Rachel Aaron's Blog, page 12

Writing Wednesdays (Special NaNoWriMo Edition!): AMA Thread Highlights

First up, I'm DELIGHTED to announce that One Good Dragon Deserves Another was an Romantic Times Magazine Top Pick for November!! HOORAY!

Yep, that is a print page from a legit paper magazine! You can read the review online here if you don't feel like squinting, or you can pick up your own copy of RT Magazine and read it in glorious, glossy color! Whichever floats your boat. 
On to the post!
So, as you've probably already noticed if you're anywhere near my social media, I'm doing my yearly NaNoWriMo AMA thread on the NaNo Fantasy forum.
This thread is one of my favorite things I do all year. I always get a ton of amazing questions, and I love talking to NaNo peeps. They're just so excited about writing, and that makes ME excited about writing my own stuff. It's a lovely, happy feedback cycle, and I really can't recommend it enough.

That said, the thread does take a huge amount of time out of my schedule, which is already packed since we're also closing on a house this week! (FINALLY! My own sequestered writing office! SQUEEEEEE!!). So, since I'm already making giant posts about writing answering questions, I thought for today's Writing Wednesday I'd share some of my favorites so far.

If you're already following the thread, I'm sorry for the cop out! I promise to be back next week with an actual new article. If you're not on the NaNo forums, I hope you'll find this highlights reel interesting.

Enjoy!

Writing Wednesdays (Special NaNoWriMo Edition!): AMA Thread Highlights HIGHLY RELEVANTFirst up, we have a great question from BLynchBooks about building characters.

"I know you'd mentioned the "Knife Test" on your blog in terms of testing motivations (which has been a huge help for the book I'm writing now, thank you!); do you have any similar methods for figuring strengths and flaws out?"

My reply:


Thank you so much for reading!! I'm glad you like my characters so much! In addition to my Knife Test for characters (inspired by ONE PIECE cause I'm a giant nerd), I actually wrote a blog post about this very topic recently called "Three Ways to Ensure Awesome Characters."

Obviously, the posts have all the details, but the short and dirty version is that interesting characters need to be interesting people. This doesn't mean heroic or strong or horrifically flawed (though good characters can be all of those things), it just means that the people in your book need first and foremost to have their own lives, needs, wants, problems, and agendas that make sense within the context of their history and world. The context is truly key, because your characters' lives are a huge part of how you show readers your world and your history. We learn about your story by seeing your characters struggle and thrive inside it.

So if you're getting down to writing, and you've got a cast of people you're still not sure about, my advice is to focus on placing them firmly in their world, and then letting them go. Really focus on how that character with that backstory and that personality would react to situations rather than what would work best for the plot. It might not lead to the situation you want, and you don't have to keep the scene if you don't like how it turns out, but just giving the characters the freedom to be themselves is golden for character development. And if you don't like the way your characters are turning out, change or replace them. Just because you imagined someone once doesn't mean you have to keep them forever. Remember: you are god inside your novel. Characters who push back and make their own choices are fantastic, but it's still your responsibility as the writer to turn out a good and interesting story. In other words, character driven narratives are awesome, but don't let them drive you off a cliff.

Going back to your initial question, my people generally come to me more or less formed. Other than the usual backstory and physical details, I usually start by asking my character three questions; what do you want, what do you love, and what do you hate? Those are usually enough to get me a very good look at what kind of person I'm dealing with and how they fit into the larger picture. That said, no character I write finishes the way they started. Going through a book is a crucible for a character, and all of mine change dramatically along the way. So don't worry too much if people feel a little half baked at the beginning. Trust me, once you've dragged that character for a story while keeping your focus on making sure their choices make sense in the context of their history and the larger story, you will end up with a very strong person by the time you reach the end. Once you've got that, you can easily go back and adjust their earlier scenes. (Writing is not a performance art. Don't feel like you ever have to get it right the first time. Edits are where the real magic happens!)

I hope that helps!! Thank you again so so much for being my fan, and I hope to have another Heartstriker book out for you soon!


Next, a question from CounterAttack about making the leap from world building to actual plot.

"I have a question about the planning stages of a novel. Which do you prefer to design and detail before any others: setting, plot, central characters, or something else? Does having one aspect nailed down help you to develop the others? I ask because I've finished the worldbuilding for the newest version of my novel, but I have absolutely no ideas when it comes to a story and cast of characters. (I'm not trying for the goal of fifty thousand; I'm just doing what I can while NaNo is bringing writers together.)"

My reply:

I usually start with whatever idea has me most excited. Sometimes I come up with the characters first and then build the world around them, sometimes it's vice versa. You could say I'm kind of an "OH SHINY!" writer, I grab on to the new ideas and run! :)

In your specific situation, where you have a world but no plot or characters, I would start by looking at what are the major conflicts this world faces--racism, war, magical apocalypse, invasion from another dimension, environmental destruction, corruption, etc. Once you've got a good idea for what's going wrong in your world (and if nothing's going wrong, fix that. Not only is there no such thing as a perfect world, but if there was, it would be boring as hell to read about), then you want to start considering what conflict interests you most as a person. Is there a theme you feel passionate about? Maybe a theme you really liked in another story? Personally, I'm a giant sucker for the whole "the moral path is never easy", so most of my novels tend to come back to that question over and over.

It's totally okay if you have no idea what themes you want to do yet, btw. Themes are just one hook to start building your plot, as is conflict. Either of these entry points can spin off entire novel series if you just keep asking "why did this situation come about?" "what consequences will these actions have?" and "what happens next?" These questions should be especially awesome for you since you already have your setting done. And once you've got your situation, you can start asking "what kind of people would be along for this adventure?"

This is an example of starting from the setting and working up to the plot and characters. You can also do it the other way and start with the characters themselves. Just like before, look at the world you've built and ask yourself what kind of people live there? What are their societies like? How do they interact? Keep working the questions until you come up with a person that really interests you, and then start asking them "who are you?" "what was your past?" "what do you want most in the world?"

At the planning stage, novel building is really just an exercise in guided creativity. You want to set up problems--giant conflicts, looming wars, unbeatable odds--and then set yourself to coming up with heroes and situations that would solve them. The vast majority of my plots start with me setting up a seeming impossible world-level problem like "the goddess has gone insane and decided to destroy creation" and then trying to come up with the situations and people who could solve it. This, too, is guided creativity, and it is SUPER FUN, so don't be afraid to get crazy. You're not writing anything at this stage, after all. You just want to play in your sandbox and see what amazing stuff you can come up with. As in all experimentation, there will be winners and stinkers. Just keep the really good stuff and find a way to make it all work together, and you should have one hell of a plot.

I hope that helps! Good Luck!


Finally, we've got Kal9988 with a very savvy follow up question about finding a good editor:

"Do you use an editor for your [self published] books? I've seen a few freelance editors out there, but how do you know which ones are really good?"

My reply:

I've worked with a couple of freelance editors with varying degrees of success. Honestly, this is one of the areas where selfpub falls down for me. I've been very spoiled by the amazing editors in NY!!

When I say editor here, I'm talking about a substantive editor (who reads your book and finds story/character problems), not a copy editor (who spots your grammar errors and typos and such). Since I want my indie books to be indistinguishable from my NY titles, I hire both, which is expensive but totally worth the money. Readers deserve a high quality finished product, and if you're self publishing, it's your job to provide them with one or be rightfully called out.

Many indie authors already employ copy editors, but I highly recommend every author work with a substantive editor as well, especially if this is your first published book. Unfortunately, finding a good substantive editor is tricky. It's hard enough just to find someone who's actually good at story construction and spotting plot problems, but then you also have to find an editor whose personal style and sense for story matches your own. Ignore this last part, and you might end up with someone who is qualified, but who thinks your story needs to be something it's not to meet their idea of "good," which is a miserable experience all around. Personal taste and style are a huge part of the author/editor relationship.

So when you're ready to start your editor hunt, my advice would be to find a high quality self published book similar to yours and look up who did their editing (often listed in the back of the book). A good, professional freelance editor will have a website listing their rates and the books they've worked on, often with testimonials from happy clients. Many will also offer a small sample edit for a reasonable fee to see if you two are compatible. This is always worth the money! It's much better to pay $50 and find out ahead of time that you and this editor don't match than to buy a whole book edit only to discover at the end that you and your editor have entirely different visions of what your book should be.

I hope this helps you with your editor hunt! Good luck, and happy writing!

Here endeth the highlights!If you enjoyed these, you're going to love the main thread! And if you have questions about writing or publishing, come over and ask! I'll be here all November (just like I am every year) answering any and all questions you might have about writing. I'm basically your own private pro author to quiz at will :)
Thank you as always for reading, and I'll be back next week with a real post. Until then, if you aren't already, come follow me on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+). I post writing stuff and fandom for my books all the time. Join in the fun!
Thanks for reading, and happy writing!-R

Writing Wednesdays (Special NaNo Edition!): How to (Successfully) Write Every Day

Well folks, we are only 4 days way from everyone's favorite month of the year, National Novel Writing Month! To celebrate, I'm going to be doing NaNoWriMo themed Writing Wednesday posts for the next few weeks as well as my annual Ask Me Anything thread on the NaNo Fantasy forum. It should be good times.

Last week, I talked about getting your characters prepped. This week, with the starting line looming, I'm going to talk about how to actually, successfully pull off the hardest part of NaNo for most people: writing every day.

Writing Wednesdays (Special NaNo Edition!): How to (Successfully) Write Every Day
The entire concept of NaNoWriMo is based around teaching people who want to write books how to write daily. On the surface, it's very simple: 50,000 words ÷ 30 days = 1666 words per day. Write that every day, and you'll complete a novel in a month. 
Lovely as that sounds, though, if you've ever taken a stab at novel writing before, you know reality is rarely that clean and simple. Life is messy. Even with the best intentions, you might not get to write every day, because stuff happens. Even if you do manage to cordon off your writing time every day, stories don't always go as planned. You might spend an hour writing and walk away with -500 words. (Been there, done that).
All of these setbacks are a natural part of the writing process, and one of the things I love about NaNo is that it teaches us to keep going anyway, to charge past these bumps and just get that novel done! This is a vital life skill for anyone who wants to write professionally. Like all skills, though, it takes some practice to get right. 
To help take the pain out of the process (and to put my own failures/learning experiences to good use), I've put together my best tips for how to successfully and reliably pull off this "write every day" thing without driving yourself insane, having to scramble on catch up days, or otherwise resort to shenanigans.
1) Start NowI know this sounds like cheating, but hear me out. The point of NaNo is to write 50k in a month, but that doesn't mean you have to write the first 50k of your novel during this time. 
The beginning of a book is rough. It's where all your big structural problems--errors in planning, unruly characters, plain old bad ideas, etc--first rear their ugly heads. When this happens, the natural thing to do is stop and fix what's wrong before little problems become big problems. This is what I do in my daily writing, but stopping and fixing are often not options in the hectic NaNo timeline. 
The common advice I see for when this happens is to just press on anyway and fix things later, but I hate doing that. Working on a book that I know has problems feels like building on a shaky foundation. Now, not everyone feels this way, and if you're an author who can just push ahead, more power to you. But if you're like me, and the idea of ignoring problems drives you NUTS, then a fantastic way to get around this issue is to simply start early. 
By starting writing a few days ahead, you can shake out the worst of your bugs before the real timer starts. You'll also enter NaNo with a much better idea for your book as a whole since you've already had some experience, which will make getting 1666 words a day for the rest of the month much easier. Plus, if you want to stay true to the NaNo wordcount, you can always subtract the words you wrote in October from your NaNo total. 
So if you've got your novel planned and you're just waiting for November to tick over to begin...why? It's your novel, why wait? Start now! Hit the competition with a chapter or two under your belt already, and I promise you will have a much easier time getting your 50k.
2) Don't Stop at 1666The hardest part of daily writing is getting started. Once you're rolling and into your story, writing is easy. Scenes are flying, characters are talking, everything is going great! This is the sweet spot, and a big key to getting good writing down every day is to spend as much time in this awesome place as possible.
Now, obviously, there are days that aren't like this. Some days, just getting to 1666 will feel like a marathon. Even with the best planning, bad days are inevitable, which is why, when you're having a good day, you need to run that sucker as far and long as you can. So if you're in the middle a scene and you're chugging along and you realize you're about to hit 1666, don't stop. Push on to the end of the scene at least. Or better yet, the end of the chapter. That momentum is precious, and you want to milk it for all its worth. Also, if your writing is going so well that you hit your wordccount without realizing it, that's some good writing. Keep it up!
1666 words is a goal, not a limit, so don't let it hold you down. Every extra word you can write on a good day is an extra word you buy yourself for the bad ones, or the days when life hits you hard and you can't write at all. (And if you want some tips for how to have good writing days like this as much as possible, check out my How I Went From Writing 2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day post!)
3) Always Know What You're Writing TomorrowOne of the biggest hurdles of writing every day is keeping up your enthusiasm. Sure the first few crazy writing days are fun, but no novel is without its bumps, and a few bad days of mauling through problems of your own making can make skipping a day start to sound pretty good. This is a natural human reaction to hardship, and it's one we as writers have to conquer, because one skipped day all too easily leads to many, and the next thing you know, your novel is an abandoned project really through no fault of its own.
If you want to avoid this cycle, one of the best things you can do to make sure you're never tempted to skip a day is to take a moment when you finish your writing and jot down very quickly what you intend to write tomorrow. That's it. Just make some notes. Give yourself something to think about and look forward to tomorrow. Anything will work, just make sure you give yourself something to hold on to so you can avoid that terrifying blind "I have no idea what I'm doing" start. Because that feeling right there is what kills novels, and anything you can do to avoid it is time well spent.
This is actually a modification of my "Know what you're going to write before you write it" tip from 2k to 10k, and here as there, it works wonders. The idea is you want to preserve as much of your writing knowledge as possible. When you're writing, so much of the story is in your head, and every time you go away from that back to the rest of your life, you fall out of that zone. But, if you take a second to jot down a few of those ideas before you stop writing for the day, then getting back into your story tomorrow becomes that much easier. Even if you look at your notes, decide you were crazy, and writing something totally different, just having those thoughts written down will make diving back into the world of your story faster and and more exciting.
Just on a personal note, I use this trick every time I write, and it makes a huge difference in how quickly I can get started with my writing. I absolutely hope it will do the same for you!
4) Think About Your Novel Every DaySo I've already mentioned a few times now that life is messy and sometimes writing doesn't happen, but that doesn't mean you can't be working on your book. Even when you make writing a priority (which you absolutely should), if you have a busy life--children, school, work, etc--chances are there will be a day when you just can't get the quality time you need to write.
But these interruptions can hurt more than your wordcount. Like I mentioned above, novels live in our heads. Every day we spend out of our worlds not thinking about our stories, we drift further away from the excitement and inspiration that made us want to write them in the first place. We are basically putting down our own book, and we all know what happens when you put down a book: there's always that chance you'll never pick it up again. 
Thankfully, avoiding this tragedy is pretty simple, because while there may well be days when you simply can not write, there will never be a day when you can not think about your story. You are the master of your headspace, and even on the busiest days, no one can stop you from imagining your own worlds. So, when a bad day hits, try to do just that. Even if you can't write, keep your head in your novel. You don't even have to solve any problems if you don't want to. Just think about your characters, imagine their interactions, daydream about your world, do whatever it takes to keep yourself in your book, even when you're not actually able to get the words down. 
If you do this, then when you do finally get time to write, you're going to be bursting with new ideas and chomping at the bit to get your story down, which is a pretty good way to return to daily writing. :) Whatever happens, though, whatever giant interruptions life throws your way, you can't let yourself drift too far away from your story. That's how novels die: not from author laziness, but from author inattention. 
Books are like children: they need love and attention to thrive. Even if you can't actually get the words down, you can always lavish those things on your story. It's not quite as good as actually getting writing time, but a day when you think of a new idea and get super excited about your writing again is never wasted. 
And those are my tips for NaNo! I hope you enjoyed them, and I wish you all the best writing in November (or, you know, today! There's no rule that you can only write books in November!) If you enjoyed this post, please follow me on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+) or subscribe to the blog directly via Feedburner. I do new writing posts every Wednesday and post lots of publishing business/fun stuff in between. It's a working writer's world here at Pretentious Title!
Thank you all as always for reading, and Happy NaNo!Yours,Rachel

Let's Talk Numbers: The Nice Dragons MEGA Fall promotion!

Hi folks, Travis here with another look at numbers!

After much talking about the benefits of The Kindle Big Deal vs BookBub, we finally lucked into a BookBub promotion for Nice Dragons Finish Last ! Do you want to know what happened?

TL;DR - BookBub is awesome! (But you all knew that already.)

We also might have promoted it in a few other places as well. Ok, like 9 other places. Literally over a million emails were sent out and millions of web/social impressions were gathered. If you subscribe to a bargain book mailing list, you probably saw Nice Dragons up there at some point.

And how did all this promo work out? Splendidly!

Let's Talk Numbers: The Nice Dragons MEGA Fall promotion!What did we do exactly?
Nice Dragons was on sale for $0.99 via a countdown deal from Sept 27th to Oct 3rd... plus or minus some hours here and there.Sept 28th was the BIG DAY and we advertised the sale on the following places,BookBubFKBT.comBooksends.comRead CheaplyManyBooks.netGenre PulseeBookSodaBargainBooksyReading DealsChoosy BookwormTotal cost was about $500 total.Once we'd locked in the BookBub promotion dates, I carpeted the town for marketers. Most indie book advertising services only accept books that are on sale and require at least 60 days of normal price prior to application, so I wanted as many as possible for this $0.99 'cause it'll be 2-3 months before we could do another one.
Why hit up so many sites at once? Well, as Derek mentioned in his guest post, A Salesman Is You, it often takes multiple interactions to get someone to buy. I figured that since many of these book sale email lists have overlap, that that overlap might work in our favor.
Anyway, I'll stop teasing you all and get to the fun stuff. Results!



What you see here are average books per day for Nice Dragons before, during, and after the $0.99 countdown deal and all its promotions. As well as the same for average KENP read during that time.
On the right is my analysis of how many extra books we sold, which is the real measure of what we bought. All in all it was about 1600 books, almost entirely Nice Dragons, and a very happy number indeed. 
This is fantastic performance. BookBub listed the average performance for a $0.99 Teen and Young Adult sale at 730 copies sold. Again, we did more than just BookBub, but I'm still happy to have beaten that number. Lemme tell how sad I'd be if we hadn't. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
KU sales weren't really affected, which was a little surprising. I was hoping the high sales rank we hit (#85!) would have also affected KU, but the blue line didn't even budge.

You can see a slight rise in overall Rachel Aaron KU borrows around the time of the promotion, but TBH, it doesn't show up when I apply my usual methods of baseline extraction and comparison. Statistically speaking, this bump could be entirely coincidence.

Even stranger was that my initial analysis showed no increase in sales of One Good Dragon. At first, I thought that this was because I was just analyzing things too soon. It takes time for people to open and read Nice Dragons, after all. A few days later, though, it hit me that I'd just done things wrong.

What about One Good Dragon?Unfortunately, the numbers above aren't really fair. This is only month 3 for One Good Dragon, which means we're not in the long tail yet. Sales are still dropping very quickly on a month by month basis. To account for this, I used a smaller window for determining what the 'standard' day was like,

See how OGDDA 'before' has dropped to 18 per day?

So, we tentatively sold 95 copies of One Good Dragon so far as a result of the promotion. This is still pretty shaky stuff, though, so I don't put too much stock in this number.

Anyway, given how much time it'll take for people to read their 99c Nice Dragons and then possibly move on to One Good Dragon, I don't think I'll be able to find out more than this in terms of carry-through. Still, its good to see. 
(Update: I redid these numbers for Books Sold from 9/27 to 10/26 and OGDDA was up by about +100 copies. Looks like the follow through really will take months to play out)
Those are the results, but the real question is, "what did we learn from this?"

What We LearnedIn total, our deal was emailed out to 1.7 million subscribers and racked up something like 5 million impressions. Of that number, 1.2 million of those came from BookBub, showing it is still the titan of book selling and the principle driver of all the numbers seen here today. Email lists sell books, and BookBub is king of that right now. But since that's kind of common knowledge already, I don't think we can count it as a lesson learned!
What I feel is important for you all to take away here is how big these numbers had to be. Over all, we sold ~1600 extra books over this #0.99 promotion. Don't get me wrong, 1600 is a lot, but the conversion rate is roughly 900:1 emails to sales and 3000:1 for impressions to sales (or 0.1% and 0.032% if you will). Given how well groomed and well targeted these emails were (and how well NDFL did according to the listed Bookbub average sellthrough for the YA list) I'd say that these are good conversion rates, which should tell you something about the numbers game we're playing.
This conversion rate is why I'm not impressed when marketers say things like, "We have 50,000 Facebook likes" or "Over 100,000 email subs!" Those are much bigger numbers than we've got, but in this sort of situation, those are small potatoes. As the numbers clearly show, it takes a lot of zeros to create a valuable, measurable effect in sales. BookBub is king because it has millions in its email lists and that's what it takes.
To put all of these services into a financial perspective, I refuse to pay more than $0.20 per 1000 impressions. Even that is kinda crappy and we're not doing it regularly. They have to be high quality impressions, too. Not something scattershot like, say, a newspaper ad or something. Anything less is simply not worth the money.
(Note: Emails have a higher conversion rate, so we'll pay more per 1000 emails.)
Now, of course, these are just our numbers and YMMV, but I hope our experiences help you make a good decisions the next time you're looking to purchase ad space or a promotion. Ebooks can sell well via traditional advertising like ads and emails, but it still takes BIG numbers to make these forms of advertising work. Don't get suckered into paying for a list that's too small!

Which promotion services are best for you?Obviously, if you can get a BookBub, then great! You'll probably have a good time and sell a lot of books. What about these other people, though?
Long story short, they are effective, but they are 10x smaller than BookBub in most cases. However, they are also easier to get and they are less expensive ($10-20 vs $200-500). If you are just starting out, you have to fight for every single reader. Ten here, twenty there. That's how most careers get going.
Rachel achieves impressive numbers, but it took 8 years of relentless writing and promotion to get there. (Does anyone remember us standing in the DragonCon badge line handing out samples of The Spirit Thief ?) She isn't entitled to continued great numbers, either. Each and every book she writes has to fight the battle for the hearts of its readers, both returning and new. There are a lot of authors out there who take their readers for granted, which makes me sad (and enrages Rachel). This is why we refuse to put out a book that we aren't proud of. Its not that authors deserve readers, its that readers deserve good books for their time and money. That is the service the author provides: quality reading entertainment. If we ever fail to achieve that for our readership, then we don't deserve to be in business.
In Conclusion: A++++ Would Buy AgainWould I do things this way again? Absolutely. We aren't picky and we don't take our sales for granted. It took me a full week of work to line up all these promotions, and it was totally worth it. I'm proud that I was able to help get Rachel more readers!
With our mega-NDFL promotion, we did things about as well as they can possibly be done I feel. We had an amazing book (500+ reviews! 4.6 stars!), with a deep discount (4.99 down to 0.99), and we had overlapping lists (repeated customer pings). So I feel that this is a really solid look at the potential provided by these kinds of book promotion services.
I hope that today our numbers have helped you out some as well. To BookBub or not to BookBub isn't really important (its always "YES BOOKBUB"). What's important is the perspective on these kinds of book promotion services so that you can figure out how best to use them to sell your books.
Good Luck!-Travis

Writing Wednesdays: Three Ways to Ensure Awesome Characters

It is officially the later half of October, and you know what that means! NaNoWriMo will soon be upon us!

Whether you participate in the organized chaos or not, the huge rush of new people trying writing in November makes this a great time to get together and talk/think about stories, how they're constructed, and what makes them good. To that end, I'm going to spend the next few blogs focusing on basic techniques you can use to make writing your NaNo novel (or plain old regular novel) faster, smoother, and more fun.

Today, we're kicking things off with the my favorite part of writing: creating amazing characters.

Writing Wednesdays: Three Ways to Ensure Awesome Characters Confession: I am deeply jealous of comics. So much characterization in so few words.
(art via Lackadaisy - SO GOOD! Read it!!)One of the most common writing questions I see in my email box is "how do you come up with characters?" 
Answering this question is actually really difficult, because honestly, almost all of my characters just kinda...happen. I'll be thinking about an idea I want to turn into the story, and a corresponding character will suddenly pop into my brain like it was always meant to be. Or sometimes I'll have one character already nailed down, and I'll realize I need a love interest/enemy/friend for them, so I'll start thinking about who would this person love/hate/hang out with, and boom, another character is born.
But while all of the above fits into the writing muse mythos I usually try to avoid (I hate the idea of a whimsical muse who doles out inspiration when she sees fit. No one is responsible for my writing and creations but me!), here's the kicker: none of these characters are actually good when I fist come up with them.
Fortunately for me, turning raw, flat, often cliched characters into real, deep, motivated people readers will love to read and I'll love to write is a pretty simple process. Note I did not say easy. Being creative on demand is never easy, but the process for refining and deepening a character is not an arcane alchemy. It's simply a matter of asking the right questions.
Way to Ensure Awesome Characters #1 - Context is EverythingSo let's say you've got a cool idea for a book (yay!). In this book, you already know what you want for a main character. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you want a rebellious teenage girl who discovers she has powers and will now be flung into the adventure of a life time where she will have a whirlwind romance with a supernatural teenage boy.
Taken at face value, this is (obviously) a very stereotypical set up. For many writers, that alone would be reason to toss this character and come up with something less overdone. But while avoiding common tropes is a perfectly valid storytelling technique, it is also complete unnecessary. Common tropes are not inherently bad. In fact, they're often common precisely because they work so well/are so popular with readers. They only become boring when you get lazy, and the key to not being lazy is to always try to think about them in terms of the unique context of your story.
Take your rebellious teenage heroine...why is she rebellious? What is she fighting against? What is the context of her unhappiness? Because happy, satisfied people don't rebel. Likewise, how does she rebel? Is she loud or quite? Reserved or boisterous? Why? How does she express herself, and how has that been limited?
These are just a few of the kind of questions you could ask, but you get the idea. We're taking what we know about this character--that she is rebellious--and we're using that as the hook to build the context of her current life. Don't be lazy with your answers, either. This is where the creativity I mentioned above comes in. You want the reader to look at this character in the context of her life and, rather than rolling their eyes at yet another rebellious teen, think "wow, she has a good reason for feeling like she does" or "wow, she's really hardcore for standing up for herself in such a brutal situation."
These reactions are the sign of an awesome character. When you put the time and effort to really ask yourself "why is this character like this? What situations and experiences made them this way?" even if you never actually talk about those situations in the novel itself, that work will always show in the depth of your characters. They will feel like real people because you took the time to build them a real life.  
We are all products of our experiences and context. Characters, who are really just made up people, are no exception to this. If your character has a trait--rebelliousness, stubbornness, kindness, bravery--it was either created, or influenced by, their context. Maybe they learned to be stubborn, or maybe they've suffered for it and held strong. Maybe they're rebelling for a damn good reason, or maybe they've fought to be kind in a world that punishes kindness. The key is always context. It's the water your characters swim in, the background to their story. If you take the time to cleverly and creatively build and understand that, you can not help but create characters who feel, act, and read like real, deep, lovable people.

Way to Ensure Awesome Characters #2 - Flaws Make the CharacterIt's not exactly groundbreaking to say a character can't be perfect. For my characters, though, I like to go a step further and make a character's flaws a fundamental part of their life and personality. I don't just do this to avoid the "flaw is not actually a flaw" problem you see so often in lazy fiction where a perfect character will have a problem tacked on to them by a writer trying to avoid being accused of having a Mary Sue. I do it because flaws are what make characters interesting.
Think of your favorite character ever. Were they a perfectly well adjusted member of society? Were they great at everything? Probably not. Look at Sherlock Holmes. He's one of the most enduringly popular characters in fiction, and he's a complete asshole. He's a drug addict, he's insufferable, he's an unapologetic jerk who infuriates and alienates everyone around him. Holmes has so many flaws he's practically non-functional in society, and we love him for it. We love him because his enormous flaws and social handicaps off-set what would otherwise a too perfect intelligence. We love him because he pays for his enormous power, and that makes his successes feel real and hard won rather than handed to him.
This isn't to say that you have to pile flaws onto a character until they're indistinguishable from your villains. Characters, even assholes, still need to be somewhat likable. No one wants to read (or write) 500 pages through the eyes of a person they can't stand. Instead, you want to focus on thinking about your character's flaws as just another facet of their personality. If you're not sure how to do that, look at someone, fictional or IRL, whom you admire, and then ask yourself what that person is bad at. Are they vain? Are they a loner who has trouble connecting with others? Are they lazy? Do they have a temper that gets them into trouble?
All of these problems stem from personality flaws, and that's fine, because you still admire and like this person. Their flaws are simply a part of who they are, a core facet of their personality. That natural unity of good traits and bad, strengths and vulnerabilities, is the core of what makes us human, and it's the end goal I focus on creating when I make my characters. 
Now, of course, this perfect harmony doesn't happen all at once, and that's okay. It often takes me a whole book (or more) before I'm absolutely confident in who my characters are. Writing is an evolving process, but if you always put flaws front and center in your character creation, you will eventually end up with a person whose faults are simply a natural and indivisible part of their personality--another facet of the whole rather than negatives on a list. This is the end goal of great character creation, and it is always worth the extra work and creativity required!
Way to Ensure Awesome Characters #3 - Don't Settle for a Character Who Doesn't FitThis one is a rule for all parts of writing, but it goes double for characters. If someone in your novel isn't working, if they don't feel right or if you can't find their voice, change them. It doesn't matter if they're integral to the plot or if you need them or even if they seem like a minor concern, you will always be better off if you cut or change the character in question than if you try to just muscle through. 
You see, characters are like apples: one bad one spoils the bunch, and it only gets worse as you get better. If you have an entire cast of amazing, well rounded, lovable people and one cardboard stereotype who clearly never really gelled, he's going to stick out like a sore thumb and break reader immersion every time he steps onto the page. Don't settle for that. You are the author, you dictate the story. Even character who seem amazingly well designed on paper can sometimes fall flat in execution, and the absolute worst thing you can do is try to stick to a plan that isn't working. So don't let fear of wasted work or change keep you from doing what must be done. If a character isn't working, change them. Give them a new personality. Replace them if you have to, but don't settle. It's better to rewrite half a book than to struggle through a whole one with a character who isn't along for the ride.

And that's it! I hope these tips help you to create an awesome cast for your novel. Whether you're NaNoing or just writing as usual, telling a story is never more fun than when you're doing it along with an awesome group of fictional people! 
Thank you as always for reading another installment of Writing Wednesday! If you enjoyed the post, please consider following me on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+). You can also subscribe to the blog directly via Feedburner. I do new writing posts every Wednesday and tons of publishing business/fun stuff in between, so come say Hi!
I'll be back next week with another NaNo-ish post. Until then, have fun, and happy writing!
Yours always,Rachel

Writing Wednesdays - Varying Your Pacing For Dramatic Effect

But before we start, did you know that ONE GOOD DRAGON DESERVES ANOTHER, the sequel to NICE DRAGONS FINISH LAST, is now available as an audio book?! Well it is! And you should totally get a copy because the performance is amazing!! Go listen to the sample at least, you won't be disappointed!

I had a big NaNo post in the works, but it's not quite November yet (okay, it's barely the middle of October), and so, being the dug-in enemy of holiday creep that I am, I've decided to put the NaNo post off until next week and write about one of the most important and difficult to pull off aspects of writing: pacing. Specifically, I want to talk about how to vary your pacing to make your readers feel different things, sort of like pulling a lever on their emotions!

(Pause for evil author cackling).

Ahem. Moving on.

Writing Wednesdays - Varying Your Pacing For Dramatic EffectPacing refers to the speed at which things happen in your book and it is almost entirely governed by tension. If your story is very intense and your characters are rushing around trying to get things done, then your book is most likely going to be fast paced. On the hand, if your tension is driven by something softer—such as the complicated political maneuvering of two powerful houses, or the gentle, sweet change of friends to lovers—then your story will likely have a slower pace. And, of course, there’s everything in between.
If you're looking for a fabulous resource on pacing and tension (and the place where I got my chart below), check out this video about pacing in video games from Extra Credits. Yes, it's about games, but everything said in here is equally applicable to writing and the whole thing is just amazingly well done. Totally worth a watch if you've got the time!



Pacing in books functions slightly differently than the pacing in games or movies, but the mechanics of each are basically the same. Like action movies or games, fast paced books usually have short, intense scenes and chapters that transition quickly. The characters usually spend most of the book frantically solving problems while multiple tension elements light fires under their feet. Depending on the type of fast paced story you're telling, these fires can be hilarious antics or deadly serious fights. Whatever feel you’re going for, though, fast paced books tend to be high energy and make for quick, exciting reads.

By contrast, slower paced books gain their intensity through build up. Rather than rushing, they ease into scenes, keeping the pressure to a slow burn that gives both the reader and author a chance to really dig into the plot, setting, and characters, all of which will hopefully be complex and nuanced enough to warrant the extra attention. Where fast paced books thrive on hard, brutal, “OMG how are they going to survive this?!” tension elements like ticking time-bombs and crazy high stakes, slow paced books tend to favor mechanics that keep the pressure at a slow but steadily increasing burn such as a meticulously unraveling mystery or a slowly revealed conspiracy.

Neither pace is inherently better than the other. Both have their fans and their critics, and which pace you choose depends on your genre and the sort of story you want to tell. Some genres, like Thrillers, are famous for being lightning fast. Others move at a more relaxed speed. Epic Fantasy in particular has built such a stellar reputation for stately pace that allows the reader time to take in the nuances of all the plots, magic, and intrigue of a large, rich, secondary fantasy world that many fans of the genre read it just for that. They want to get lost in that other world without being rushed.

But just because a genre is known for having a certain pace doesn’t mean you have to write at that speed. There are plenty of very popular Thrillers that deliberately adopt a slower pace to really let the tension build up, and my own first series, The Legend of Eli Monpress , was a fast paced Epic Fantasy that was popular precisely because it was different from the rest of the Fantasy shelf. The fast paced humor and lightness I'd adopted because it felt right for my story also helped my books stand out in a very crowded genre, which was a big bonus! But while all of these pacing decisions are definitely good to think through, no book, fast or slow, moves at the same place all the way through.

One of the most common ways people talk about tension in novels is to compare it to a roller coaster. Just like on a good coaster, it’s the ups and downs that make a book exciting. If the story/ride rolled along at exactly the same pace all the way through, even if that pace was a frantic plunge straight down, much of the fun would be lost. Roller coaster designers know this, which is why all coasters—from million dollar experiences at Disney Land to the dinkiest little parking lot carnival rides—constantly vary their pacing to keep you, their audience, maximally entertained.

Think about it, what part of a roller coaster is the most exciting? Is it the loops? The turns? No, it’s the click click click right at the very beginning when you’re climbing that first huge ramp.
The moment when you’re teetering on the edge just before you tip over into the fast part of the ride is one of the most fun parts of any ride. It’s so exciting, in fact, that many coasters do it twice—once at the beginning and again in the middle. The reason this works is because anticipation of the excitement to come—the click click click of the climb, the wind as you look around at the view and realize just how high you're going—builds crazy levels of tension in the riders. This feeling is what roller coaster designers leverage over and over again to create a maximally exciting, and therefore maximally successful, riding experience.

This same logic applies to stories. When you look at a map of tension for a plot, you’ll notice that it looks a lot like that roller coaster. Let’s examine this super famous one for Star Wars: A New Hope.




As you can see, the tension in Star Wars looks a lot like a roller coaster. It doesn’t go straight up or straight down for long periods, but instead twists and turns and changes pace to keep the audience constantly on the edge of their seat.

This variance is key. In stories and rides, you never want to slow down so much that your audience becomes bored or feels like they can put your book down. At the same time, though, you can’t go hard and fast for too long or else reading/riding becomes exhausting or stressful. Good pacing--in roller coasters, games, and books--is all about finding the right balance between the climbs and the falls, the rev up and the pay off. You have to keep the tension and the stakes high, but you also have give your reader (and your characters) time to feel the emotions and deal with the fallout those stakes are causing. The more skillfully you can manipulate this experience, the better your book will be.

Sounds great, right? So how do we do it? How do we manipulate that tension lever like a pro and keep our audience enraptured?

1) Know How To Build Tension and How to Let It Go

Just as there are multiple ways to build tension in a novel—conflict, great hooks, mysteries, building reader investment in a character and then putting that person in danger, ticking time bombs, etc.—there are just as many tried and true ways to let it out again. The easiest way to temporarily drop your tension is to just let characters go to sleep or otherwise have downtime. You can also resolve a minor problem and give your characters a minor victory. This relieves the tension and lets everyone catch their breath before (of course) you reveal the larger problem.

However you make it happen, creating a pause is vitally important. Think of it as letting the steam out of the pipe. A temporary drop in tension allows your character and your readers to reset to base line, giving them a chance to recover before you start ramping things up again.

2) But Don't Go Too Far!

While it is critical to give your readers and characters a break from the action every now and then, you never want to actually stop the action or resolve any of the main action before you're ready to end the book. The reason for this is that tension is what keeps reader turning pages. If you stop it all together for any reason and let your reader feel safe putting down the book, they may never pick it up again, even if they were enjoying the story.

We've all had books we've put down and never picked up again. Looking back, we might still have fond memories of the story, leading us to believe we just got distracted and put it down. But there was a reason, and that reason was the author's failure to maintain proper tension. Don't be that author! Putting down your book should always be your reader's very last resort, so while you do have to make sure to vary your tension, you never want let it drop all the way to zero.

3) Keep the Ball Rolling by Trading One Source of Tension for Another

So we have to vary our tension, but we can't drop it all the way to zero or we risk losing readers, but what about when you have to take an extended break in the action? Or what if your climax requires a lot of room to build up, how do you keep your book from turning into one long incline?

This kind of thing happens all the time in books. No plot is perfectly tooled, and thus very few fall into that lovely roller coaster pattern without serious help. Fortunately, there are many more kinds of tension than just plot tension. So if you find yourself with an unexpected low tension area, and you're worried about losing readers, you can always up the stakes again by switching rails and building an entirely new, hither-to untapped source of tension,

A great example of this bait and switch technique is the classic action movie trope of including some kind of romance or love interest. This is partially because being irresistible to the opposite sex is as important a part of the action start lifestyle as shooting or jumping motorcycles over exploding cars. Mostly, though, the seemingly mandatory romance plotline in action movies is there to provide a tension swap. Script writers (who, by the way, are the most technically proficient writers when it come to story construction that you’ll ever find) know they can’t have a movie of non-stop explosions. Such a film would rapidly maxing out the audience’s taste for combustion and leave nowhere to go for the eventual climax. So, instead, they break up the action tension with sexual tension. This narrative slight-of-hand gives the audience the necessary brake to reset their appreciation for explosions wile ensuring their attention says glued to the screen as they watch the hero sweep his woman off her feet.

Cynical as that example might sound, the exact same logic and pattern happens in Romance, only in reverse. The constant sexual tension is interrupted by action sequences or plot drama, giving the hero and heroine time to cool down and pine before the author brings them smashing back together in the thrilling romantic climax.

It might not always be so glaringly obvious, but you can find this back and forth pattern in almost every story, and always for the same reason: it’s a perfect way to vary tension. By swapping out one type of tension for another, you can let your readers catch their breath without ever completely dropping either ball. You don’t have to use just two, either. Action and romance are a classic combination, but you can pile on as many different tension elements as your narrative can handle, sending your reader on a double helix crazy ride of drama and intrigue! The only thing that really matters is that you stay in total control of whatever tension elements you're employing. You don't want to have more cars on the track than you can manage, or the whole thing will turn into an absolute mess.

I’m not saying you have to go through whatever story you’re working on and label all the different kinds of conflict to make this work. These tension manipulations are so common in the stories we read and watch every day, most writers use them instinctively without even thinking. That’s fine most of the time, but I feel that knowing what’s actually going on at a mechanical level in your writing is always better than trying to fly blind on instinct alone. It’s also a huge advantage when things go wrong with your plot and you have to fix it. Knowledge is always power in writing. It might not give you the answer, but knowing what’s going wrong is a huge first step to fixing it.

Good Tension = Happy Readers!
If you switch and vary your tensions properly, you will be in total control of your reader's experience, keeping them pinned to your book from beginning to end. Good tension management is the key to keeping readers up well past their bedtime only to go squeeing about your book to everyone they know in a fit of glee the next morning. For me, this is the Holy Grail of writing, and it's the target I keep in my sights the entire time I'm working on a book. I hope these tips help you better manage the tension in your own stories!

And thus concludes another Writing Wednesday! Thank you as always for reading, and don't forget to check out the OGDDA audio book. It's my favorite thing in the world right now!!

If you enjoyed this post, I have a lot more! Just click on either of the writing tags at the bottom of the post for a full list. I also do new writing posts every Wednesday and a bunch of publishing business stuff in between, so be sure to follow me on Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+ or subscribe to the blog directly via Feedburner) for instant updates.

Thank you again for reading, and until next time, happy writing!!

Yours always,
Rachel 

Writing Wednesdays - Is it Ever Okay to Give Up on a Book?

(Believe it or not, this is going to be a happy blog post!)

One of my all time favorite sayings is: “There’s a name for writers who never quit: published.”
I love the fairness that this quote implies: the idea that if you just keep working hard and getting better, you will eventually be rewarded with your dreams. I believe it, too. I believe that if you love stories enough to keep writing them even in the face of rejection, you will eventually find your voice and your audience. But as huge a fan as I am of the “never give up, never quit on your dreams” mentality that is necessary to the survive and thrive in the writing life, this absolutist mindset can lead to a lot of unhappiness and wasted time when applied to novels.

I talk a lot about how to save floundering books on this blog. I’ve talked about how to fix your problems, how to avoid them all together, and how to fall back in love with a book you’ve started to hate. But what happens when you’ve tried all of that, and the book still doesn’t work? What do you do when you’ve done everything, and it’s still not enough? What happens then?

The normal writing advice I see for this situation is “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” There’s a lot of merit to this approach. If I gave up on every book I’d been sure was broken beyond repair, half my current titles wouldn’t be published. That said, I do feel there is a practical limit to failing better. That sometimes, the effort needed to make a book work simply isn’t worth the finished product.

I know that sounds a little like blasphemy, but hear me out! Writing is a creative endeavor. It thrives on big, new ideas, but big, new ideas don’t always work. Sometimes, the only way to make an ambitious plan actual function is to compromise it until doesn’t look anything like what you originally intended. Even then, sometimes that big hairy idea just won't come together even after months of trying, and you’re just plain sick and tired of beating your head against the wall.

In an ideal world, this is the spot where you would double down on your principles and find a way to make it work, but this isn’t an ideal world. This is reality, and real life doesn’t always have neat endings. There’s only so much time in a life to write, which means you don’t always have the luxury of laboring on a struggling project until you have the stroke of genius that will actually make it all come together. Sometimes, you have to look at the reality of your life and future writing plans and decide if this project is worth all the time and suffering required to make it work, and sometimes, that answer is no.

I will never tell any writer to quit on a book. That’s not my place, because the only person who can say when it’s time to give up on your book is you, and it’s okay to feel really bummed out about that. Giving up on a book is a failure, but failure is not a dirty word. It's a natural part of the creative cycle, and every writer faces it multiple times because the very act of being a writer means doing audacious and ambitious things, and those don't always work out.

But just because failure is natural doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept. I think this is why so many writers cling so hard to projects long after we know the end is at hand. This isn't even an artist hang up, but a human one. We loved these books enough to start writing them, and we don’t want them to die.

I know that feeling much better than I’d like to admit. I’ve quit more projects than I care to count, and every time, it was a bitter decision, but it was also the right one. I know it doesn’t feel that way at the time, especially if we’re talking about a book you’ve already sunk months or even years of your life into. In the face of all that investment, quitting and thus losing all of that time and work can seem unforgivable.

This kind of thinking is what economists call the Sunk Cost Fallacy. We’ve sunk so much time and effort in already, the thinking goes, we need to finish this project, otherwise our investment will be wasted. But while this kind of thinking feels like staying strong in the face of adversity (which is a good thing!) it can also lead you to keep throwing good writing after bad. After all, if you can’t save that project, then sinking more time and writing into it will only mean even more will get thrown away when you do eventually quit.

Normally, this is the point in the blog post where I’d introduce my clever strategy to solve this problem, but not this time. I don’t have any steps or clever Rachel metric to figure out where a novel’s point of no return lies, because the only person who can say “enough” on your books is you. My entire blog is dedicated to clever writing hacks and ways to stay on target, but if you’ve tried everything and your book still isn’t working, if your daily writing feels like pulling teeth, if every page you struggle through makes you want to never write again, stop.

Giving up on a book is a failure, there's no way around that, but you are more than one book. You have entire worlds inside you, enormous stories waiting to be told. You are still a writer, and no single project--no matter how brilliant--is worth giving that up. So if you desperately want to quit a book you hate, do it. It's okay. Walk away. You're still a rock star.

My favorite book break-up song. If you hear this blasting from my laptop, a project is getting burned.
Embrace your new freedom! Go work on the new project that’s been capturing your imagination. Go have fun with your writing again and make something beautiful. Something you can love. And if someone calls you a quitter, just tell them that you had more books to write, and you were sick of this one taking up all your time. So long as you never give up on writing, you’ll never be a quitter in any case. You’re just an artist whose project didn’t work out, and that happens all the time.

But while you're doing all this letting go, don't hit delete. Just because you're giving up on a book doesn't mean it can never be rescued. If you can't stand to even look at it, just stash it in a folder somewhere. That way, when you're washing the dishes a year from now and you suddenly figure out exactly how to fix your broken project, your old book will be right there waiting for you. But even if that moment never comes and the book is truly lost, it's okay. You're still a writer, and you will write many books. Letting guilt over one failure drag you down just hurts your career and takes time and energy away from all the future awesome novels you have yet to write, so don’t waste your time. Go out there and write something amazing.

If nothing else, I promise you’ll feel a lot better.

Thank you for reading another installment of Writing Wednesday! If you enjoyed the post, please consider following me on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+). You can also subscribe to the blog directly via Feedburner. I do new writing posts every Wednesday and tons of publishing business/fun stuff in between. It's fun! Let's hangout!

I'll be back with another writing post next week and hopefully we'll be doing some kind of analysis on our recent BookBub, but we need to gather some more numbers. In the meanwhile, please check out any of my titles on the sidebar for some good reads! I'm kind of biased, but I think they're pretty good.

Thank you again for taking the time to read, and as always, keep writing!
Yours,
Rachel Aaron/Bach

We Need to Talk About Your Author Website

Hi Everyone!

Travis here again! Since I've been good (still resisting urge to post ponies), Rachel's letting me write some more business related posts for the blog. ^__^ Today I'd like to talk to you about websites. Specifically, author websites, really though... your author website.

The reason I want to talk about this is because your website is perhaps the most important online tool you have as an author. Yet, every day, we see authors who neglect their websites horribly and definitely to their detriment.

Websites can do just about anything, but an author website definitely has some specifics that it provides.

What a Professional Website Does for Its Author
1. It Provides LegitimacyWould you do business with someone online whose website was old, ugly, and hastily built?

what're thoooose???!!!!Probably not. Those are all usually warning signs of scammers at worst and a lack of professionalism at best. A sloppy website is like a sloppy office, an indication that not all is well run.

Would you want a potential reader, agent, or prospect to think that of you? Would you ever hand someone an old, ratty business card with its phone number crossed out and a new one hand-written over? No! You want to look your best and you want them to see how amazing you are so that they give you business.

Even if you pay nothing for a website and don't want it to have anything other than books and an about page, you need to take the time to make a good looking site. There's a lot of powerful and free templates out there. Some you can setup with only basic HTML and FTP skills and free tools. There are also many low cost services for getting a good site. There's also the ever popular Wordpress. My point is - don't let the costs or tech be a barrier to you.

In the end, you don't know who's looking at you online. So it pays to look your best at all times.

We try to update rachelaaron.net and Pretentious Title every 2 years.  That seems to be enough to keeping it modern looking. After about 3 years, even nice websites will start to look dated.

(One way you can check this is to look at websites on CSS Galleries. These are showcases of the best of modern webdesign. Look at some great sites, now look at yours. Is it cool looking or old and busted?)

2. Your Website Acts as a Center for Your Online PresenceIdeally, people have a lot of ways to discover you. There's the Amazon recommendation engine, there's social media, there's blogs, there's podcasts, back matter, newsletters, blog posts, referrals, search engines, and and... and I could go on forever. There's as many means as you can come up with and pursue, really.

When someone finds you though, regardless of where, some people are going to want to know more. How do they find more though?

Your website of course! Everything should point to your website and your website should be how they are introduced to the world of you the author. For example, on rachelaaron.net there's 8 years of interviews, podcast, guest posts, and this blog and all of its content. It's a lot and it took a lot of work to get or make. However, anyone who makes it to our website will find days of things to read, watch, listen to, and buy.

What's important here is that people come in to your site from many points, but anywhere they go once they get there will lead them to your books and your author presence.

What should your site do? Well, the actual specifics of things like "have a blog" aren't in and of themselves important. Its not a recipe (mix 2 parts blog with 3 parts twitter). What is important is that your website directs people to whatever it is that you do online as an author. That you do something is what's important. Be it a podcast, a blog, a wattpad, slideshows, youtube, etc... You want to make your site a crossroads where your different fans can find your far flung activities and books. Always the books.

Lastly, don't forget the social media links! Where ever you are on the social media networks, you want people to follow you. Once someone has discovered you, capturing them in some way is really important. Otherwise they move on and forget you. A follow is excellent. It lets you come back to them later when you have something important to say.

3. It Sells Books!Would you believe that, every day, I see author websites that make it hard to find the books? Or worse, hard to buy them? I still can't believe it, but its actually pretty common. So I'm gonna state the obvious here,

A good author website makes it quick and easy to find out about the author's books and to buy them.

Without trying, a potential reader should be able to find a list of your books or series. Furthermore, things like the order of your books in any series should be very clear. The moment you make them work to find out which book they need to start with is the moment you've lost 80% of your conversions. If you want to learn more about this, check out Don't Make Me Think, its a classic of web design psychology for a reason.

Anyway, make sure that there are be proper calls to action to buy or read a sample for any and all books. Ask people to "Buy Now"! Its ok.

4. It Generates LeadsLots of people want to talk to authors. There's all manner of industry professionals, fans, agents, podcasters, e-zine editors, and so on who are all seeking authors out. As you publish books, more and more of these folks will come to you with valuable opportunities. You don't want to miss these!

For example, the vast majority of interviews, podcasts, and videos Rachel has done over the years have come in blind via her contact form. Sure we pushed, courted, or networked for some, but a lot just came to her.

If someone wants to contact you, the author you, does your website make it easy? If not, I would highly recommend a contact form on your website. It provides a safe and invaluable means for strangers to get in touch with you.

You can put up your, or a, email address of course. This method will get you a lot of spam though. It will also come with attachments sometimes. Having worked in both IT and IP industries, I do not like strangers sending Rachel or I attachments. There's a lot of dangers there beyond just security concerns.

A contact form is much better, even if its just a Google form you whipped up, as it limits what the public can send you, but in a good way. All you need from this form is first contact. You can use email to follow up and mange the conversation/relationship from there. No fancy messaging systems needed.

Furthermore, I feel that a contact form is kind to your fans. A lot of people out there are too shy to email authors directly.

I ..um.. liked... hi.. your book.
A contact form makes overcoming this barrier a lot easier. It's an invitation to contact you, and that really helps the introverts out there.

5. Your Website Gathers DataWhat are the demographics of your readership? Do you know their age brackets and % male-female? Don't forget country too.

Do you know how they found out about you? Was it search, or social, or maybe did someone big link to you and you didn't know?

Google analytics, or most good analytics packages, can tell you these things. Mostly anyway. It's not perfectly accurate, especially because its the website audience that's being measured not and necessarily readers. Still it's much better than nothing.

Using these demographics are their own post, but suffice it to say, they provide useful insights and growth metrics into your business.

Additionally, if you run a sale or promotion of some kind you can create special landing pages to track how many people come in from it. If you get fancy, you can use event tracking to monitor their clicks on things like your books' buy links. (You can also do a limited form of this using bit.ly links btw).

6. It Provides supporting materialsThere's all manner of web-based projects authors undertake that need a webpage but not really a website.

For example, in the new 2k to 10k audiobook, there are many tables full of data. This worked for the ebook, but listening to someone reading you tables of data is booooring! To keep people's eyes from glazing over, we created a hidden page, RachelAaron.net/audiobooktools. This way we reference it in the audio and just give a summary instead. Much smoother.

Anyway, I'm sure that as you do contests, different media types, slideshows, promos, and whatever else this wild west era of publishing comes up with, you'll probably have need of some special pages.

7. It Gets AttentionI'm sure you've heard the phrase "content is king." This is because the web is a social place where we go to read, share, learn, and be entertained, and all of that comes from content--the interesting posts, pictures, articles, whatever that you generate and put on your site. Content brings in readers. Content gets shares. Content gets links back to your site. Content gets you into the Google search results.

Even if your content's not directly about your books, all of this noise is great for your writing career, The more places your name and books come up, the more attention you and your site are getting, and the more books you'll sell. This is especially important if your (pen)name is shared by someone reasonably famous or successful. Your fans are going to find that other person when they search for you or for more of your books! 
Your website ties together all your online content or it serves as the source for a lot of it. Either way, its your front line weapon to win the battle for that first page of Google. 
Things Your Website Doesn't NeedWhat I'm not including on the above points also deserves mention.

Fancy Graphics - sure they look cool, but they start at expensive and go to very expensive. How much bang for the buck they provide is pretty questionable. Your money is probably better spent elsewhere. Your core website graphics should be good and should be enough.

Forums - while building a fan community on your website might sound like a great idea, its a lot of pain. Ask any moderator out there, forums/boards/groups/communities are a LOT of work. They are drama generating machines. If you put yourself in charge of one that is about your creative works.., you are probably in for a bad time. Leave the fan communities to the fans.

Excessive Personal Information - every author needs an about page and there needs to be some information about you up there. Some readers don't care about the author, but others do. Also, industry contacts will want to check these details out. However, be discriminating about what you put up. Remember that this is a professional area. No one wants to see your 'author' vacation photos or 500 family pics.. etc... Less is more!

Ads - some authors sell ads or make careful deals with folks to advertise on their author website. BE CAREFUL with this. First, visitors don't like ads. Second, if you advertise, then you are effectively endorsing whatever products the ad server decides to plaster on your site. Do you want to endorse that One Trick To Lose Belly Fat? Also, ads are direct competition. If someone clicks that ad, they've left your site and the stuff you are selling. (Rachel note: they also make your site look cheap. Stay away!)

Travis's Author Website ChecklistIf you're not sure if your site is working for you, ask yourself these questions about your website:Is it quick and easy to find the books? (max 1 click for list of books, 2 for a specific book)Does it look clean and modern?Are there calls to action to buy or read more?Is there basic information about you the author?Are the social media links easy to see?Does it provide a simple and safe means for people to contact you?Is it gathering data for you?If the answer is yes, congratulations! You've got a good site. If you answered no, that's an area you may want to look at if you want to be getting the most out of your web presence. Plus, it's probably an easy fix, so why not get the best bang for your buck?

This isn't all you can do with your author site of course. There's so much more in terms of features, good design, and optimization. These are what I consider to be the essentials or the basics though. Hopefully I gave you all a good run down of what role the author website plays and you can use that to make sure your bases are covered.

Even though these aren't hard rules, they should serve as a good checklist and guide for you.

If you want to see a good example of everything I've talked about today, might I recommend rachelaaron.net? ^_~

Thanks
-Travis

Writing Wednesdays: The Four Things You Need to Sell a Book

First up: Nice Dragons Finish Last is on sale for $0.99! Hooray!! If you've been waiting for a chance to try the series (or if you want to get someone else hooked!) this is a great chance to do it on the cheap ;).

This is where the books live! Get you one!
Also, I was on Aldus Baker's podcast this week talking fiction! He asked a lot of really great questions about my Heartstriker books, so if you're interested in a behind the scenes look at Julius, Marci, Bob, Chelsie, and everyone else came to be, give it a listen!

Now, on to the post!
Writing Wednesday: The Four Things You Need to Sell a Book You clearly need more books! Have you tried mine?
Warning: this is a post about selling books. 
I know it might not sound like an issue of craft on the surface, but the stuff I'm going to be talking about today relates very strongly to good writing. Now, obviously, if you're still writing your book, you don't have to worry about any of this yet, but if you have a title out there, or you're planning to someday, this post contains what self-publishing has taught me about how people buy books and how I can use the skills I learned as a writer to improve my sales.
Pretty much any article you read about modern authorship--self-pub or trad--talks about the recent change of the author's role from sheltered artist to promotional machine. Personally, I think this argument is a little disingenuous. So long as books have been sold for profit, authors have always been expected to help promote their own work to increase sales, often at their own expense. But while the author as salesman/woman is hardly a modern invention, the truth of the matter is that--no matter how good you get at selling yourself and your books--the vast majority of the people who buy and read your books over your career will never know (or even care) who you are.
*record scratch*
I know, I know! How can this be? We've all heard how an author's name brand sells books, just look at any big bestseller like Stephen King or Nora Roberts. But while it's true that the really big best sellers can move titles on name alone, the opposite is actually true for smaller and midlist authors. Those of us who can't yet sell a book on name alone have to rely on other factors. Marketing can definitely help with this by getting your book in front of more people, which is why authors spend money on it, but even the best campaigns will only ever reach a fraction of your total audience.
Self pub or trad, this is the reality of publishing for the vast majority of authors. Until you become a household name, most of your readership will never have heard of your book until they see it randomly on a shelf at a bookstore or in an Amazon list. One glance, that's all we get, and it is in that moment--that second when your unknown, often busy and distracted customer's eyeballs land on your book for the first time--that makes the difference between a successful book and a flop.
If that sounds overly harsh, welcome to sales! You can write the best book in the world, but if you can't catch the attention of a busy, tired, grumpy reader and convince them to take a moment and discover your genius, it's all for nothing. But do not despair! This is a problem for everyone who tries to sell things, and while no one's figured out the absolute key, for books at least, there is a very good pattern to catching and keeping reader eyeballs, and it goes like this:
Cover, title, blurb, first pages, in that order.
Now, I am most definitely not the first author to realize this. Plenty of very successful authors before me have already pointed out that this pattern is pretty much the universal blueprint to selling books. This isn't to say that these four things are the most important parts of a book, but they are the four things that readers notice first, and this makes them the four most important things when it comes to selling your book, which is what we're talking about today.

To see why this pattern works, think about the last time you bought a novel by an author you didn't know. Chances are, you saw the book on a shelf or online somewhere, and you were drawn in by something on the cover. Next, you looked at the title, which was probably also interesting or hooky in some way. The combination of these two led you to pick up/click on the book and read the back/blurb, which, if you didn't put it back down, was probably also pretty cool, or at least intriguing. At this point, you're almost sold, but you want to make sure the writing is up to snuff, so you flip the book open/click on the sample and read the first few pages. If these are good as well, that book is sold!
This pattern is the natural progression of a sale, and it's why the Cover-Title-Blurb-First Pages pattern is the way it is. Even if the rest of your novel is horrible, if you knock these four things out of the park for your target reader, you will probably sell a lot of books. Of course, if your book actually is horrible, you won't sell any more books, but you get my point. By perfecting each part of the reader's natural book browsing pattern, you vastly improve your chances of catching their attention, even when you've only got a second to make an impression.
At this point, you're probably thinking "Wow, Rachel, that's super obvious." You're right. It is super obvious when you think about it, and that's exactly the problem, because so many authors don't. 
I have seen authors who will spend a year perfecting their manuscript and ten minutes on their cover. I have seen big publishers who will give a book a fabulous cover only to turn around and write a shitty, sloppy blurb. I have clicked on novels in Amazon sidebar ads because the cover, title, and blurb all looked amazing only to lose all interest because there was a typo in the first paragraph, or because the opening of the story was just boring. 
Each of these screw-ups leads to lost sales, because each step of the process--the initial interest created by a good cover and fueled by a clever title, the excitement generated by a good blurb, and the final punch of a fantastic opening page--is a decision.

Readers are busy. They don't know us, and therefore have no reason to cut us slack or take a chance on our work. It's our job as commercial authors--people writing books specifically for sale--to show readers that our stories are worth taking a chance on at every step of the book buying decision. It's up to us to catch and hold the reader's attention until our stories have a chance to drag them in, which is why I'm continually amazed by how many otherwise extremely smart authors and publishers screw up or just plain ignore these four fundamentals elements of bookselling.
We get it, Rachel. This stuff is important. So how do we do it right?
This is where things get tricky. Then answer to "What makes a good cover/title/blurb/first pages?" varies according to your book's tone, genre, and what kind of reader you're aiming for. Cozy mysteries will have different selling points than gritty Thrillers, and so forth. Part of being a successful author is knowing what makes your story interesting to your audience and then figuring out how to convey that through your title, cover, blurb, and so forth.

But while there is no universal answer, there are a few basic rules to the cover/title/blurb/first pages game that apply across the board regardless of genre, or even if you're writing fiction vs non-fiction.

Readers be likeBe interesting - no matter what genre you're writing, boring is the kiss of death. Anything you put in or on your book should always be of interest/appealing to your target audience, or why is it there at all?Your cover/title/blurb/opening pages are for the READER, not for you - This is probably the hardest one for authors, especially when it comes to titles. But tempting as it is to give your book a title that is deeply meaningful to the story, that's not the point. The title isn't there to be meaningful AFTER someone has read your story, it's there to make people want to read your story in the first place. The same goes for covers and blurbs and so on. These are sales elements. To properly do their job, each one must be interesting and hooky in its own right without the help of the larger story. Obviously, this doesn't mean your title/cover/etc should be unrelated to the book. You still want it to make sense! But I can't tell you how many authors I see shooting themselves in the foot by giving their book a long title that's super meaningful in context, but dull or even nonsensical on its own, thus defeating the entire point of a good title. The only exception to this rule is for later books in a series where you can use previous reader knowledge to make the title cool, such as naming the book after an already beloved character. In general, though, anything you use to hook a reader needs to be able to be cool all on its own.Invest in Your Success - You spent a long time writing this book. Don't hamstring your success by getting sloppy once that it's done. I'm not saying you have to spend thousands of dollars on a custom cover, but it makes no sense to spend a year or more getting your book perfect if you're just going to thoughtlessly slap some stock art and stock fonts on the front and call it a day. Your cover/title/blurb/first pages are the face your book presents to the world. They should be even more carefully considered than the rest of your novel. Don't rush to market. You only get one chance to launch a book for the first time, so don't be afraid to slow down and invest the time and (if you're self publishing) money needed to do the job right.Know Your Reader -  As I said at the beginning, what makes a great cover/title/blurb/opening pages depends on your book, your genre, and your audience, but it's up to you to know what that audience wants. Whatever genre you write in will have certain conventions that readers expect, and whether you're bucking them or aiming to give readers exactly what they want, your selling points still need to be placed within that context, because that's the framework your reader is operating inside. In other words, if you're writing Romance, it has to look and sound like, or at least reference, what Romance readers expect. If you don't do this, you run the risk of losing readers simply because they didn't have the cues to realize that your book was the kind they were looking for. You can't get readers if they don't know to look at your book, so make sure your book looks like what it is. It's always good to stand out and do something different, but if the cost is having your book look so different people think someone stuck it on the wrong shelf, that's just as bad. Readers come in looking for a certain kind of book experience. If you can show in your cover/blurb/title/first pages that your book is exactly what they're looking for, but also new and awesome in its own way, that's the best of both worlds.Now, obviously these are all elements that you'll have a lot more control over if you're self-publishing. (You also have enough rope to hang yourself, but that's the price of doing it on your own!) But even if you're going the traditional route and your publisher is the one making the final decisions on your cover/title/blurb and so forth, it's still your job to speak up if you think they're making the wrong choice.
I'm not going to lie: this can be terrifying, especially if you're a newly signed author, but that doesn't change the fact that this is your book. No one wants to be "that author" who makes a fuss, but at the same time, no one will ever care about your book's success more than you do. This is your career, and you'll be the one on the ropes if this book doesn't meet sales expectations. So if you feel your publisher is making a bad call on any of these vital four sales points, bring it up. 
You don't have to be confrontational (in fact, it's better if you're not), but that doesn't mean being silent. Don't be afraid to ask why your publisher made the decisions they made. They probably have very good reasons--they want to make money on this title, too!--but you'll never know if you don't ask. Worse, if the book does end up flopping because it had a terrible cover, you'll carry that for the rest of your career, and that's far too great a risk to take on just to avoid feeling uncomfortably now.
Remember: you're the writer here. This whole enterprise depends on you. You might not be as experienced at book selling, but you know your story and your audience. That is valuable insight, don't let anyone discount it. Even if they shut you down, it's better than knowing that something was wrong, and you said nothing.
Thank you for reading another installment of Writing Wednesday! If you enjoyed this blog, please consider following me on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+). You can also subscribe to the blog directly via Feedburner. I do new writing posts every Wednesday and tons of publishing business/fun stuff in between, so come talk shop with me! The more the merrier. :)

Thank you again for reading, and as always, keep writing!

Yours,
Rachel

Writing Wednesday: How to Fix a Broken Plot

First up, if you didn't see it on Monday, we did a huge post on our numbers for the One Good Dragon Deserves Another launch. If you're interested in self-pub and/or you like graphs, definitely go check it out!

Two weeks ago, I did a Writing Wednesday on common plot mishaps and how to avoid/fix them. But while it is true that there are some universal roadblocks to good plotting, things aren't always that simple. There are times in writing when you can do everything right and still end up staring down the barrel of a fundamentally broken plot.

For my money, this is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to an author. Here you have this book that you're super excited about, filled with characters you love, and it just. Won't. Work. Even when you do everything right, even best planned plots can break down unexpectedly, leaving you stranded in the middle of your book with no idea how to get moving again.

Whether it's your first book or your fiftieth, this is very discouraging. As someone who just came off one of the most challenging books of my life, believe me when I say I've been there. But before you think about throwing in the towel, remember: we writers are gods in our own stories. We have the power to do anything so long as it works within the rules we create. This freedom is often the same reason we got into these plot messes in the first place, but it also means there's no corner we can paint ourselves into that we can't get right back out of again.

So, with that in mind, I give you...

Writing Wednesday: How to Fix a Broken Plot
Confession: I have plot breakdowns on pretty much every book I write. Some are relatively minor, and some are catastrophic. I'm not sure if this is because I love complicated plots, or if plot failures are a natural part of my writing cycle, but whatever the reason, I get stuck on just about every novel. The upside of this is that all this floundering has given me a pretty well tested method for getting myself back on track again.


"But Rachel!" you say. "My book's super broken! I don't even know where to start fixing it!"

Fear not. It seems horrid when you're in the middle of it, but very few plots are so fundamentally flawed that a good, hard edit/kick in the pants can’t get them moving again. It might not be a fun fix, but at least you'll get an idea for where to go.

Before we do anything drastic, though, we need to ask ourselves…

Is This Thing Really Broken, Or Am I Just in a Hard Scene?
In my experience, books tend to move in patches. Sometimes you’ll be writing along just fine, and then, suddenly, you’ll hit a rough patch. Maybe a scene that looked really good in the planning stage just isn't working in execution, or maybe your characters are no longer on board with the story you have plotted out. Sometimes, I'll get to a scene I've had planned from the beginning and I'll just hate it, which especially sucks when said scene is vitally important to the plot.

Rough spots can come up in writing for any number of reasons. Sometimes they're the result of long simmering issues finally reaching a head, such as a character who's not being allowed to act on their true motivation finally bucking the script. Other times it might just be a plot decision that isn't actually as great as you thought it would be.

These sort of mistakes are a natural part of writing. Obviously we don’t put ideas that don’t work into our books on purpose! Even if you've planned every scene in advance, sometimes ideas that look great on paper just don’t work in practice. Such is the writing life. But one rough patch does not a broken plot make.

Because it’s so easy to miss these problems until they explode in our faces, and because we tend to write books in order from beginning to end, it can be very easy to feel like your whole book is broken when it’s actually just one element or scene that's causing a temporary issue. So before you employ any of the drastic plot surgery we’re about to get into, take a moment and step back from your book to make sure it’s really broken, not just dinged. If you were writing along great and suddenly hit a wall, that’s probably caused by a localized plot issue rather than a systematic one.

If this is your problem, be happy! The fix is likely to be small and quick once you figure it out. But, if your book has been dragging for a while now (ie, you’ve been forcing yourself to write things you don’t like for multiple scenes in the hopes that things will get better), your story clearly has some major issues, which means its time for drastic action.

Performing Plot Surgery 
Unlike the specific pitfalls (with their equally specific fixes) I mentioned in my last plot post, fixing a truly broken plot isn't a matter of simply applying the right solution. The sort of big, systematic problems that break books require big, systematic action to fix. This is hard, but definitely not impossible, or even really that depressing. Just speaking from personal experience, compared to the crushing defeat that is trying to maul my way through a book that isn’t working, actually admitting my plot is broken and then taking the steps to fix it feels positively giddy, like I’m making a new start. So if you’ve determined that your book is really really broken, here’s what you can do.

Step 1: Identify the Problem(s)
If you've read any of my How To posts on this blog, you’ve probably noticed this is my first step to everything. What can I say? Knowledge is the first step of any battle! You can’t fix anything if you don’t first know what’s going wrong.

Once you’ve acknowledged there’s a problem with your book, your first step is to get a handle on the size and state of the task at hand, and the best way I've found to do that is to sit down and make a list of everything that’s making you angry about your book.

This process should be as cathartic as it is functional. If you've been banging your head against this book long enough to know it's broken, you're probably pretty pissed at it. Now's your chance to deal with those feelings. Be mean, be harsh, really let it all out. You don’t have to know how you’re going to fix any of this stuff yet. That comes later. Right now, we’re just making a list of the things in this book that aren't working, so be honest and get it all out.

Once you’ve properly vented (and maybe had a good stiff drink), it's time to go back to your "Things That Are Wrong With This Book" list and start looking for patterns. Does one character/plot element dominate the list? Do your complaints start after a specific point in the book, or are they all over? Are you having trouble with what is actually happening (ie, the plot), or are you struggling with the story's larger ideas (worldbuilding, themes, etc.)? Or are your people the ones giving you hell?

I'll warn you straight up: this questioning process gets old really fast. It might have been cathartic to vent about your book's problems, but no one likes to sit down and make a study of all the ways they messed up. Trust me, though. Painful as it can be, this step is critical. It's called "plot surgery" for a reason, and no doctor rushes into an operation without performing a proper diagnosis first. The time and thought taken here to figure out what's actually wrong and which elements are causing your problems can save you from accidentally amputating the wrong plot limb later on, so don’t be concerned if this process takes a while.

Keep in mind, we are not solving anything yet. This is the research part of the process, so don't be afraid to put down problems that you have no idea what to do with, and don't be afraid to ask other people you trust for their opinion. You don't have to let them read your broken book, but being nose deep in your book can leave you ridiculously blind. Sometimes just explaining your problems to someone who has no idea what's going on can give you the perspective you need to see the forest for the trees.

You'll know this step is done when you've addressed every issue you put down on your venting list, and I do mean every issue. It might be tempting to skip over some items written in the heat of the moment as "not real" problems, but if you were mad enough to write them down, then something is wrong. It might not need a huge plot change to fix, but you should still stop and figure out why you were mad at it to begin with.

Once you’ve got your thorough diagnosis of all complaints in hand, it's time to move on to the next step.

Step 2: Go Back to Basics
Now that you’ve got a list of problems to work with, it's time to start working on solutions. Since novels are so complicated, I've found the best place to start this process is to go back to the story basics of character motivation, tension control, the stakes of the plot, and the bigger picture of your world.

Now, this is a post about plot, but plot arises from the complex interplay of all the other story elements—characters, tension, stakes, the state of the world, and so forth—working together to create the events of the novel. As I mentioned above, problems big enough to break books almost always have their tentacles in more than one area, which is why our plan of attack needs to cover all these areas equally.

So, with any problem you are having, take it down to its most fundamental levels. If it's a character, look at their motivation. Are the actions you're having them do actually in character? And if so, do those actions forward the story you set out to tell? If specific scenes or story arcs are giving you trouble, go back and identify what gives those scenes tension. Why do those scenes matter for the larger book, and what is at stake?

The idea here is to gain insight how things went wrong by looking at how our list of issues plays out at most basic story structure level. Scenes and characters don't just break for no reason. The end result might look impossibly complicated, but when you dig in, you'll probably find that everything started with a simple mistakes in the basics of story: characters, tension, and structure. Once you identify these, the places where the book went off the rails often become obvious, as do the solutions.

Another thing I like to do at this stage is to go back and look at the notes I made before I started writing. Sometimes, things I identify as problems are really just places where the story/characters tried to go a different direction than the one I had planned. If this new direction is better than the one I had planned, this problem can actually be a blessing in disguise! When this happens, the solution is to stop and replot the book from this new angle. If not--if this new direction really is a screw up and not a brilliant new path--then it's time to go back to where the plot was working and try again.

Either way, the key to this step is to keep your eyes firmly on the prize. You have to know what story you are telling, and then make sure all the basics are in place to get you there. I can't tell you how to solve every problem in your book, but I can tell you that every issue you're dealing with is happening for a reason. Somewhere along the line, something went wrong, which means we need to find and fix it. That's a big task, but if you start with the basics and work your way forward through each problem while keeping your end goal for the book firmly in mind, not only will you find the place where things broke down, you'll also often find the way to fix it, or at least go around.

Step 3: Be Patient
Once we've tracked down all the places things went wrong and why, it's time to start coming up with solutions. Often (and conveniently!) these solutions become head-smackingly obvious during the process of tracking them down, because, again, all story problems happen for a reason. But even once you know what went wrong and, therefore, what has to be done to repair it, that solution can be a lot of work, up to and including a full replot and rewrite.

This is the most drastic measure you can take with a book, but it's neither uncommon nor undoable.  Even if your fixes don't require a full rewrite, you'll probably have to rewrite parts to apply whatever solutions you discovered in the steps above, and that's fine. Your book didn’t break instantly, it’s not going to be fixed instantly. You have to be patient and really dedicate the time to do it right. Don't cut corners on your edit, and don't be lured into letting things slide. Remember: every story choice that got you into this mess was made for what seemed like good reasons at the time. Looking back, many of these decisions will probably still seem like good ideas that you can skip on rewriting, but this line of thinking is a trap!

No matter how much sense each story choice might make in context, these are the steps that got you into this situation in the first place. They weren’t the right ideas for this project, and they're not going to work the second try either, so don't waste your time trying to save bad choices. Come up with your solution and commit to doing it right. This might mean rewriting some scenes that are actually good. Don't be afraid of that. Words are cheap. A book might be late for six months, but it'll be bad forever. Don't take that risk by taking shortcuts. Save your old draft somewhere you can go back to it if you mess up, and start hacking things apart. It'll hurt now, but your book and your readers will thank you in the long run.

Step 4: Experiment
By this stage you should have a deep understanding of why and how your book failed. Hopefully, this understanding will generate its own solutions as you see where things went wrong and how to make them right, but that's not always the case. Sometimes you can know exactly what went wrong and still not know how to fix it. When this happens, it's time to experiment!

This is actually my favorite part of fixing a broken book. If I have problems that still don't have solutions at this stage, I step away from the book, open a new document, and start brain storming for out of the box solutions. At this stage, nothing is off limits. If I want to completely change the ending to solve a mid-book problem, I can do that. All that matters is finding an elegant solution to the problem at hand.

Honestly, this is where my best book fixes come from. After working so long on a broken book, getting to just go crazy with new ideas can feel incredibly freeing, and that sense of joy that comes from new creation is often exactly what I need to get back into my story. This is my chance to change or completely eliminate problem characters just to see what happens to the plot. I can change my ending and beginning, or even give the book an entirely new central conflict. The sky is the limit! I don't even worry about how these ideas will be implemented, I'm just trying to get ideas flowing.

As you come up with new ideas for how to address the book’s remaining problems, some of them are going to hit you as instantly right. Others might take more work, and that’s fine. Just keep a list of all the ideas that have merit, no matter how crazy. Once you’ve got at least one solid candidate solution for every problem on your list, we’re ready to move on to refinement.

Step 5: Make a New, Better Plot
Now that you’ve got a pile of solutions to play with, it’s time to start working the new ideas into your existing story. As I mentioned back in Step 3, some of these fixes will be obvious, if labor intensive. Less so for the solutions from Step 4, but even if you have to twist things inside out to get some of the crazier solutions to fit, your book was already broken! It’s not like all this rearranging can make things worse, right?

As you’re fitting these solutions into your new plot, don’t focus on solving the individual problems of the old one. Instead, think about how this new version of the story will work as a cohesive whole. You want these new ideas to read like they were your plan all along, so don’t be afraid to shuffle the story elements that were working before all of this started if that’s what it takes to make your new plot fit seamlessly. Remember: the goal here is to make the finished product read seamlessly. If you do it right, readers will never know you had problems!

Once you’ve worked in all your new solutions, congratulations! The plot surgery is complete. Your book should now look totally different and (hopefully) 100% more awesome!

This doesn’t mean your new plot is now immune to failure, but the extra level of thought and workmanship that goes into fixing a broken plot will definitely give you a great foundation to work off should any new problems arise. The best part of all of this, though, is that you now have a new plan to be excited about. Through hard work and smart thinking, you’ve breathed new life back into a crippled project, and you should have a much stronger book for it.

I hope my process for fixing broken plots helps you with your own writing. Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this post and you want more like it, I post new writing craft posts every Wednesday. You can get updates by following me on the Social Media of your choice (Twitter, Facebook,Tumblr, Google+) or by subscribing directly to the blog via Feed Burner. You can also see all my back writing post by clicking on the Writing label below.

Thank you again for reading! Until next time, I remain your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man author,

Rachel

Let's Talk Numbers: Do Pre-orders Help Sales?

It's that time again, folks! The second novel in my Heartstrikers series, One Good Dragon Deserves Another, has been out over a month now, so it's time to take a look at the numbers. This time around, we were specifically interested in pre-orders and how they helped or hindered our projected first month of sales.

There's been a lot of back and forth on this in the writing community with some authors swearing by pre-orders and others arguing that they poached from the vital first week sales that are so important to getting your book high on the Amazon lists (which gets you in front of those all important new readers who might not have seen your series before). Never having done a pre-order ourselves, we were super curious, so when we got the chance to try it ourselves with One Good Dragon Deserves Another , we dove right in, and this is what we found!

(Note: Today's post will be presented by extremely talented and handsome husband/business partner Travis, who did all the math, graphs, and analysis. As always, he did a great job! So, without further ado, I'll turn it over to him. Rachel out!)

Hi everyone! The numbers are officially in, and One Good Dragon Deserves Another has done well far beyond our hopes! As Rachel promised earlier in the month, I've put together a ton of numbers, charts, graphs, and analysis for what's been going on with it.

We have a lot to talk about, too! A lot of things happened this time around that Rachel and I have never done before. We had pre-orders, we found a great trick for leveraging the Kindle Big Deal, and we had the game-changer that was KU 2.0 happen right in the middle of it all!

Its going to be a lot so let's get to....

Let's Talk Numbers: Do Pre-orders Help Sales?So how'd One Good Dragon do? See for yourself,

can you guess when the book went live?There's a lot to unpack here and that's what we are mostly about today. Let's talk about these numbers. 
One Good Dragon Deserves Another (OGDDA) was available for pre-order from June 1st to July 30th. In total, it had 4565 pre-orders. It was released on August 1st, 2015 so everything on that date and beyond are not pre-orders, just er. orders.

The first thing to notice is that we have a double spike. Normally, there's only 1 spike on release day and then nothing until a promo or sale is done. Here we had two. Once for the announcement of pre-orders and another for launch day. Very cool!

I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen with pre-orders since we'd never done them before. Would they cannibalize our first month sales? Would they get us on a list? Turns out... neither (Though not for a lack of trying on that second one!).

Lists aside, these are really great numbers for us! Here's what I originally predicted for an August release with no pre-order.




What made the difference? (Aside from my just being wrong?) Two main factors. One is that we had an effective 30,000 units of Nice Dragons Finish Last sold/borrowed by August 1st, and the other was pure genius on Rachel's part......

Leveraging the Kindle Big Deal to maximize Pre-OrdersNice Dragons Finish Last was selected to be part of the Kindle Big Deal in June. This was a surprise for us. We knew we were a candidate, but Amazon didn't formally tell us we'd made it in until about a week before the sale started.

OGDDA was almost ready for publication at this point, and Rachel had a great idea that made us work like crazy for 3-4 days.

She updated the back matter for Nice Dragons Finish Last to have sample chapters of OGDDA, followed by a link to the pre-order. Just in time for the Kindle Big Deal to hit.

I have a Kindle Big Deal - Round 2! post in the works, but that's for a later date. Spoiler: it was great. What's important here is that when those thousands of new readers the Big Deal brought in reached the end of Nice Dragons Finish Last, they found:
A page thanking them for reading and asking for a reviewA link to rachelaaron.net for more books (and to sign up for our mailing list).Sample chapter for OGDDA.A page with pre-order info at the end of the sample chapters.This combination worked far and beyond our wildest expectations. I'm sure a lot of existing fans jumped on board when the pre-orders opened up. Still, since the OGDDA pre-orders greatly eclipsed expected sales, I feel that's a strong indicator that many of those pre-orders were new readers who came into the series during the Big Deal, got excited by the sample chapter at the end of NDFL, and clicked the pre-order link.

Also, this kind of cross promotion helped boost more than just OGDDA pre-orders,
Legend of Eli Monpress Omnibus Sales Rank (last 6 mo)Look at Eli go! This is Rachel's first series published by Orbit Books. There are no promos going, but you can plainly see when the Kindle Big Deal hits in July. More on this positive cross-pollination in a future post. For now...

How can this work for you?The Kindle Big Deal is a fantastic way to sell books, but its not something we control. Amazon decides whom it wants to invite and when. That's okay though, because this technique we used of unveiling and promoting pre-orders for a sequel in the back of your previous books (when readers are the most pumped about continuing the story) can work in conjunction with any sale or promo you manage to line up.
Ideally, I want this to be our pattern for any new book release. I see future deals going like this,Put new book on pre-order 2 months before it comes out.Line up a $.99 sale and related promo for the book/books that come before it.Make sure the promo books promote the pre-order in their back matter.How will this work for book 3+ in a series? I'm not sure, TBH. We'll have to get creative. Rest assured that when we tackle this, you all will hear about it here!
Enough about this though, let's get back to sales numbers. Specifically, our rank over time.

KU, Sales, Pre-Orders, and Keeping Our Amazon Rank HighThe last time we did a Kindle Big Deal, NDFL's sales rank shot up, stayed strong the whole month it was on sale, and then sharply tapered back down to normal once the sale was done. This pattern was what I expected this time around, too, but as you can see, that didn't happen...
Nice Dragons Sales Rank (last 6 mo)
Like I said, the Kindle Big Deal was amazing. It started on June 1st for Nice Dragons, which you can easily see in that massive leap up in sales rank. What's highly unusual is how long it stayed up there. You see September's downward slope? That should have happened in July once the sale ended. But it didn't.
And it's not just rank, either. Take a look at this chart, which tracks our sales volume.

The low lines in May is what our long tail usually looks like. June was the Kindle Big Deal, which is always crazy sales heavy, so that's normal, too. July and August, however, are very neat. With the Big Deal over, you can see that we've settled down again but that our KU numbers has gone from 50% of our volume to 75%. (Estimated of course, I'm converting KENP reads to borrows in a very rough manner to get these numbers.)
Furthermore, we have higher regular sales in July as well. As I said above, we should have started seeing a drop here. Instead, it stayed level for 2 whole months. August was a release month, which are always good for sales across all titles, but July was all on its own. So why are these numbers so high?

Initially, we thought the change to KU might be helping uS (since we are benefiting enormously under the new KU system), but those changes were just on the author side. The KU reader experience and the way Amazon uses KU borrows to boost sales rank (1 borrow = 1 sale) are still the same as before. So, with KU out of the picture, our best guess to explain this increase in volume is pre-orders.

We had 2200 preorders for OGDDA in July. That's a good sales month by any accounting, and it corresponded with a commensurately high (or I should say low, but you know what I mean) average sales rank for OGDDA, even though that book hadn't released yet. It's very well known that a good Amazon sales rank brings a lot of visibility, and since OGDDA is very clearly the second book in a series, our best guess is that a lot of those potential readers who saw OGDDA on their screens and got hooked by the cover and blurb went off in search of the first book in the series, resulting in continued high sales for NDFL, even though it was no longer on sale or even being promoted.

This was made even easier by the fact that both books were in KU, making the cost of starting the series effectively nothing. Even better, many of these same new readers probably finished NDFL that same month and then went on to read (or at least buy/borrow) OGDDA, thus adding their clicks to the sales rank of both books!

And if you think I'm overestimating the impact of KU on sales rank, take a look at this.

We see here that KENP makes up half or more of OGDDA's sales volume. Release day being the exception of course. The relationship there seems to be closer to what we see with Nice Dragons. I bet that, going forward, OGDDA will have almost exactly the same sales to borrows ratio as NDFL has.
Consider that KU borrows directly contribute to Sales Rank and I think we can all see just how powerful and important KU is. I mean, ~60% of our sales rank for these two books comes from KU, not from sales. 
(It's a different post, but KU definitely helps your sales rank. Rachel and I have been watching actual sales vs sales rank for a year now, and it is plain as day that NDFL and OGDDA have enjoyed sales ranks FAR above what their normal daily sales would have earned them alone.)
Like it or hate it, KU is a powerful competitive edge on the world's strongest ebook market (and a very profitable one for long books that people read all the way to the end). Ignore it at your own peril.
Moving on, we have one interesting event left to look at before we're done here today.
What about September's Sales?Going back to my sales table at the start of this post,
OGDDA Book Sales and Pre-Orders (*projected sales total)What's up with September? Sure a chunk of these are estimated sales since September isn't over yet, but that's still an enormous drop-off! It also falls under my previous Month 2 prediction in the table at the top of the post. How do I account for this?
Maybe, it's KU...
OGDDA is 908 KENP long, but 100% of readers do not finish the book. To account for this, this chart assumes 800 KENP read = 1 borrowAgain, September's numbers are a best guess projection of sales since the month is not over yet, but this still shows us something fascinating. For our previous launches, Month 2's volume tends to be 45-65% of Month 1's. We weren't seeing this on the sales chart above, but once KENP is converted to books, we see that the effective units moved (borrows + sales) once again lines up as expected at that 45-65% of Month 1 number. 
So where'd all the Month 2 readers go? Did they get poached by pre-orders? Did they just lose interest? Thankfully for us, the answer is no. They didn't suddenly stop buying in September, they were all just reading the book in Kindle Unlimited. Mystery solved!

Wow this got long...I'm gonna stop here. I could talk about numbers all day and all night, but I think I've made my point. My take away from all this is that we scored big leveraging the Big Deal and brought in a lot of new readers to the Heartstrikers series. We also scored big and kept our readership high by going whole hog with both titles into KU 2.0, even when we only had guesses as to how much the new KU system would pay out. It was a smart risk and, for us at least, it payed off tremendously.

I hope that I've provided you with an interesting glimpse into our experience with pre-orders and how they change sales volume! If you have any questions, or if your experiences with pre-orders are different than ours, please let us know in the comments. To see more numbers and publishing business articles, click on the Business tag at the bottom of this post. If you want new posts as soon as they're up, follow Rachel on the social media of your choice (Twitter, Facebook,Tumblr, Google+) or subscribe directly to the blog via Feed Burner.
Thanks again for reading!-Travis Bach