Rob Bignell's Blog, page 378
February 24, 2013
Thanks to Chapter 2 for hosting novel reading!
A special
thanks to Chapter 2 bookstore, which hosted my book reading of Windmill on Saturday afternoon, and to all those who attended. I read the novel’s Prologue and Chapter 1 (In fact, one person in attendance said she read Chapter 2 in anticipation of me reading Chapter 1!). Windmill tells the story of Carl Steinar and his sons, Peter and Lyle, who for 15 years have maintained a tenuous balance keeping together their family and farm on the western plains of Nebraska. Like blades in a well-oiled windmill, each works in harmony with the other. But when Abbie Blaire, the new reporter in town comes to write a story about them, a monkey wrench is thrown into their perfect machine: She is the spitting image of the wife and mother the Steinar men lost years ago. Windmill is available for sale at Chapter 2 bookstore, which is independently owned and located in beautiful downtown Hudson.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 23, 2013
Five quotations about writing as self-discovery
“I knew 
as I wrote them (journals) that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me.” – Colleen Wainwright, “communicatrix”
“Writing takes you into a confrontation of self.” –
“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” –Cyril Connolly
“If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.” – Elaine Liner, “We Got Naked, Now What”
“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.” –
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 22, 2013
Promote your book by using Facebook
If you don’t 
have a personal Facebook page yet, you should give serious consideration to getting one. Facebook is the largest social networking site on the globe. Everyone on Facebook has a page on which they can post updates, photos and videos about their life. A page can be set up so that only “friends” (and you get to approve who is your friend) or anyone can see it. The social networking site offers an excellent way to reach potential readers.
To promote your book via Facebook, you’ll have to begin by setting up your personal page. It’s quite easy to do, and Facebook takes you through the entire process with a step-by-step tutorial. It’s also free to join.
Once you set up your personal page, you then can create a page just about your book. This page won’t contain all of those updates, photos and videos about your kids and trip to Mexico that you’ll soon be posting on your personal page.
To set up your business page, you should have jpegs on hand of your book’s cover and some vertical photo that might be used as your “cover.” The book cover will serve as your profile picture. The vertical cover photo could be of you at a book signing, a photo related to what your book is about (for example, a spacecraft orbiting the earth if your book is about why we should spend more money on space exploration), or a close-up of the book cover.
You’ll also want to write a description of your book in the “About” section.” This description essentially can be what you’ve placed on your back cover blurb or the home page of your website. Also, there is a spot where you’ll be able to place links to your website and blog, so be sure to do that.
What to post on Facebook? Anything that you might blog. Given this, I essentially post what I write for my Twitter feeds (which are just links to my blog) on Facebook. This may sound redundant, but not everyone on Facebook uses Twitter and vice versa. You’re just covering your bases.
To make Facebook truly useful, you’ll need to get “friends” to maximize the number of people who view your page and will potentially read your book Once you get friends then you can ask them to “like” your business page. Each time you make a post on the Facebook page for your book, it will go out to a “wall” where anyone who “likes” your page can read what you wrote (along with what all of their other friends wrote).
How do you get “friends”? You have to ask them to be your friend via Facebook (it’s a simple click or two of a button). Look for the following people on Facebook to be your friends:
n Family
n Friends (Makes sense, doesn’t it?)
n Colleagues past and present
n Former classmates (high school and college)
n Friends of lots of your friends (You may not know them personally, but you do have a lot in common!)
n Pages on related subjects and “like” or “friend” them (If you’re book is about coffee, seek out coffeehouses.)
All of your posts show up on each of your friends’ walls, so hopefully others who are not friends will take an interest in your page.
Some savvy Facebook users reduce some of this work simply by making their personal page their book page. If you do this, however, you’re counting on people to buy a book by an author rather than buying a book about a specific subject or from a specific genre. Since you’re a new author, you probably don’t yet have much name recognition to generate many book sales. People will come to you because of the book’s genre and subject matter, not because you wrote it.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 21, 2013
Don’t get hung up on watching book sales stats
Whenever 
you self publish a book, you’ll have the opportunity to track sales, or see how many books you’ve sold. You may have to go to a couple of different web pages to do this, though; for example, Amazon.com has separate pages for its CreateSpace (paper) books and its Kindle editions. Be aware of where these pages are and check them out – but don’t obsess over the numbers.
If you were an internationally known author whose books regularly made the bestsellers list, you’d have an agent who watched those numbers for you. As an indie author, your numbers may not change significantly (if at all) for a few days at a time.
While knowing the total number of books you’ve sold is interesting, put the information to good use by seeing what promotional efforts result in sales. Sales numbers may not always be easy to correlate to a specific effort, but over time you can make some generalizations.
A personal example: Watching sales of four published works for more than 18 months, I’ve found that when a blogger reviews or features one of my books, its sales go up. They also jump (not surprisingly) between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Book readings move a couple of books as well. Radio interviews on a show targeted at those interested in the arts always leads to book sales, much more so than when newspaper articles appear about the book. However, if the newspaper article mentions one of my book readings that’s coming up, the host book store typically sells a few more of my titles. What conclusions can I draw from this? The more I target my marketing to specific audiences who would be interested in my book rather than a general, albeit large, audience, the better my book sales. Knowing this helps shape my promotional efforts for future books.
There’s one other good reason to track sales: You want to ensure your royalties match what is paid out to you. Though such problems are rare, they do occur.
In any case, refrain from checking out your book sales stats every few hours let alone from day to day, especially if you’ve published only one or two books. Your time will be more effectively spent promoting your books – or penning your next one!
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 20, 2013
Seduced by wrong word? Sensuous vs. sensual
What’s the difference between an enjoyable afternoon of wine tasting and a night of artful seduction over wine? One is “sensuous” and the other is “sensual.”
“Sensuous” means to appeal to the senses or to have strong sensory appeal, as in The Klingon found the Grapok sauce sensuous.
“Sensual” pertains to fleshly or sexual appeal, as in The Klingon warrior found B’etor’s ample bosom quite sensual.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 19, 2013
What if I edit out too much exposition?
One
dilemma that novice writers often run into when writing a new draft of their story is a fear of cutting too much exposition. It’s an unfounded fear.
You probably can’t cut enough exposition. No story should include writing that slows the forward movement of plot, amounts to lecturing the reader or forcing him to read an encyclopedia entry or violates viewpoint.
The real dilemma facing the writer is that he hasn’t fully fleshed out a scene. If the reader doesn’t have enough information to understand the story, then the author isn’t fully showing us the scene. Telling us what needs to be shown is just cutting corners.
Sometimes the issue is that the writer doesn’t have enough faith in his own writing or in his readers. The reader probably gets what you mean when exposition is replaced with indirectly showing what’s occurring. Of course, this is where a good editor or another reader of science fiction can step in; they can tell you that they don’t understand something, and if writing science fiction, that’s a good indication that you need to include some more material about your novum. Don’t do overdue it, however – a single phrase or sentence at most often is all that’s needed.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 18, 2013
Unfold action to develop a stronger story
Most 
stories unfold in the same way: The main character encounters a problem, he attempts in various ways to overcome the problem, and ultimately he succeeds.
For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Devil in the Dark”, Captain Kirk faces the problem of stopping what appears to be a monster that is killing miners on the planet Janus VI. He attempts to solve the problem by hunting down the creature. He ultimately succeeds in stopping the murders by making contact with the creature and coming to an understanding of and agreement with it.
Of course, the plot of a story is more complicated than this. But the way action unfolds in most stories can be divided into distinct parts. Being aware of these parts can help you better develop a story.
There are five general parts of a plot:
n Inciting incident - During the first paragraphs of a story, the main character, the problem he faces and the setting is introduced. This part sometimes is referred to as the “introduction” or the “opening.” In “Devil in the Dark,” we also learn that some of the miners doubt Kirk’s ability to solve the problem, which will complicate his efforts later in the episode.
n Rising action - The bulk of the story consists of the rising action, in which the main character attempts to solve his problem. He repeatedly fails, however, causing the situation becomes even more dire for him. This part also is known as the “complication”. During the hunt, Kirk loses a man, finds the station’s nuclear reactor pump has been stolen, almost dies during a cave-in and then is cornered by the creature.
n Climax - Ultimately, the main character solves the problem through some great, dramatic effort. Discovering the creature is intelligent, Kirk orders Spock to mind meld with the creature and Dr. McCoy to heal its wound; this allows Kirk and the creature (which calls itself a Horta) to come to an agreement: the miners will stop killing its young and it will stop killing the miners.
n Falling action - This extremely short section of the plot occurs immediately after the climax. It deals with the effects of the climax on the main character. Kirk now champions the Horta’s cause and stops the miners from attacking it.
n Denouement - The “conclusion” occurs in the last few sentences of the story. The loose ends of the story are tied up at this point. Back aboard their starship, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discuss (er, joke) about the philosophical implications of the Horta’s intelligence; we also learn that the miners and Horta are getting along fine.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 17, 2013
Wisconsin paper features '7 Minutes a Day...'
The Dunn County
News ran an article this past weekend about my latest set of books, the “7 Minutes a Day…” writing guides. “In these comprehensive yet practical and useful guidebooks, Bignell helps writers navigate one of the fastest growing realms of the book world: self-publishing,” the News wrote. “An incredible 1,185,445 books were self-published during 2011, and that number is expected to grow during the decade ahead.” The “7 Minutes a Day…” series consists of three books, each focusing on a different topic: writing a novel; self-publishing a book; and promoting a self-published book. The Dunn County News is located in Menomonie, Wis., my hometown.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 16, 2013
Five great quotations for aspiring writers
“First you’re 
an unknown, then you write one book and you move up to obscurity.” – Martin Myers
“When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.” – Samuel Butler
“I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.” – Peter De Vries
“A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right.” – John K. Hutchens
“The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.” – Russell Baker
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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February 15, 2013
Use social media to market your book
Increasingly 
we interact through social media, a catch-all term for various web-based and mobile technologies that allow the user to generate content (such as text, photos or video). You already probably use a variety of social media, such as Facebook, YouTube or blogs. Rather than rely solely on traditional media, such as newspapers and television, to get the word out about your book, consider also utilizing these alternative outlets. Indeed, the advantage of social media is that it allows people with similar interests to connect, share information, and discuss topics, meaning you can directly reach those potential readers who are most likely to buy your book.
Among the most popular social media platforms that you should exploit are:
n Blogs – These are a sort of personal journal published on the worldwide web. They can be on any subject with posts as frequent as daily to once every few weeks.
n YouTube – This is a website in which users can upload, view and share videos. The user uploading the video typically made it.
n Facebook – This social networking service allows members to post updates and photos about their lives and to carry on conversations in real time.
n Twitter – This networking service allows users to “microblog” or send out blog-like entries that are only 140 characters long. Often the “tweets” users send include links to longer entries.
n LinkedIn – Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn focus more on one’s profession and career rather than pure socializing.
As with our entire technological world, social media platforms constantly are rising and falling in popularity as new ones are developed. If this book is still around in a decade, most likely the above list of the most popular social platforms will be different. Still, these are the big shots for now, and in the steps ahead, we’ll examine how you can utilize these significant social media platforms to get out the word about your book.
Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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