk away—no matter the circumstances.

Can an abused wife be happy?

No.

Can a former abused wife find joy, happiness, passion, and purpose?

Absolutely!

How have you come out of an abusive situation?

 

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AM I HAPPY TODAY OR IS IT JUST THE SEMEN TALKING?

So in the middle of all the rest of life’s insanity (writing, editing, working with writers!), I bred Siren Call. Funny thing about breeding and babies, you don’t get to decide when they come into season. Oh, there’s actually a method for this, but not one I trust with long-range repercussions, so we let that part at least happen the old-fashioned way.

 

Because nothing else about this does. When breeding top dogs, gone are the days of putting male and female out in the yard and telling them to make babies on their own.

 

Now, we pull progesterone studies to pinpoint ovulation, as semen will be fresh-chilled and shipped overnight and will live swimming around in the uterus for about 48 hours. So the window is small.

 

And of course I live in the middle of nowhere, and FedEx overnight can’t find me. FedEx 2-day knows me because by now the driver and I are friends and he knows where I live. But the overnight folks get baffled by my address, and send that little card thingie through the mail saying the package is at FedEx. Which of course means, those swimmers are dead! When that happens, no need to ask why am I not happy. So, I have it over-nighted to a biz in town and go pick it up, which of course always elicits puzzled faces.

 

A friend of mine had semen shipped to a repro vet once, and went to pick up the box (boxes are small, with compartments for ice packet and vial, etc., thoroughly taped up, and clearly marked ‘Canine Semen’). Now this was a repro vet, mind you. My friend asked for her swimmers and the receptionist got the box to give to her and asked, “Is this a small dog?”

 

A couple of times I’ve needed semen sent counter-to-counter through the airlines, as Murphy’s law often dictates that you need it on a Sunday or Monday, and of course FedEx doesn’t pick up or deliver on Sundays. You have to go to cargo at the airport to get it. The guy comes out holding the box as far away as possible, a horrified look on his young face, saying, “Is it gonna get me?”

 

Often it’s just difficult to know how to respond.

 

Of course there’s always the worry that the box will get diverted, or get warm (the heat in Texas!), so timing is quite crucial. I of course track the shipment as it leaves the origination point, through Mississippi to the processing center, to Lancaster, onto the truck for delivery. I get tracking updates too on my phone. And I intercept the driver before he can even get out of the truck. But really, how anyone can call this obsessive?

 

But you never exhale until you unpack the box and inside is cool, and your collection is creamy and you have a successful AI. Then I keep a dot and look under the scope and hold your breath until gazillions of tiny sperm are swimming frantically in search of an egg. Whew!

 

And then, we sit on our hands and wait. And wait. And try not to look at Siren every five minutes. It’s not like I don’t have anything else to do.

 

And now she’s expanding. A lot. Looks like our swimmers did their job! The one part of nature that’s still natural in all of this.

 

So, to get some writing and editing done before babies come to change my life for the next two months, and fill my home with puppy breath. Ah, heaven! Until of course they start to eat gruel and mama quits cleaning up the poop and . . .

 

But today I am happy 

 

What’s floating your boat today?

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WHAT ON EARTH IS MY PURPOSE?

Ever wondered that? Women especially tend to ponder the question (or as my friends say about me, obsess!). Men, not so much. Men are after all simpler beings. Don’t throw tomatoes at me for that sentiment! That’s from my psychiatrist co-author’s theories about the differences in makeup between men and women. But as women wear more and more hats, often the thing that brings core meaning to their lives gets lost.

 

Of course the great Viktor Frankl asked that very question in Man’s Search for Meaning, which I love, love, love. But that’s a bit serious for me right at this second.

 

I have to confess though, as my “day job” took more and more of my time, cutting deeper and deeper into my writing world, I often would wake up wondering about my purpose. And though I absolutely love helping writers realize their dreams, one day I realized that my own were teetering precariously above an abyss.

 

Okay, so that may be a bit dramatic (and yes, the idea of me and drama shocks those who know me:). But anyway, the less I wrote, the crazier I became. And the more flattened out. The drier. Life lost its passion. It’s luster. And I started feeling old! Old! How could that be? I’m still the baby of the family. That’s one of those wonderful things—I’ll always be the baby of the family.

 

But again, I digress (my friends are hooting here).

 

What exactly is purpose of life?

 

The thing is, I, like you, am good at many things. I often say that if I had another life to lead, I’d be an investigative journalist (one of those things I did in an earlier incarnation in this life). Or, I’d run race horses (ditto). I loved those things. I was good at those things. But they didn’t drive my passion.

 

You know that feeling. Women speak to me about it almost every day. That thinking there’s gotta be something more. The “is this all there is?” feeling. In today’s world of nanosecond pace, of paying the piper, of always being connected, of, well, all the insanity we call living, without attending to that small still voice of “purpose,” at the end of the day we wonder what it was all for.

 

And I know mine. I’ve known it since I was a little girl. That thing that puts zing in my step and blood rushing through my veins and a smile on face is writing stories. I was actually somewhat famous as an elementary-school child for my poetry (they generously neglected to tell me how awful it was!). The oft-repeated one still: “Knights were bold, even when it was cold.” I never said you had to be good at that thing that drives you

 

But oddly enough, if you pursue and practice your passion—whatever it is—not only do you sing and smile more often, but you get better and better at it too.

 

So what is it you love that you’re pushing aside? What floats that boat of yours (even if the bindings feel old)?

 

That thing. Focus on that thing. It brings happiness along with a reason for living, rather than just existing.

 

Dr. Frankl did of course focus on purpose of life, and how that brought happiness. And he nailed it with, “. . . a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy . . .”

 

What pursuit makes you happy?

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WE PICKED MUSCAT CANELLI GRAPES THAT DAY

Sitting with a glass of luscious Syrah/Merlot from Red Caboose Winery, savoring the rich taste of ripe berries with hints of oak and soft tannins, brings back images of a beautifully pristine July morning at their vineyard, happily harvesting wine grapes as if we had a clue! Luckily it’s a quickly acquired skill.

We picked Muscat Canelli grapes that day, the clusters plump and glistening in the slanted early rays. A nice breeze cooled the sweat from the intense Texas sun (even at first light) as thirty or so volunteers picked and kibitzed, eager to snip such deliciously perfect clusters and fill vats to the brim. And now and then tasting the sweetness of heaven (we didn’t cheat! They said we could :).

Wine making in Texas has grown in huge popularity, and seasonal labor is almost all volunteer (who knew!). I understood why I was there—immersed in all things wine while writing a new novel set in a Texas vineyard. Set, actually, in that same county (Bosque), where I know the land and know farming the unforgiving rocky soil. But why had the others come? Of course, I wanted to know their stories (my passion!). And responses ran the gamut through folks from twenty-five to seventy. Most just wanted the experience of the vineyard, being oenophiles like me! Many came every year, enjoying the camaraderie as well as the lunch and wine served later.

After the harvest, we helped with de-stemming and crushing, the winemaker Evan overseeing all. What a fetching young man, who along with his father has fashioned award-winning wines from the tricky Texas land. He tickled me as I also picked his mind, saying two kinds of wine makers exist—the chemist and the mom-cook.

“I started out real particular, measuring everything,” he said as he poured without measuring enzymes into the must. Then his eyes alit mischievously as he said, “Now, I’m a mom-cook!”

Ah, another sweet tidbit for my story!

I love learning people’s stories, incorporating them into fiction. They tell me who a person is, and how he became that way. Because while we all have the same basic needs and wants, we have all also knelt at different graves and chased far-off falling stars. It’s in the fabric of our stories that we learn what makes us all tick.

And I’ve always loved the psychologist Carl Jung’s theory of myths, that while we may be the heroes of our own stories, at the same time we’re also the spear chuckers in someone else’s. All of our lives are indeed intertwined, making up the body of myth encoded in the DNA of us all.

Stories comprise the fabric of our lives. And what joy to take threads of these and weave them into a fictional tapestry! Ah, such a blessing.

That day I was definitely the spear chucker in Evan’s dream, as I laid groundwork for my own.

Welcome to my world of myths and stories. Please visit, and share your own!

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LESSONS FROM THE TRADITIONAL-PUBLISHING MODEL Part Four: Distribution

Okay, this is a big bag of worms. And a changing-at-the-speed-of-light one!

One of the biggest differences in self vs. traditional publishing is something “they” never tell you—they being all those companies that want to sell you services to get your book in print. And this thing is something that writers are often shocked by—after the fact. It’s something new writers don’t even think about, until the horse has left the barn and they’re faced with the reality of what they have done. And what is that thing?

Distribution.

Not the sexiest thing about writing and selling books, but it determines totally whether your book even has a chance to be found in bookstores. And, book-shelf space has gotten so incredibly competitive these days that only about one in a thousand traditionally published books get space on bookstore shelves.

But here’s the deal: Traditionally published books are distributed through Ingram. And it’s through Ingram that brick-and-mortar stores stock their books. Baker & Taylor is another player, but small in comparison. And Ingram doesn’t distribute self-published books. Period.

See the dilemma? If you self-published your book and want to see it on the shelves at the local Barnes & Noble, you’re out of luck. There is no distribution method to get there.

That door is closed before you even knew it existed.

And it’s a shame, because local bookstores like to have local-author signings. Some of them will bend those rules now and then, if you bring your own books (after jumping through about a thousand hoops!).

So just understand this before self-publishing your book.

Now, here’s the other kicker we can learn from what traditional publishers got wrong about all of this: In the ever-changing world of all aspects of publishing, because of the distribution model they’ve always used, the big publishers got caught with their pants down. Until the last few years, most books were still purchased through brick-and mortar stores. We all know what’s happened to that. Bookstores have folded right and left. Even the monolith of Barnes & Noble shut down 30% of their stores last year. With doubtless more to follow.

And now that these big publishers are fighting with Amazon (another post entirely!), sales channels have narrowed.

Amazingly, the big publishers didn’t have virtual storefronts. They had websites, but those were to publicize books—not to sell them. They didn’t sell directly to customers, but rather, they sold to bookstores who sold to customers. Just this last year showed big houses finally opening storefronts online to sell to readers. Wow.

Make sure your author website has a method to actually sell your books to readers. Sounds like a no-brainer, but I’m always amazed when I go to an author’s site and the book is there, with a note as to where it’s available. Most websurfers won’t go that extra mile to find your book.

The game is changing. It continues to morph into things Traditional publishing never saw coming. Learn from what they did right. And what they did wrong. No one knows what’s around the next bend—no one.

Stay aware. Be ready to try new things. Plough new fields. Be a trail blazer. Who knows, you just might be the next Amanda Hocking!

What do you see as the next big trend?

LESSONS FROM THE TRADITIONAL-PUBLISHING MODEL PART THREE: Timing

Okay, so we’ve talked about focusing on the book, honing in on the genre, and now for the third thing to take from Traditional-publishing’s successes: Timing.  Here I’m not talking about all the time involved waiting on agents’ and editors’ responses to submissions (that was in the blog The Book!).  But rather, once you’ve signed that contract, the time lag that exists before the book comes out.  Which can seem like an eternity.

 

Oh, how writers bemoan the idea of waiting 18 months before publication with a Traditional publisher.  And often I hear from writers intending to self-publish for this very reason:  “I want my book out now.”  But any acquisition’s editor or agent can tell you that the time lag is actually vital.

 

So what happens between the signing of the contract until publication?

Plenty

 

¬ First off, an editor will position the book on the publishing house’s list.  Seems straight forward enough. But a reason exists as to why something comes out at Christmas (late Fall list) vs. why another gets designated a beach read (late Spring list).  Beach reads, for example, are lighter fare. In other words, you wouldn’t put out a book about depression or suicide in either of those seasons!  Choose when your book comes out carefully.

 

¬ Next, the lag gives editors time to get book-jacket blurbs for the back cover.  And this can take a bit.  But never underestimate the power of these.  One huge way readers buy books is by word of mouth, and that includes blurbs by the rich and famous.  Spend the time to round those up!

 

¬ Covers are done differently with the Traditional houses than most Indie and self-published books.  Usually the covers on the former are of higher quality than the latter, but they don’t have to be.  Take the time to get a fabulous one, even if it costs you.

 

¬ ARCs.  These help tremendously in creating buzz for a book.  Traditional houses get reviews in place from the major reviewers, and they almost all require ARCs (you pay for reviews once the book is already out but for “real” reviews, you need ARCs).  Now, with the new Amazon policy of putting a book in the system up to three months before publication, anyone can take this time to get reviews in place.  Do so!

 

¬ Social Media.  As we all know, this is king these days in promoting books.  And it takes a good while to get up and going.  Conventional wisdom from experts says a blog takes 6 months to a year to get noticed.  You want the best promotion for your book possible.  So get the website and blog going, your Twitter, FB, and LinkedIn up and healthy, long before the book comes out.  Goodreads is a must, and Goodreads giveaways are quite effective.  One before publication and one after.   Of course a whole host of other such sites exist as well.  Give yourself that time!

 

¬ Promotional Materials.  This also gives you time to put together your press kit, along with postcards, bookmarks, etc.   Even in today’s “virtual” world, these still work wonders.  Get these printed well in advance, and send them out!

 

¬ Book Signings.  Both brick-and-mortar stores and online book tours work great!  They can also take a while to set up.  Local bookstores are usually quite keen to set up signings, especially if you get some media out with it.  And they are much more excited about an upcoming book, than one that’s been out six months.  Work with them!

 

So even in today’s world of “instant” publishing, slow down here.  Get your promotional ducks in line so you can launch your book in the most advantageous way possible.  Because no matter which way you publish, your point is to be successful.  Be that!

LESSONS FROM THE TRADITIONAL-PUBLISHING MODEL PART TWO: The Genre’s the Thing!

We talked last time about the first lesson from Traditional Publishing—focusing on the product, the book!  Now we continue with the second—knowing your genre.

 

Often new writers tell me a big reason they want to self-publish is so they don’t have to conform to publishers’ specs.  “I want to write my book how I want to write it!” is a common sentiment.  Word count out the window.  Structure?  Who needs it!  “I don’t want to write formula,” comes into play.

 

But the genres, categories, and sub-categories are not really formulaic, except in the idea of what needs to happen, and what doesn’t.  Some are of course, but the vast majority of specs exist sort of like a clothesline on which you pin your shirts and pants, blouses and jackets to make up the storyline.

 

Why on earth should someone intending to self-publish care about Traditional Publishing’s specs?  That’s a huge reason you’re self-publishing, right? 

 

Big fat wrong.

 

It’s very true that Traditional Publishers can’t spot trends.  Just ask them!  The standard line is always: “I’ll know the next trend when I see it.”   Everyone in this business is always surprised (often shocked) at what takes off.  And then everybody wants that thing, with a different twist.  Who saw Urban Lit coming?  Or the resurgence of Vampires?  And don’t you wish you did?

 

But it is in hindsight that the Traditional model shines.  This really is a business of the tail wagging the dog.  But what those publishers excel at is in analyzing what made the tail wag in the first place.  In other words, they study the successes, and most importantly, who those readers are and what they expect from the books.  They know their customers.

 

How often have you heard: “Write for your audience”?  Again, that makes new writers quite squeamish.  “I write for myself,” is often the response.  Which, yeah, you have to.  But you’re also writing for someone to actually read your work, no?

 

Your audience exists.  If you know where to find it. 

 

People come to me all the time saying, “I have written a romance.”  Okay—what category and sub-category?   There’s a reason that Harlequin Desire is 50K words, while Harlequin Romantic Suspense is 75K.  And the reason is: That’s what those readers want and expect.   A Desire reader doesn’t want the Suspense part.  Period.

 

For a more stark contrast, let’s mix genres.  There’s a reason that Cozy Mysteries are 70K words, with no graphic sex or violence.  But if you’re writing Urban Lit, you better have both!  Because, again, that’s what those readers are looking for in a book.

 

It’s not just word count, but what happens, and how it happens.  Even the prose is different in a Mystery vs. a Thriller.

 

Often I see manuscripts that cross genres, which in the Traditional world is the kiss of death. 

 

None of the agents I know will touch those, because of course, they can’t sell them.  Writers get so frustrated by this.  They’ve just doubled their audience, no?  No.  By crossing genres, you’ve just lost both audiences.  Readers want what they want.  Give it to them!  They’re waiting for the next great book (in the genre they read, of course).

 

I often talk to readers, from people I know to strangers in airports.  I’ll ask what they like to read, and they usually respond, “Oh, I read widely.”  But when I press as to which authors they most read, those authors all line up in one specific genre (even though readers are unaware of the appellations J

 

Yes, you absolutely can throw all these specs to the wind, but go outside the lines at your own peril. 

 

Recreating the wheel in publishing is akin to climbing Mt. Everest when your goal was actually to hike the Appalachian Trail.  Man, don’t you hate when you do the former when the latter would have been so much more successful?

 

Go to the major publishing sites and peruse their categories and sub-categories and the specs for all, and discern where your book fits best.  To revise a bit to fit those specs is not at all difficult, and the results are powerful—you can target an audience that already exists, and is ready, willing, and wanting to buy the kind of books your write!

 

Now, go be that successful author you’ve always dreamed of being!

 

 

 

 

LESSONS FROM THE TRADITIONAL-PUBLISHING MODEL Part One: THE BOOK, THE BOOK, THE BOOK!

Traditional publishing is in the toilet.  Big news flash, right?  I lined out some of the whys in my recent guest blog on Authorlink.com

But what can we learn from big publishers’ successes and failures?  A lot.  So let’s dive in and today talk about the thing new writers are missing all over the place—putting the product, the book, first.

 

This really does seem like a no-brainer.  I mean, we’re writers, right?  It’s what we do—we write, we hone our craft, we study, we get critiqued, we write some more.  At least, that’s the way it used to be!

 

One of the issues new writers (and many seasoned ones as well, although they handle it differently) have with the Traditional folks is that this takes f o r e v e r.   Yep, it does.  At every single stage of the process, writers get to hurry-up-and-wait.  Hurry up and produce exactly what that agent, editor, etc., requests, and then sit on their hands for months and wait on responses.  It can drive a sane woman batty.  I’m in the process of getting one of my great YA writers agented, and of course, as it’s August and all of publishing is on vacation, my writer is frustrated that the agent won’t read his work until September.  Hey!  That’s actually quick!

 

But back to our point.  What this enormous time lag did was to give writers all this glorious waiting time to actually focus on the book.  To learn.  While they banged their heads against publishing’s seemingly impenetrable wall, they wrote.  Joined critique groups.  Got bashed there.  Went back and dove in again to make the story better.  Worked with an editor.  Wrote some more.

 

All of this took years.  But now, with the advent of instant publishing, you don’t have to go through all of that.  Presto!  Your book can be published without having to do all that incessant waiting.  You’re an author!

 

But not a very good one.  The waves and waves of schlock being “published” these days boggles the mind.  Oh my, is so much of this stuff just terrible.  Cringe-worthy awful.

 

And here’s the dirty little secret Traditional publishers know: You can put megabucks behind a new release’s marketing.  Hire PR agents.  Get the best cover in the world.  And maybe sell a lot of books because of all that.  But if the book’s bad, readers won’t buy the second one.  In other words, you’ve totally lost the audience you worked so hard with marketing money to create.

 

You’re the same way, right?  You buy a highly touted book and by page five, it’s so awful you toss it into the trash, never to read that author again.  And I mean, ever.  No matter if said author ends up on the morning television shows touting her next one.  What sticks with you is the awfulness of what your hard-earned money was wasted on.

 

But then, the converse is also true, no?  You read something wonderful, and seek out that author’s backlist, while waiting eagerly for the next one.  I did that very thing with Pat Conroy not long ago.  For whatever reason, I picked up The Prince of Tides for the fourth time (one of my all-time favs, obviously).  Then I got on a Conroy jag, reading the ones I hadn’t read, while waiting eagerly for The Death of Santini.  They could package up the yellow pages and put Conroy’s name on it, and I’d buy it.

 

Of course, Pat Conroy came of writing age during the time when the only choice was to hone one’s craft.  Learn from him!  Dive in, learn your craft, hone it and hone it and hone it.  Have a great editor sign off on it before the presses run.  Ah, now you have a budding career as a book author!