Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 184

What's Not on the Shelf?

I ended up getting very little accomplished yesterday, but then I figured that even the evil PR agency employers gave me comp time if I'd had to work all weekend. Plus, it was June last year before I'd worked as many hours as I've already worked this year, so I'm doing better. I did outline the next scene I need to write, so I'm ready to charge in today.

I don't have a book report this week because busy times meant I didn't finish anything that wasn't a reference book. Instead, I'll talk about books I'm not reading because either they don't exist or I can't find them. This topic has come up in a number of places lately. There was this "Dear Author" post about what's not being published that you want to read, which got into the issue of whether these books don't exist or whether you just haven't found them. The topic also came up in an interview I did a week or so ago in which we got started talking about the things that can happen with independent publishing.

One thing that's kind of cool about independent publishing is that my threshold for profitability is a lot different from Random House's, so an individual writer can go after a smaller niche. A particular kind of book may not meet the threshold for a major publisher's balance sheet, so it doesn't get published, but there may still be enough readers out there who want that kind of thing that an individual author can make money by offering it. While we hear a lot of buzz about the more erotic stuff doing well in self-publishing, apparently one of the really hot niche genres is sweet (non-sexy) Western (cowboy/rancher/pioneer) romances. I can pretty much guarantee that you won't find a single one of these outside the inspirational section at a bookstore, and I'd also bet that if you submitted a non-inspirational Western historical romance without sex scenes in it to a romance publisher it would be rejected, but it seems that if you can write these well and self-publish them, they sell like crazy, probably because there are people who like that sort of thing and can't find them at a bookstore.

Or there's the feast/famine thing that happens with publishing trends, where one kind of thing is all they publish for a while, then it goes bust, and then they don't publish anything at all like that. And yet, did the people who were buying those books during the boom suddenly stop wanting that kind of book, or was it a case of that same group of readers not being enough to support the glut of books, so sales were spread across more books, looking like a drop? When chick lit tanked, publishers dropped it like it had cooties, but I've heard that chick lit sells really well in e-book form, with authors doing quite well by reissuing their old books and writing more to publish independently.

The trick, though, is finding those unmet need niches. In my PR days, one of my clients did software for supply-chain management, with added demand prediction features. Supposedly, they could evaluate sales data to perfectly predict what the store needed to re-stock so that customers never went to the store and didn't find what they wanted. I brought a meeting to a standstill once by asking about how they accounted for the needs that weren't being met. They could only predict based on sales, but if what the customer wanted wasn't on the shelf, there was no way of capturing that unmet demand and making sure it would be there in the future. I used my personal example of constantly going to stores to buy clothes, finding things I liked, but not finding my size. If they didn't have it, I left the store without buying anything, but the store wouldn't know that they would have made more sales if they'd had more of that size. We had to change the way they phrased things in promo materials (and I think I gave the programmers some real headaches).

So, a publisher or bookseller would never know that, say, sweet Western romances were in demand because no sweet Western romances are being published, so there's no sales data to evaluate. Authors are a little closer to readers and have a better chance of hearing what people want, but then it's hard to tell how much of what they're hearing is a real trend or just a few loud voices. The comments to the post I linked to get pretty contradictory, with some people crying out for the exact opposite to what other people want but can't find. And then there's the issue of how to find books, especially with the huge number of self-published books available now. These books may exist, but how do you find out about them, and how do you know it's any good? I don't think even Amazon has a good enough search engine to help you narrow down specific preferences (see my annual search for chick lit-type books set during the Christmas season).

I've been trying to think of what would be on my list. I know I'd like more lighter contemporary fantasy -- without horror elements, with more fun and whimsy. I like my romance to be on the sweeter side, and I like a slow build, even taking place over multiple books, with the romance coming about as the characters deal with something else together, so I guess you might say I want romantic fantasy, romantic science fiction, romantic mystery or romantic adventure instead of actual "romance." I'd like chick lit -- romantic comedy -- with smarter heroines and the plot not revolving around mistakes made while very drunk (that plot got to be old during the "boom" years -- "oops, I got wasted and did something stupid, and now I must find a way out of this fix").

I'm hoping that more people want quirky hybrid stories with slow-build romances and lighter fantasy, since that's what I write, but that's not a clear-cut niche. Is there something you'd love to read that you can't seem to find?

Avoiding the Debate

The Monday after a convention is always a bit of a challenge because while there's a part of my brain that's revved up and inspired, it tends to get shouted out by my body and the rest of my brain, which just want to rest. But this is going to have to be a busy week as I try to come up with ways to start revving up the marketing machine for next week's big push. And then there's that pesky book I need to be writing.

Nothing really earthshattering came out of the convention. It was a pretty small, quiet con, which meant it was mostly good for hanging out with my friends. We're so busy running things at our own con that it's nice to hang out at one without having real responsibilities. We dubbed it "sofa con" as we spent most of the time sitting around on sofas in the hotel lobby and chatting as people passed by or joined us.

The Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate turned out to be not so much a debate as a discussion of the two franchises, their influences and their influence. The panel wasn't really set up to be a debate, with "moderators" for each team instead of a moderator throwing out questions to the two teams, and many of us on the panel could argue either way. I've never been big on the "vs." mentality that's so common in fandom, where you have to pick a side, and anything said in favor of the "enemy" is taken as a personal insult. I'm just generally keen on things with "star" in the title and spaceships, and I get different enjoyment from each of those franchises. I wouldn't want to give up either one, and both of them were big influences on me or inspirations at different times in my life. Kevin J. Anderson was the Star Wars team moderator, and I was the Star Trek team moderator, and we decided between us to just make it a discussion.

I will say that one possible factor in me agreeing to this was the fact that there were a couple of fully armored Stormtroopers in the audience. That wasn't exactly an incentive to argue against Star Wars.

Since FenCon has some prominent guests from the worlds of both Star Wars and Star Trek this year, I think I'm going to propose that we do have a proper debate with a moderator posing questions, and maybe even a time limit on responses and a formal rebuttal opportunity, like in a high school or political debate.

Zzzzz .. Huh?

I have a convention starting today, but I don't have programming until Saturday, so I'm not sure yet if I'm going to head over this afternoon just to hang out. The allergies have been nasty, so I have that foggy, tired feeling. It might be a better idea to rest today so I can be "on" for the events I have the rest of the weekend. I'm contemplating a nap, though, so maybe I'll have more energy later.

I have picked and timed a scene to read tomorrow morning for my reading. I also have outfits planned and have learned to wrap a toga. The theme for FenCon this year is "University of FenCon," so our room party at this weekend's convention will be a toga party. I have a feeling that photos of this will end up all over Facebook, so I'd better do it right. I made a color-coordinated belt that matches the sheet I'll be using. Now I just have to figure out what to do with my hair. I kind of wish I had an Athena helmet and a stuffed owl, but then again, this is supposed to be like a frat party, not mythology costuming. On the other hand, it's geeks doing a frat party, so mythology costuming is probably appropriate.

That nap is looking like a better and better idea since I just dozed off at my desk between paragraphs. I'm lucky I didn't fall out of my chair or fall forward and hit my computer. And I got plenty of sleep last night. Ah, well, maybe my body is trying to tell me something.

Mental Olympics

The Olympic figure skating is now over, and I can return to my regular schedule. It's one of those weird things where I enjoy it when it's happening, but I'm glad when it's over because I like getting that time back. I suppose it's time to finally give up any hope of winning an Olympic skating medal, considering that I'm now older than many of the coaches and never learned to skate beyond going in wobbly circles around the rink. Even so, every four years I catch myself mentally picking out my music, designing my costume and choreographing my program, and I'm more motivated to exercise for about two weeks. In spite of motivation, though, I think I'd better skip dance tonight because a front came through, whipping up the wind and bringing in enough dust that the sky is now hazy. The allergies are kicking in again, and I think that I'd better stay inside and not breathe in too much of that, since I have to be "on" this weekend.

I don't really have any cute choir stories from last night. The kids were reasonably well behaved (the two biggest problems weren't there), and I kept them busy enough that when the parents started arriving to pick them up, one kid said, "But we just got here!" The real fun will come Sunday, when they sing in the early service. For me, that will be after a late night at a convention.

Speaking of conventions, I mentioned last fall as we were getting ready for FenCon that I was working on a video project. Well, it finally got posted online, so I'll share the results:

The convention flight safety briefing.

This is what happens when you start doing improv at dinner with the convention chair. Next thing you know, you're getting an e-mail asking when the script will be ready. We shot that in a day, and then I learned how to edit video on a computer (I learned video editing back in the dark ages) to put it together. I guess I need to be thinking of something for this year so we can start work earlier than August.

Now I need to find an excerpt for a convention reading. And laundry would be a good idea.

Upcoming Developments

I may be moving a bit slowly today because I not only took the intermediate/advanced ballet class last night (and was back to feeling awkward and clumsy), but I stayed to take the jazz class. My body is a little angry with me this morning, and I can imagine how I'll feel starting this afternoon. I was stretching some this morning while watching figure skating, so maybe that will help avoid some soreness, though I may need to take a hot bath before I can deal with the kids this evening.

After a pretty harsh winter (for Texas), we're getting a bit of an early spring, so yesterday I took advantage of that and put my new patio chairs to use by working on the patio. I was doing some pen-and-paper work, so it was good timing.

I guess instead of being coy about what's up, I may as well discuss some of the upcoming developments.

For one thing, the first four books in the series (the Random House books) haven't been released in English as e-books outside North America. Since I hold those rights, I'm getting ready to self-publish those for English speakers in the rest of the world. Some of the hang-up has involved the covers. While I own the content, the covers were done by the publisher. It took some tracking down, but it turns out that the actual artwork is still owned by the artist and was just licensed by the publisher, and there aren't any restrictions on what she can do with it, so I've managed to license the original cover art. The design of the cover -- the lettering, etc. -- will have to be a little different, though. And the cover blurbs have to be different (although I contributed a lot there). So, yesterday's work was writing new cover blurbs, which required getting back into that mindset without looking at what was on the Random House books. I don't have a firm date for when these will be released, since we still have to do some formatting and get the covers designed, and all that.

The other thing I hinted at is something I don't really control, so I guess I've been hesitant to say much until I'm sure of it. But what the heck. The original publisher saw some great results from lowering the e-book prices on the books they control, so now in the first week of March, they're going to do a special promotion and make the e-book of the first book in the series 99 cents and do some promo stuff around that to see if it will draw new readers to the series.

What has me kind of excited and motivated to be slightly obnoxious with promo for a little while is that I've seen a couple of people who've had books as old as this one reduced in price like that end up making the USA Today bestseller list. And that would be seriously cool. Not only would it be making a point to the publisher and bring me new readers, but it would mean that for the rest of my career, I could have "USA Today bestselling author" on my book covers. The trick will be finding ways to promote to people who haven't read my books, though I suppose existing fans who had the first book in hard copy might find this a good way to get the e-book copy. Most of the people I can reach are following me because they've already read my books. But I would appreciate any help my fans can give by tweeting, blogging, Facebooking, posting to Goodreads, holding friends and family at gunpoint, etc., when the time comes. Don't worry, I'll be reminding you when (if) it actually happens.

Now, one more morning of figure skating to go. I've managed to get a lot done in the living room between skaters, but it still throws off my day a bit.

Priorities Come First

Ah, back on track. I met my writing time quota and got past the scene that was blocking me. Today I've already taken care of a couple of nagging errands I was procrastinating on severely and bought groceries. That means I can devote the afternoon to another task I've been procrastinating on and get some writing done. Then tonight I have ballet and I may stay for the jazz class to make up some of the classes I've missed.

I guess I need to needlepoint a throw pillow to remind me that priorities should come first. Any time I let myself get caught up in other stuff before I do the things I'm supposed to do, I never get around to doing the things I'm supposed to do. Duh. The fun things should be a reward for finishing my work, not what I get bogged down in to the point that I don't get around to my work.

And I'm not allowed to use designing a needlepoint (or, more likely, cross-stitch) pattern saying "Priorities Come First" as a way of procrastinating.

I also need to make some time for marketing activities because there are some potentially fun things about to come about, and maximizing the opportunity will take some supreme evil scheming. I may even allow myself to be obnoxious for a week or two.

Oh, and I've got a convention this weekend. The big event I'm involved in is a Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate. The guest of honor is Kevin J. Anderson, and he's heading up team Star Wars. I can argue either side, as I've been a very long-time fan of both, but I ended up as head of team Star Trek. I'll have to take a good look at the parameters to see exactly what I have to argue, but I figure just about any argument can be won here with one word: Prequels. Enough said. Though I guess they could strike back with Voyager and Enterprise, or with the one word "salamanders."

I'll also be doing a reading from the new series that I'll be releasing later this year (the one with the kick-ass ballerina heroine). Now I just have to find a fun scene I can read in about fifteen minutes.

Dedicated and Diligent

Another day, another messed-up schedule. Today it was a dentist appointment (no cavities!). And now I really need to get down to writing. I was bad and didn't do that work I planned over the weekend, but I did vacuum the living room, bedroom, bathroom and stairs, so that should count as something. The stairs in particular are a real chore.

But that means I really need to get some work done today. I can't get online to dish about the outcome of the ice dance event or about last night's Downton Abbey until after I put in my time quota of work. It's a rule.

See, this is me being dedicated and diligent. We'll see how this works.

Busy Friday!

The day's gotten away from me! I had a phone interview with a reporter that went on much longer than I expected (it was a good talk), and before that I was getting ready for the interview and doing some housework. Now it's late afternoon!

I've decided that I'm going to have to work Saturday to make up for my lackluster performance this week. I've been so scattered, and I think it does have to do with rebooting the book and having to think back through it, on top of having a few other things I've had to take care of, which has spread my focus out a bit too far. Next week, I'll force myself to do better and not fall back into bad habits.

I did make it to a ballet class last night. It was a beginning class, so I could ease my way back in, and I really love going to the beginning class because it makes me feel so very accomplished. I was the one being called on to demonstrate for the others. It will be a different story in my usual class on Tuesday.

This is the day when I'm supposed to say something about romance and love or else talk about Valentine's Day being a fake holiday. But I think for me it's become kind of a nonentity. If people want to celebrate, they can. It doesn't hurt me. I'm very happily single, so it's not like I even need a singles awareness day. I'm just mad that it's on a Friday because that means half-price chocolate day is on a weekend, and I don't get an advantage from being free to hit Target on a weekday morning.

And now I have more stuff to do today so I can spend Saturday writing.

Off My Game

I actually made it to choir practice last night. It wasn't always pretty and there was some throat clearing, but it felt so good. I also didn't have a bad time with the kids, possibly because I only had about half the usual class. They pleasantly surprised me a couple of times. Once, there was a song I was using to supposedly teach rhythm. We were supposed to clap with it. But it had a kind of calypso beat, and next thing I knew, the kids -- all on their own -- had formed a conga line around the room. So I went with it. For the art project, I passed out construction paper, heart stickers and markers/crayons and let them make Valentines. Half of them gave theirs to me, so now I have my yearly quota of Valentines. Nothing says love like red construction paper with heart stickers on it and "I love you" written in very careful letters in crayon.

In spite of feeling better (or maybe because of feeling better), I got off my game in writing this week. I've been easily distracted. And one of my distractions can kind of be blamed on Moon Moon.

This is one of those Internet things that for some odd reason has really tickled my fancy. Apparently, it started with a "what is your werewolf name" quiz on some paranormal romance site, with two columns of names like "Grey" and "Shadow," and you pick one from each column based on the first letter of your first name and the last letter of your last name. Unfortunately, they had "Moon" in both columns, and someone responded that their werewolf name was "Moon Moon," which sounded like the lamest werewolf ever (paraphrasing slightly, as the language was hardly politically correct). So, someone came up with the saga of Moon Moon the wolf. And then people started coming up with more of these, finding funny photos of wolves or wolfish dogs and giving them captions relating to Moon Moon.

I'd seen some of these individually without knowing the backstory and found them mildly amusing. And then I saw a page compiling a bunch of them and found myself laughing until I was in pain and had tears running down my face. That was distracting because at random moments when I was trying to work or sleep, I'd think of one of these pictures and start laughing again. Days later, I can think "Moon Moon" and start grinning like an idiot. It may be even funnier in the context of those paranormal werewolf romance novels. I wonder what Moon Moon's human form would be like.

I might also be somewhat thrown off rhythm by spending the mornings watching figure skating. And there's the fact that I've been rebooting the book I've been working on, and a major mindset shift tends to set off procrastination.

Professional Behavior

Previously, I talked about getting feedback for your work. Having your manuscript as close to perfect as possible is an important part of professionalism, whether you're submitting to a publisher or publishing for yourself. That brings up the topic of behaving as a professional, which may be even more important if you're self publishing. Here's some advice from the trenches from someone who's published both independently and traditionally.

1) Only put your best work out there.
If you're working with a publisher, the editor will help you polish your book, and you'll have a copy editor, but you'll improve your odds of being published if your work is just about good to go to begin with. If you're publishing on your own, invest in your career by hiring professionals to edit your work. Don't treat your customers like beta readers. You look amateur when you have high school-level grammar mistakes in a published book or keep issuing new editions as you edit and polish.

2) Develop a thick skin.
This is one reason why I suggest at least trying to go through the traditional process of finding an agent or publisher. Sometimes you need to hear that your book may not be the best ever, and getting rejections helps you thicken your skin. Way too many people have torpedoed their careers by having a raging public hissy fit over a negative review. No matter how brilliant your book is, there will be someone who doesn't like it or doesn't get it. Get over it and move on. Even better, see if you can learn something that you can use to make yourself a better writer.

3) Be careful about engaging with reviewers.
This comes under the category of having a thick skin, but is important enough to elaborate upon. It's okay to thank a reviewer for a positive review. Think about thirty times before responding to a negative review. If there is a major factual error in the review, you might want to gently point that out in private communication, but think about how much that error really matters. If it's a matter of opinion, disengage. You're not going to change a reviewer's mind by throwing a temper tantrum, and you'll just make yourself look bad to potential readers. Believe it or not, sometimes even the F-grade reviews can really sell books.

4) Also be careful about engaging with readers.
There are places where interacting with readers is appropriate, such as forums designed for such interaction or on your own blog or Facebook page. Before barging in on any other forum, take some time to figure out the ground rules of that forum. A lot of reader-oriented sites aren't crazy about authors participating in discussions of their own books because it tends to shut conversation down, even if the conversation is positive. I've noticed this on review blogs. On a site where normally the comments can number in the dozens for both positive and negative reviews, the moment the author chimes in, even if it's just to say thanks for the nice review, all discussion comes to a screeching halt. You don't want that. Buzz happens when people talk about your book. Don't shut down the buzz.

5) And be careful about sucking up (or looking like you're sucking up).
I've seen aspiring or new authors who glom onto bigger names and start name-checking them on Twitter and Facebook or constantly commenting on their blogs. Ditto for blogs/Twitter/Facebook of editors or agents. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this if you really enjoy discussing those authors' books or discussing the topics the editors/agents talk about. But try not to look too much like this is your marketing campaign. I doubt any editor or agent has requested a manuscript due to a brilliant blog comment, and querying via blog/Facebook/Twitter is right out, unless the editor or agent has asked for pitches that way. I've looked at my agent's Facebook page and cringed when I see the number of "could you look at my book?" posts.

6) Behave like a reasonable human being in professional venues.
Even if you're attending a convention or conference as an attendee rather than as a speaker, behave professionally -- without setting yourself up to look like you think you should be the headliner. You may be a fan, but if you want professionals to take you seriously, this isn't the venue to act like a raging fan. At the same time, you're not going to make a good impression if you attempt to throw your weight around when you don't yet have the metaphorical weight to throw. I think just about everyone who's attended a convention has cringed through the scene of the person with one self-published novel who's not even on the program trying to lord it over someone else without realizing that they're attempting to lecture a veteran bestseller about how to be a novelist. Until you're the guest of honor, listen more than you talk.

Just following these few steps will help you avoid some of the worst career-limiting moves or will keep you from going viral as the latest clueless author who gets piled on by the entire Internet.