Adam Croft's Blog, page 44

14 Offline Marketing Ideas

Ah, marketing. An important task for the independent publisher and we can never do enough of it. There’s always something more that we can do. So much of our marketing these days is done online and that’s great – not least because it keeps our promotions spending down as much as possible – but there is still an important role for offline marketing.

So here are some offline marketing ideas – some serious, some a bit more, um, ‘inventive’ – that independent publishers might like to try.

1)      Research local, independent bookstores and ask the owner very nicely if they’d consider stocking copies of your book. Ask them even more nicely if they’ll let you do a signing.

2)      Call the local newspaper and let them know you’ve got a book out. Papers are always looking for stories and you never know what sort of coverage they might be able to give you.

3)      Write a press release and send it out to carefully-selected targets.

4)      Find a local reading group and offer them free copies of your book to read and review. Offer to turn up to their meeting to talk about the book and get their feedback.

5)      Make up a sandwich board advertising your book. Put it on. Go for a walk. Smile even if you’re grimacing inside. Better yet, get someone else to wear the sandwich board for you.

6)      Ask local cafes and other businesses if you can leave free sample chapters in their shops for customers to take away and read. Make sure you put information on the sample chapters so they know where to get the rest of the book.

7)      See if there are any festivals or events you could attend in your capacity as a self-published author. As independent publishing becomes more popular, people are more interested in what authors who take that route have to say. Even if you just get yourself in to talk at a small school event, it could help you.

8)      Print up some leaflets about your book and try some good old fashioned leafleting. If you give out sweets or some other small gift at the same time, people might be more eager to accept your promotional literature.

9)      Don’t give out business cards when you meet new people. Give them bookmarks that advertise your book.

10)  Network. Go to writing events and chat to people.

11)  Talk to people. A lot. Whenever you get the chance. In cafes, in the pub, whenever you bump into friends in the street. Whenever you get the chance to talk about your book, do it. Truth be told, if you’ve got a book out you’ll probably be doing this automatically, but a bit of conscious effort never hurts.

12)  Dare yourself to add the sentence “I’ve just self-published a book” after your name every time you introduce yourself to someone.

13)  Shamelessly ask your friends and family to plug your book at every chance they get. If possible, arm them with copies of the book so they can ‘just happen to have it with them’ when they’re talking it up to people. Bribe them to do it if you need to.

14)  Make as many ‘public appearances’ as you can, whether it’s judging the local school’s fancy dress competition, giving readings or getting yourself a table at the church charity event.

What offline marketing activities have you tried?

6 Ways to Become a Better Writer

It doesn’t matter how good a writer you already are – you will naturally want to become better. There’s always room for improvement, after all. But how can we become better writers?

I think we often don’t realise that we are getting better at what we do until one day, we’re reading back a draft, we compare it to an earlier version and we realise “actually, this isn’t bad.” The process of improvement is often something we’re not conscious of, because we’re too busy focusing on the task at hand. Let’s say though that we are consciously trying to improve our writing. What can we do?

Write write write

It has to be top of the list. If you want to be a better writer, you need to write. You can read all the guides and blog posts you want about styles of writing and how you can improve and how to self-publish your book once it’s finished, but there’s nothing to beat actually get on with some work.

Learn to edit

It’s often said that editing is the hard bit, because that’s where we make our first draft good (or at least make it readable, depending on how that first draft turns out). Learning to edit properly is probably one of the most difficult things to do, not least because it can be hard to be critical of your own work – or at least it can be hard to be constructively critical of it. We can all look at stuff we’ve written and think “oh God, I hate it,” but sitting down and going through it to make it better is something else entirely. And it’s something we need to learn to do.

Try a class

There are different opinions on whether going to a creative writing class or taking courses is any use. Some people think they’re a good way of nurturing talent, others think that they just teach everyone to write in similar styles. Still, if you do think a class could help you, it can be a good way to develop discipline and good habits that could benefit your writing.

Start the story straight away

In a way, this is linked to the point about learning to edit. Something that many writers do, especially when starting out, is to start their novel before the story actually begins. Go back to the start, work out if it actually is the start and, if not, be ruthless about cutting it (and while you’re there, make sure the opening of the book is top notch).

Read lots

As well as writing as much as you possibly can, regular reading is also something that can help you become a better writer. Reading teaches about style and story and character, and you can pick up a lot about how to craft a novel from reading lots of them yourself.

Have focus

Distractions are aplenty, but when we’re trying to catch up with Twitter, cook dinner and watch the news at the same time as staring at the Word document containing our novel, it’s unlikely we’re going to be writing to our full potential. When you’re writing, focus only on your writing – and save those distractions for another time.

5 places to find inspiration for crime novels

Inspiration is one of those things that sometimes you have and sometimes you don’t. Most of the time, we have to carry on with our writing whether or not we are feeling inspired, but when it comes to deciding what to write about in the first place, it definitely helps. Here are five places you can find inspiration for your crime novels.

The news

The news is a great source of inspiration for fiction. That doesn’t mean finding a news story you like and copying it exactly, but rather using something as a starting point to get you where you want to be. Local newspapers as well as the national news can be good for finding inspiration for crime novels, so read/watch far and wide.

Examples of crime novels that have been inspired by real life events include Edgar Allan Poe’s The Telltale Heart and Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, so you’ll be in good company if you do take inspiration from the news.

Other novels

Reading lots of other books can also be a good way to find inspiration, no matter what genre you’re writing in. It can be a useful way to get a better understanding of the genre, see what’s out there already and get a feel for the sort of novel you might like to write.

Of course, nicking other people’s plots is a definite no-no, but reading a top quality crime thriller can be a great way to get your own creative juices flowing.

Cafes and public places

Sitting in cafes and public places provide excellent opportunities for people watching. Making up fake stories for the people you see can be a good starting point for a crime novel. Even if you don’t want to do that, simply observing people and watching how they act is useful. After all, you know nothing about these people. They could be anybody and anything at all could be happening in their lives. The very mystery of strangers can be an endless source of inspiration.

Locations

You don’t even have to be inspired by people or things that have happened. Some crime writers have a focus on specific places that works really well in their books. Take a walk around where you live or another place that resonates with you, and see what comes to mind.

Your imagination

Finally, if no inspiration for your crime novel is coming to you from any external sources, it’s time to look inwards and simply make it up. Often, we can find inspiration in the world around us, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Start with a tiny idea or a grand one, and just see what happens. You might not be feeling inspired when you start, or have any idea about where you’re going, but hopefully sooner or later something will click and the subject for your novel will start to become clear.

Should you join a writing group?

As a writer, feedback can be a really wonderful thing, but you need to know that the feedback you’re getting is good. Joining a writing group can be a great opportunity to get some good quality feedback – and hopefully have some fun along the way. But is joining a writing group right for you?

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that can come with being in a good writing group. First of all, as mentioned above, there’s the chance to get feedback. Asking people what they think of your writing can be scary, especially when you’re not used to it, but a group where everyone is there for the same purpose and probably just as worried about what people will say as you are can be an ideal way to get started.

You can get used to having other people read your work, and receive different opinions about what you’ve written. You might use all of what they suggest, you might use some or you might use none of it, but whatever you decide to do, giving your work to someone else to read is a big step.

Another benefit of writing groups is that it also gives you the chance to offer feedback to others. It’s generally much easier to critique a piece of writing when it isn’t your own, and so looking at what other people have written and learning to offer constructive criticism can be a really good skill to learn. Over time, it can help you identify issues with your own writing that you need to address by teaching you how to appraise your work with a critic’s eye.

It can also make you more likely to write in the first place. I think it’s something common to most writers that we sometimes have a tendency to drift along without doing any actual writing, and so having goals each week/fortnight/month to complete for your next group meeting can be a good way to make yourself just sit and get things done. When you know you’re going to be disappointing someone other than just yourself if you don’t write, it’s a pretty good spur to get moving.

Then there’s the whole social side of things – writing can be quite a solitary thing, so the chance to go out and socialise yet still be productive is definitely welcome.

There are a couple of considerations to make when you’re thinking of joining a writing group. First, do you want to join an existing group or start your own? Either option can be good; it depends on what you prefer. Also, how many people do you want in your group? Having a few different people around is great as it means you get different opinions on your work, but bear in mind that when you’re giving feedback on everyone’s work, if your group is too large it might not be a very practical option. Small groups of 4 to 8 are quite common.

It’s also important that you feel you can trust the people in your group to read your work with an unbiased eye and offer you fair feedback – that they won’t just say “it’s great” or “I don’t like it” with no qualifications or explanation.

So, there are plenty of good reasons to join a writing group. Many writers do at some point, and if you think that joining or starting a group could improve your work, it’s definitely something worth thinking about.

11 Tips for Beating the Block

Whether you call it writer’s block, a lack of inspiration or just plain frustrating, there is no doubting that we all struggle with our writing from time to time. Getting stuck is part of the process, but there are plenty of things we can try to get back on track. Here are 11 ideas to help you beat the block.

Take a break

One option is to just accept that your writing isn’t working right at this moment and walk away for a while. Don’t make the break too long or else it could be even harder to get back into it, but sometimes a little bit of distance (even if it’s just going to make a cup of tea) works wonders.

Write something else

Writing things, especially when they are long things or things that take a long time, can get you bogged down. Write something else instead – it doesn’t really matter what, but you’ll feel good for actually doing some writing and it might help loosen you up for your main writing project.

Free writing/stream of consciousness writing

We’ve looked at the idea of free writing before on this blog. This is where you just sit and write for a period of time – what you write isn’t that important, but it can be a good way to work through thoughts and just see what happens.

Look out of the window

Ah, our old friend staring out of the window. It’s a popular activity for a reason, y’know. Let your mind wander and enjoy the view.

Summon determination

Of course, you could decide that you’re not going to give into The Block at all. Summon up all of your determination and just power through. What you write might turn out to be awful but hey, we’ve all been there and we’ve got to start somewhere.

Read a book, watch a film

Other people’s creativity can sometimes help us re-find our own. Read a book, watch a good film, don’t think about your novel while you’re reading/watching­ – unless, of course, inspiration suddenly strikes, in which case: mission accomplished.

Turn off the word count

The word count tool can be the bane of a writer’s life. Even when we know our word count isn’t important, we still sit and stare and it, willing it to increase. Turning it off if at all possible can help to remove some of the pressure. Alternatively, switch from writing on the computer to writing by hand. And write big, so you can feel accomplished by filling up lots of pages.

Develop a (writing) habit

Probably one of the best ways to beat writer’s block is to get into a habit of writing. It takes time to develop a habit, so you’ll need some willpower, but even setting aside twenty minutes or half an hour a day where you just sit down and write can help. If you know that you’re going to be writing at X O’clock no matter what, it could well help get your brain into gear.

Exercise

A lot of people say that physical exercise helps; the space to do something else while still having the mental space to think about your writing if you want to is useful when you’re feeling stuck.

Bribe yourself

Sometimes, you just need a bribe to get your writing done. Tell yourself you’ll write for fifteen minutes and then – and only then – can you eat that yummy biscuit. The combination of the goal plus the treat at the end is a good way of focusing your mind.

Go to bed

Finally, if you’re stuck and it’s late and you’re just getting nowhere, go to bed. Don’t worry about it for the rest of the night. Your writing will still be there tomorrow when you’re well rested. Sometimes there’s just no point in forcing it. Know when to step back and walk away for a while. A good night’s sleep can be a wonderful healer.

Crime Fiction – variations on a theme

We’ve looked before in this blog at reasons why crime fiction is so popular – why we like to read it and why we keep on going back for more. Today, our topic is the sheer variety of crime fiction that is available out there, which surely has to be at least one of the reasons we all like it so much.

‘Crime’ as a genre is very broad. It covers everything from relatively cosy ‘whodunnit’ murder mysteries to horrendous serial killings to epics spanning decades in order to solve a single crime. It covers different countries and different continents. There is almost an endless number of variations and options for crime fiction writers.

One of the great things about that is it means that we never run out of stories. Another of the great things about it is that it means people who like somewhat different types of book can generally still find something to appeal to them in the crime genre. It means there is always something new to read.

One of the reasons I think all this works so well is that no matter where you live, no matter what language you read or write in, crime is something we all understand. Whether we’re talking about a lightly humorous caper or something much darker, crime is familiar to us all. We all know right from wrong, and we all know that sometimes the lines get a little blurry.

In a way, crime is a universal language, and I think – in amongst all that excellent choice and variety – that it is one of the reasons we keep reading these books. It doesn’t matter whether you’re reading a Scandinavian thriller or a mystery set in suburban England, you can take a look at the crime and think ‘yeah, that means something to me.’

That familiarity, even if we have no direct experience of crime ourselves, acts a sort of foundation to support all of those variations on a theme. Crime is of course terrible, but it is something that is present in every society, and crime novels provide an interesting way of examining issues related to that. And since everyone’s experience is unique and we all have different views on things, it means we’ll never run out of variations.

What do you think? Do you like the variety available in crime fiction or do you tend to stick a particular sort of crime novel?

Why staring out of the window is good for writers

It is a truth very widely acknowledged that writers spend quite a lot of time staring out of windows. Of course, staring out of windows isn’t all that we do. We also stare at walls, play with the cat when we should be working, drink a lot of tea/coffee/other forms of caffeine and often keep odd hours. But staring out of the window is noted as one of our prime ‘should be writing but I’m actually not’ activities.

There is a certain amount of guilt that goes with this. We know that we should be writing. We know that our novel isn’t going to write itself. We know that daydreaming about being an independent publishing sensation isn’t actually going to get us there. We know that we need to actually write some words. Yet still we sit and stare.

I think that this is actually good for us – and in fact that taking the time to stare out of the window is a form of productivity. Here’s why.

It can offer inspiration

Whether the view out of your window is of your back garden or the street, it can be a great source of inspiration. The view outside can give you ideas for places and people. You might only take the smallest amount of inspiration from what you see, and you might not even be aware that you have been inspired, but that could be all you need to push on with your novel.

It provides mental space

The above point, I think, is linked to the idea of mental space. Sometimes, we simply need to give ourselves a bit of breathing room. We need a break from staring at the same page of our manuscript and wondering why it just won’t work. Focusing solely on that doesn’t always provide the results that we want. Taking a bit of time to disconnect and let our minds drift and our gazes wander can be more useful that you imagine.

It’s a good distraction

Also, staring out of the window is, simply, a distraction. You might have a looming deadline and 1000 words left to write and a sense of panic setting in – but that panic can stop your brain from working as well as it can. You might be determined to fix that annoying scene in your novel tonight, and sitting and just looking out of the window might feel like a waste of time, but just that short break and chance to collect your thoughts can set you back on the right path.

One of the best things about window-staring is that no matter why you’re doing it, it’s a reminder that there is a world out there. Writing is quite a solitary occupation, and when you’re creating your own worlds and stories, it can be easy to get wrapped up in them, forgetting that sometimes, we need to engage with the world around us too. That world is where a lot of our stories come from in the first place. Spending a bit of time looking out at it is a good reminder of that.

What do you think? Staring out of the window – a waste of time or a worthwhile activity for writers?

Should you worry about choosing your genre?

Something that you definitely need to know as an independent publisher is what genre your book actually is. When it comes to publishing it, it certainly helps to be able to say ‘my book is a crime thriller’ or ‘it’s a supernatural romance medical suspense fantasy drama about cats’. It helps if only for the simple reason is that identifying your genre is not only a good way of working out where on Amazon it needs to go, but also because it helps you identify it to potential readers.

We all judge books by their genres, just as we judge them by their covers and descriptions and whether or not we like the title. Even when we tell ourselves that just because we tend not to like fantasy stories, that doesn’t mean we won’t like this one, we still end up judging it. The genre is a sort of broad guide that helps a reader work out whether it’s something that they might be interested in. Your book might fall across two or three different genres, but that’s okay.

But what about before you start to write your novel? Do you need to actively choose your genre before you start to write? I would say for most people, this probably isn’t an issue. The genre of your book will just be there, either because you’ve always known that you want to write a crime novel or because the plot you come up with automatically falls into a particular genre so you don’t need to make a choice.

I’d also suggest you shouldn’t force your book into any particular genre. There was a survey carried out recently of independent publishers, which found that those writers who self-publish romance novels tend to make more money than people who write in other genres. It’s not out of the question that that information would inspire someone to write try and write a romance novel – but writing a particular genre because you think it will sell better is probably not the way to go for most people.

After all, you need to believe in your book, and if you’re writing a particular genre because you think that’s what you should do, it’s unlikely that you’ll like what you’re doing as much as if you simply wrote the story you’ve always wanted to write – no matter what category it falls into.

It’s useful to know what your genre is at the end of the book, and it might even be helpful to have an idea of where it might fall right from the start, but I’d suggest that when you’re just starting out with the writing process, the important thing is the story itself. We have enough to worry about just getting the words onto the page without also panicking about whether we actually are writing a supernatural thriller or whether it’s something else. So don’t worry. The categorising bit comes later. For now just write your book – and enjoy it.

What not to do in detective fiction

There are very few things you shouldn’t do in detective fiction, if only because one of the best things about it is that it offers a great chance to explore just what you can do – the topics you can write about, how your characters behave, how well you can actually write. However, there are a couple of things it’s generally best to avoid doing when you’re writing a detective novel. Let’s take a look at what they are…

Don’t hide the clues so well they can’t be found

You want your novel to be interesting and, hopefully, for the outcome to be something of a surprise. However, your ending shouldn’t rely entirely on something that the reader has never heard about until those final pages. The clues should all be there along the way, however hidden, obscure or seemingly irrelevant they might be at the time, ready to be pulled together so that the crime can be solved. If they’re not, what was the rest of the story doing in the first place?

Don’t make it implausible

In a way, this relates to the above point. Your novel can be surprising and unexpected and tricky, but it needs to be plausible. At the beginning of the novel, the crime might seem impossible, but this is something that should be worked out by the end. The motives and actions of your character should also be believable, or else the reader will find it hard to buy into them.

Don’t make it obvious

It doesn’t really need to be said, does it? One of the great things about detective fiction is that it is often so unexpected and so clever, it keeps the reader guessing until the end. With this in mind, you should never make the plot too obvious. It can be good to create the odd situation where the reader is ahead of the detective, or to present the information in such a way that the reader thinks they’ve got it all figured out – but you shouldn’t leave it at that (or if you do, the book needs to have enough remaining meat to justify continuing once the big reveal has occurred). As readers, we like to be surprised, so it’s always wise to have at least one more trick up your sleeve to provide a final punch.

What do you think? Is there anything you think should be avoided in detective fiction or do you think anything goes, depending on the novel?

What makes good fiction?

Today our topic is another of those questions that has no definite answer but nonetheless raises an interesting point and has plenty of scope for discussion and debate. What makes ‘good’ fiction?

This question is made especially tricky by the fact that two people can have entirely different opinions on the same book. We all have different ideas of ‘good’. In some cases, we might be able to recognise the technical merit of a book, but still not enjoy it. In others, we might have to admit that a book isn’t the most technically brilliant ever written, but we still love it anyway.

Perhaps then, we can say that the first thing fiction requires to be good is a hook of some kind. We might not all agree that a specific book’s hook has us, well… hooked… but we can probably all agree that if we’re going to read and enjoy a book, we need something to get us interested in it. Which conveniently leads us onto all the other things a book needs to be ‘good’…

For instance, it needs decent characters. When we think about series of novels, often it is the characters that keep us going back for more – they’re a hook in themselves. We need our books to be populated by interesting, compelling characters. It doesn’t so much whether they’re ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but it does matter that we want to know more about them.

Likewise, it seems fairly safe to say that good fiction needs to have a plot that we want to read. Some books obviously contain more action than others, but the story needs to provide at least something that makes us want to read on until the end. And the ending is a factor in itself – I would wager that no matter how promising a book is at the start, if the ending is no good, it will ruin the whole thing for the reader. Good fiction needs to deliver.

Then there’s something that I suppose we could call the X factor. We’ve already seen that different people can have completely opposing opinions on a book, so in order for something to be good, it needs to have that certain something that just makes us think ‘yeah, I like this.’

We can’t always identify what it is, but that magic ingredient can be what it needs to take a book from an interesting read to one of our all-time favourites. I think some of this is down to the author’s style – we all have styles that we like to read, and I bet we can all think of at least one author who is generally considered to have an excellent style but who we just can’t get on with.

So maybe the answer to what constitutes ‘good’ fiction is actually very simple – we might not be able to define it properly, but good fiction is simply something that keeps us compelled from start to finish.

And on that somewhat inconclusive note… what do you think makes good fiction?