Ruth Harris's Blog, page 18

Cybermen, The Colorado Tragedy, and the Sociopath in the Comment Thread: Don't Add to the Crazy

We still know nothing of the motives of the demented gunman who perpetrated the horrors at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises on Thursday night—and my heart goes out to the victims of that tragedy.

But I think it’s important to note that earlier that day, the Rotten Tomatoes movie review site had to disable comments on the film The Dark Knight Rises because of death threats against movie reviewers who hadn’t loved the film.
Yeah. Death threats. Over reviews. People got so heated in the comment thread they were threatening to kill reviewers of a film they’d never even seen.
Mob behavior is always dangerous, but mobs form more easily out here in Cyberia. When they spill over into real life, real tragedy happens.
I’m not saying there was a cause and effect situation with the Rotten Tomato Dark Knight Rises death threats and the horrific event in Colorado, but in a larger sense they are linked. The guy didn’t choose to attack the audience at a screening of Magic Mike or Ted.
Violent acts are usually preceded by violent talk. And there’s an awful lot of it these days.
Since I’ve been urging new authors to become active in social media, I think it’s important to mention something about its perils. When I started interacting online a few years ago, I seriously didn’t have a clue about the evils that lurk in the dark corners of the Interwebz.  
They are many. With the anonymity afforded by the Webz, people say things they’d never say in person.  Especially if they’re using a “screen name” or posting as anonymice.  (Radio host Dave Congalton had a great discussion about the dangers of anonymous comments on his show on July 17th. You can listen to a podcast here.)
For some the Web is the opposite of “Cheers”—it’s a place where nobody knows your name. Anonymous posters may feel as if they’re wearing cloaks of invisibility, and can do whatever comes into their heads and never suffer consequences because its’ “not real.” (Another reason I urge writers to use their own names in all their online activity.)
Anonymous posters may perceive the others they interact with as “invisible” too—after all, a series of digits is not a person. They forget those digits represent actual human beings with real feelings.  
They can also represent real sociopaths.
In her bestselling self-help book, The Sociopath Next Door, Dr. Martha Stout says that one in every twenty-five people fits the DSM criteria for “anti-social disorder” –people defined as “sociopaths.”  These are people who have no conscience and no capacity for empathy.
That means in every comment thread or forum with more than twenty-five entries, a sociopath could be lurking. Your hyperbolic comment or snarky post may be taken literally by a demented person—which can lead to tragedy.  
So we need to weigh our words and check our facts just as carefully online as we do when we’re speaking in person.
Also, the anonymity of the Webz can make perfectly nice, sane people suspend their own empathy when they get riled into thinking they’re supporting a just cause, dissing a “public figure” and/or defending one of their own.
People will stop by a forum or a blog, let an incendiary remark spark their rage--and suddenly they’re part of an army of socipathic Cybermen bent on destroying everything in their path.
I’ve been swept up in some Cybermen armies myself, which I regret deeply. (For the non-Whovians out there, Cybermen are a fictional army of villainous cyborgs from the TV show Dr. Who.  They have human brains, but no emotions aside from the occasional bout of rage.) 
Some of my own Cyberperson behavior happened when I let myself go along with the crowd in a blog thread and didn’t check facts. Other times I got involved when I jumped in to defend someone.
Unfortunately, whatever our intentions, if we’re swimming in the cesspool, we’re part of the stink.
Sometime last year I saw a blogpost about an author who is one of my idols. He was accused of “unethical” behavior by a self-appointed group of amateur “literary police” who seem to be remarkably unschooled in the business of publishing. Dozens joined in the comment thread, each in higher dudgeon than the one before.
The result was a dogpile of stupid and nasty. A mass temper-tantrum. It made me furious. So I pounded off a comment to defend my hero.
Trouble was, I was so angry, I hit enter too soon and my comment sounded as if I was agreeing with the meanies.  
I got an email a moment later from my idol. It said “Et tu, Anne?”
I don’t know when I have felt like such a worm. I went back to the post and tried to clear up what I had said, but the damage was done. The classy writer forgave me, but I didn’t really forgive myself.
A few months later I personally became the target of the same literary Cybermen army. Their rage had been sparked by posts and tweets by a few people who misinterpreted one of my pieces on this blog.
I endured a similar dogpiling of hate and self-righteous rage—almost all anonymous.
Including actual death threats sent to my home by people who said they were "watching me" and "had a gun."
This week I was introduced to one of the bloggers who had dissed me. She had no inkling of the tsunami of crazy she had unleashed. She’d simply meant to be snarky and funny and had believed the voices of “righteousness” who accused me of some sort of deviousness I hardly understood.


UPDATE: here's an absolutely awesome graphic by author Dalya Moon in response to this post. Dalya, you're my hero!

It’s important to remember we judge others by what we know. A kind and truthful person expects kindness and truth from others; a manipulator sees deviousness behind every smile; and a sociopath will project the contents of his own damaged soul onto the entire population. That means when you habitually accuse others, you’re saying more about yourself than you are about the people you accuse.
Luckily the snarky blogger turned out to be a kind and truthful person who had expected her sources to be the same. She apologized sweetly and publicly and I’m sure we’re going to be friends.
But unfortunately, words can’t be unsaid. I have to stay away from the places where the anonymous Cybermen army lurks.  A lot of writers’ forums are off limits for me, because any mention of my name lets loose the verbal violence.
True sociopaths don’t mind being seen as evil—they’re usually pretty proud of it. But their Cybermen minions are convinced of their own righteousness, which justifies everything they do, no matter how cruel. They are not rational, so trying to reason with them is futile. They explode in rage when you show kindness to one of their victims or ask them to “have a heart”—because they don’t. They have disabled their own capacity for empathy.
I once saw a thread on a news story about a man who’d murdered his two year old baby in its crib. An anonymous commenter said it served the child right for not carrying a gun. Yeah. I wish I’d known how to do a screenshot then, because it was hard to believe my own eyes. I almost fired off a comment like “have you ever MET a two-year-old?” Until I realized either the guy was being ironic, or he was acting like a two-year old himself. And as any parent (or even an aunt) knows, you do not argue with a two year old. You give him a time-out.
That was when I stopped reading comments on news stories. It’s where the Cybermen live.
But if you’re dealing with social media, eventually you’re going to run into Cybermen, anonymous sociopaths, and even some armed two-year olds.
Here are two things to remember when you’re dealing with an Internet meme of “righteous rage”.
1) Never join in a brawl.
Joining in a barroom brawl just makes it bigger. Either you’ll appear to be joining in the attack on the victim, or you’ll be offering yourself as an even juicier target. (And the sheriff is going to haul the whole tootin' lot of you off to the hoosegow. Go watch some old Western movies.)
2) The old adage is right: “Never argue with a drunk or a fool.”  
Of course I have no idea if the people making death threats on Rotten Tomatoes—or the armed two-year-old—were consuming alcohol, but they were drunk: on rage. So are the Cybermen armies. Psychologists who specialize in anger management say that anger can flood the brain with endorphins very like the high of alcohol or cocaine. 

One in every 25 people may be a sociopath, but I’d say that here in Cyberia, even more than that will engage in sociopathic behavior. Certainly the people who attacked me (and my idol) didn’t show a shred of empathy.
I would urge everybody who interacts online to weigh your words as heavily as you would if speaking in person—because you’re closer to the “real world” than you think. 
And if you see a dogpile of crazy heaping on some designated victim—whether it’s a reviewer, fellow writer, or even someone who's "fair game" like a celebrity or a politician—take a deep breath, step away from the keyboard and repeat the Golden Rule. 
If you have turned into an empathy-free Cyberperson, and you don't believe that “others” deserve the same respect you want for yourself, get off the Internet. Go hang out with some real people in the real world. Or pet a real dog.
You aren’t actually a sociopath—remember? Your actions have consequences, even if you feel invisible.  
What happened on Thursday night shows that we live in a world full of unspeakable violence.
Don’t let yourself add to it, online or off.
I’d love to have you weigh in here, scriveners. Let’s try to keep political and incendiary statements out, lest we activate an army of sociopathic Cybermen
***
On a much happier note: I have a spectacular announcement.  On August 5th, we will have a very, very special guest on this blog.  Academy Award-nominated actor Terence Stamp, who is also a novelist and memoirist, will be here talking about his writing process and his new publishing company.
Yes, that Terence Stamp  You know how I’m always talking about the importance of Social Media? Well here’s an example. An iconic movie star has asked to visit the blog of little old moi because here in the e-age, blogs can be as important as The New York Times in reaching the public.
I'm talking about General ZodSee why you need to have a blog searchable by your own name, with your contact information displayed prominently?  


Also: I've been making a few little tweaks to the template here, since some readers have pointed out the font and links have been a little hard to read. So I changed fonts and darkened the link color. Let me know what you think!

Social Media vs. a New York Times Book Review Cover: Which Sells More Books?

Yesterday Catherine Ryan Hyde and I spoke with a wonderful bunch of eager authors at the Digital Authors Seminar in San Luis Obispo. They were full of lots of great questions, some of which I’ll address here on the blog in coming weeks.
We talked about the two events that have caused a seismic shift in the publishing business in the last four years: the introduction of the e-reader and the rise of social media as a marketing tool.
Amazon, Facebook and Twitter: love ’em or hate ’em, they have turned the creaky old publishing industry on its ear.
The way books are marketed has been revolutionized as much as their delivery system.
As publishing insider Alan Rinzler said, on his blog last summer: “That $50K space ad in the New York Times? Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother.”
Last week an article in Publishers Weekly backed up that statement with some hard evidence. They showed that even a favorable review on the cover of the NYT Book Review—one of the most coveted pieces of real estate in the publishing industry (and the object of most authors' most cherished fantasies) doesn’t do much to bump a book’s sales these days.
Most books they studied did double sales for a short time, usually not more than a week or two, and one quadrupled sales—but most didn’t show more than a modest influence.
And when I say modest, I mean just that. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times featured on the May 27th cover, had sold 52 copies the week before. With the NYT cover bump, it sold 134. That’s right: scoring a review on the cover of the NYT Book Review netted a sales increase of 82 actual books.
So let’s compare that with the e-age way of marketing: using social media and free book giveaways on places like Smashwords and Amazon’s KDP Select.
Catherine Ryan Hyde recently self-published her novels When I Found You and Don’t Let Me Go and put them into KDP Select.
For the uninitiated: KDP Select is a program on Amazon that allows members to borrow the book free and any customer to download the book free during 5 days in every 90-day period. (Authors are paid for downloads by members, but not for the general-public freebie days.)
Why do authors want to give their ebooks away free? Because it’s the best possible advertising (as long as you have a great product) and it costs nothing. Zip Zilch Nada.
Why doesn’t everybody do it? There’s one big obstacle. In order to put a book into KDP Select program, you have to give Amazon exclusive rights to sell that ebook. No B&N. No Smashwords. No Kobo. Not even sales from your own site.
OK, so back to Catherine. In the week before its freebie days, When I Found You was selling “in the tens” per month. After it zoomed to #1 on its free days, it continued to sell thousands.
Within a week, Catherine had earned enough on that book alone to buy a car. (A very nice car. A Lexus.  I got to ride in it yesterday.)
Then let’s look at Ms. Hochschild, with her coveted NYT real estate.  On a trad. pub royalty of 17% or so on 82 units, Ms. Hochschild could barely buy a set of Hot Wheels. (Not to criticize her book. It looks brilliant.)
So e-age marketing wins over the New York Times Book Review cover. (Aside from having something suitable for framing for your Mom.)
But: it’s important to note that Catherine couldn’t have achieved her success with a giveaway alone. An author can offer any number of free books, but if nobody knows they exist, nobody will download them.
That’s why your social media presence is so important. By the time you have a book to sell/give away, you need to have a network in place that can spread the word to thousands.
When Catherine’s second self-pubbed book, Don’t Let Me Go went free last weekend, Catherine tweeted it to her 1150 followers. Since I’m one of them, I retweeted to my 3200 followers. Two followers even thanked me—and because most people don’t thank for tweets—I assume many more downloaded it. I also assume they went on to broadcast the news to all their Tweeple.
This is why Twitter is probably your most important marketing tool. But you have to get that network established long before your book comes out. One of the best ways to do that is to tweet links to things that your readers might be interested in. Write sci-fi? Tweet links to trailers of new sci-fi films, sci-fi bloggers, etc. Write cookbooks? Tweet links to great recipes--not all your own. :-) Write women’s fiction? Tweet everything Jennifer Weiner says about valuing the genre. 
The point is to have people in place who have a habit on clicking on your links for good content. Not just your own stuff.
Catherine also did a Facebook promotion coordinated by an outfit called Shindig: a two-hour chat that fans could attend for free. It was a rousing success—and Don’t Let Me Go shot to #1 in the whole Kindle Store and stayed there for three days. It’s now selling better than any of her other books.
This is why you need a social media presence.  Yes, even if you do get that NYT review.
I’m aware that people in the know will say the freebie days on Amazon are not working as well as they used to—and may soon not work at all. The Amazon algorithms changed again recently, and the freebie bounce in real sales isn’t as high as it used to be. There’s also the serious drawback of the exclusivity demanded by Amazon to enroll in the KDP Select program that allows the free days.
But no matter what new promo comes up next, chances are pretty certain you’ll only be able to utilize it if you already have a social media platform. Just going on Twitter two weeks before launch and saying “buy my book” (Or worse, hiring somebody to tweet it for you) isn’t going to cut it.
You need to have a network in place. That’s why you want to start now. You don’t necessarily have to Tweet or be on Facebook (Although FB is kind of like the Yellow Pages these days. It’s where people will look for you first, so it’s usually worth it to have at least a “like” page.)
But you can grow your network anywhere: LinkedIn, Goodreads, RedRoom, Pinterest or Tumblr. Or Vlog on You Tube. Find one that works for you and then start making friends.  Don’t spread yourself too thin by going on all of them. Check them out and then linger in places where you find kindred spirits.
Yes. Kindred spirits. People you like. Social media is social. So be sociable. It’s like being at a party. Don’t brag or talk about yourself or beat your chest and bellow. Talk about shared interests.  Like what books you like to read. What music you like. Your obsession with Dr. Who.
So, even if you're a romance writer, don't just talk romance writing. Instead, you might start exchanging Dr. Who lore with a bunch of people on RedRoom, and pretty soon you’ll find a Whovian who also likes romance. Voila—a potential reader. And yes, it’s possible to relate hot romance with Dr. Who. Here’s a great post at Passionate Reads from Marilyn Campbell.
What about your blog? That’s social media, right? If you have a blog is it OK if you’re not on other social media?
Sure. As long as you use that blog to network—going to other blogs and commenting and making friends. Just sitting there in your lair writing about your book and attracting three hits a month isn’t going to help sell your book. For info on how to start an author blog, see my blogpost on How Not to Blog, or read my How to Blog series in the book I’ve written with Catherine, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE.
Reminder: I strongly urge new and unpublished writers NOT to blog their WIP or post excerpts from an unpublished piece! That’s giving away your first rights and will limit your book’s publishability. It’s OK to blog about writing some of the time when you’re starting out--that’s a way to make friends with other writers and people in the industry. I know a number of authors who found their agents or publishers from recommendations from other writers they met through their blogs.
And I think I should mention this in every post, because about 90% of unpublished writers do this. Don’t forget to post an “about me” page that contains your CONTACT INFORMATION. Without a bio your blog is useless. For help on writing your author bio, read my post on Write Your Author Bio Now.
But blog about other things besides writing. Interview published authors. Review books or movies in your genre. Or network with other Whovians and blog about why the tenth Doctor is by far the best. (OK, I have a fondness for Eccleston, as well.)
Personally, I think a blog is a huge asset for a writer, because it allows you to have a flexible online home base where people can always find you and communicate. Whether it’s an agent who’s trying to decide whether to request your manuscript, a fellow writer who wants to respond to a comment you left on another blog, or a reader who loved your new book, a blog is useful at any stage of your career.
But the main purpose of whatever form of social media you choose is interaction. You need to communicate with other people. Otherwise, you might as well be sitting in your basement holding a sign. No matter how brilliant and beautiful the sign, it doesn’t do any good if nobody sees it. You’ll be wasting your time--and you'll be stuck in reruns of that fantasy where you land the cover of the NYT Book Review.
Which will probably only sell 82 books.
What about you, Scriveners? Do you have hot fantasies about the NYT Book Review? What form of social media works best for you? ***
FREE July 15th and 16th!!
And now—ta-da! Speaking of KDP Select freebie days on Amazon, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY written by Catherine Ryan Hyde and yours truly is FREE FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS ON AMAZON. That’s right.
You can download it here right now ABSOLUTELY FREE!! And here if you’re in the UK
If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a FREE app for your computer, phone or tablet RIGHT THERE ON THE AMAZON BUY PAGE. And if you have a NOOK here’s how to download an app so you can get free Kindle books to download to your NOOK. If you are living in a country where you have no access to Amazon, please contact our publisher markwilliamsauthor (at) gmail  (dot) com. 

And remember, this ebook comes with free updates every six months! As of this writing, it's #1 in Writing Skills and closing in on #500 in the free Kindle Store.
And for you die-hard treeware lovers, the paper book is coming! A little slower than we hoped, but it is in the proofing process. 

Tor those of you who signed up early for our mailing list, we promised we would award a copy of a signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD to one lucky winner today.


So the winner, chosen by the random number generator at random.org is CORA RAMOS!!! Congratulations, Cora!

Bad Reviews—Six Reasons to Be Glad You Have Them

"What? Glad?" sez you. "There is nothing that makes a writer sadder than a bad review!"

That's true. They can feel like a sudden, nasty downpour on the biggest parade of your life.

Whether you self-pubbed or worked with a traditional publisher, the publication of your first book is a moment of personal triumph. You want to shout it from the rooftops: “HEY WORLD, LOOK WHAT I DID! I AM AN EFFING AUTHOR, PEOPLE!!”
And your book starts to climb up the charts. Wow. People are buying it. People you aren’t even related to!
Reviews start coming in. People like you. They really like you!!
But then…somebody doesn’t.
There it is, your first bad review, sitting there on Amazon or B&N or Goodreads, with its puny single star.
You feel like your head is going to explode. You’re not sure what will come out when it does--curses or tears--but it will probably be both. You want to fire off a response, saying what a moron the reviewer is because—well, first off—it’s not a zombie book. That’s why there are no effing zombies, OK??!! Don’t give me two stars because there are no zombies in my heartfelt story of a woman’s journey healing from her addiction to Hugh Grant movies, OK? And you say it’s too short? Almost like a novella? That’s because it IS a novella, you cretinous worm from Hell. It says so RIGHT THERE in the product information.
But of course you don’t write that down. That would be professional suicide. You know that.
You step away from the keyboard. You call your BFF/Sig. Other. You reach in the cupboard for your chocolate stash and eat a whole Lindor truffle bar while your BFF/Sig. Other is reciting platitudes about how you can’t please all the people all of the time and this too shall pass. 
You hang up and get in the car. It’s Haagen Dazs time. And yes, you go to the store and rent “Notting Hill” one more time.
OK, it’s good to mourn. You need to get that stuff out of your system. If you live near a place where it’s safe to throw things, go do that. I find throwing rocks at the ocean surprisingly satisfying.
But you do have to face that computer sometime, and when you do, it’s still there, those three nasty sentences that stink up your whole Amazon page like somebody’s poodle took a dump on your life-is-a-banquet buffet table.
Your career is over. It’s ruined. Nobody will ever buy your book again!!
Not true.
Quite the contrary, in fact. Bad reviews can actually be good for sales.
How?
1) They show you’ve joined the big leagues. 
All popular writers get bad reviews. Just go to any bestseller’s buy page.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone “nothing more than a shallow tale about a misfit who makes good.”
The Hunger Games  “semi-familiar plot, predictable ending, eh not worth my time.”
The DaVinci Code “Highs: the French sentences are correctly spelled. Lows: everything else.”
Freedom “I started to dog-ear pages on which cringeworthy prose appeared, and I did damage to 90 percent of the book.” 
Or even better, the classics.
Gone with the Wind “I use to feel bad about Sherman burning Atlanta, but that was before I read this book." 

Pride and Prejudice “This is without question the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. The style is clumsy though the author strives to impress with an aristocratic pompousness so typical of social climbers of her day.”
The Great Gatsby “this book is twilight without the vampires, which by the way is an equally horrendous affront to intelligent readers…I don't need a book about stupid rich people.”
Great Expectations “a shapeless mess of a story…presented in the most abrasive fashion possible.”
(I especially love the irony of that uber-clumsy sentence about Jane Austen, don’t you? I think there is a good deal of what shrinks call "projection" in negative reviews. Some wannabe writers seem to see their own faults in everybody else's prose.)
2) They prove your reviews are genuine. 
It’s no secret that some authors game the system by trading reviews or even buying them from unscrupulous review mills. Or they pressure everybody in their church Ladies’ Auxiliary to write versions of the same exclamation-laden rave.
BTW, I hear Amazon elves are making a sweep and removing lots of suspect reviews. Unfortunately, some legitimate reviews have been removed too. Be careful you follow Amazon’s guidelines to the letter. NOTE: don’t repeat a phrase from another review or the product description or you can get flagged as a phony reviewer even when you’re not.
The truth is most successful books do not have a full five-star rating. When readers see a page with nothing but five stars these days, they tend to feel skeptical.
3) They demonstrate what your book ISN’T. 
Knowing what your book is NOT can be as useful to a reader as showing what it is.  Sometimes a negative review comes from a person who got the wrong idea of your genre or subgenre. So the review will steer readers from buying the wrong book and generating more irate reviews. (One bad review hurts our feelings, but a whole bunch can seriously hurt sales.)
I had one reviewer call my rom-com thriller Food of Love “rubbish”, because, she said, “I read lots of lesbian romance and this was the worst I ever read.”
Well…yeah it probably was. That’s because it’s not a romance. And it’s not about lesbians.
All my work has strong, sympathetic GLBT characters, but anybody looking for hot girl-on-girl action is going to be seriously disappointed. So thank you, “rubbish” reviewer, for setting people straight (no pun intended.) Whoever told her FoL was a lesbian romance was misinformed—so I’m happy she’s cleared that up.
Another author I know got a one-star for her historical mystery because somebody ordered it thinking it was how-two book about medieval embroidery. OK, the one-star is a pain, but better than a whole bunch of one-stars from dozens of irate embroiderers.
4) They help you target your demographic. 
A review that tells readers what group doesn’t like your book can actually encourage the right readers to buy.
I read a complaint from an author who said she got two stars from a reviewer “because the characters engage in pre-marital sex”. 
Oooooh. There’s sex in it?  So you’ve been identified as a writer who does not write for evangelical Christians who wear promise rings.
That shows you DO write for readers who like a little steam in their lattes. In a world where 50 Shades of Gray is the number one bestseller, that hurts you how?
I had a similar experience with a reviewer who said my mystery Ghostwriters in the Sky was “too complicated.” He said he “couldn’t tell who the bad guys were until the last page.”
Thank you! That tells readers who like a complex, unpredictable mystery they’re in the right place.
5) They rally the troops.
If an author is unfairly reviewed or attacked by trolls, the fans will be outraged, too. It might even get them to write that review they’ve been meaning to write forever. (If you need more encouragement to review your favorite authors, read my post on Amazon reviews here.)
I haven’t had a lot of time to read (or write reviews) during this marathon year, but one book I loved was Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. When I put it on my Goodreads page, I noticed a lot of clueless one-star reviews, obviously from people who didn’t realize it was about a minimally-produced record album like the Beatles’ famous “Let it Be…Naked”—and NOT about a lady with no clothes on. I made the time to write a review I probably would never have written otherwise. I hope I steered some of the right readers to the book.
Or there was the time I went to check out a new book mentioned in a Tweet and saw it had ten reviews already: all one-star—all attacking the author personally, saying nothing about the book.
It was an obvious example of cyberbullying. (For more on dealing with bullying in the trollosphere, Kristin Lamb has a fantastic post this week.)
Do you think I bought the book and, after enjoying it, gave it a good review? You betcha! (I also hit the "report abuse" button.) Plus I tweeted it to my followers and wrote an encouraging message to the author. Most humans are moved when we see a fellow human being persecuted.
6) They tell you what readers want 
Elizabeth S. Craig has blogged about how she learns from her negative reviews, and she displays a healthy, professional attitude we all should learn to emulate. You can learn a lot from your readers, who will let you know if they were angry when you killed off Aunt Millie, or didn’t like it when your romantic interest turned into Snidely Whiplash in your last book.
And believe me, if you have any typos, or your work needs editing, they’ll let you know about that, too.

On the other hand—make sure you’re reacting to a majority opinion and not just a handful of people in a bad mood. You don’t want reviewers to change your voice or artistic vision any more than you want your critique group to do that. 

In spite of all this, I do realize some reviews can be spiteful and useless.
Some of those may have been purchased. There are services that offer to leave bad reviews to bump authors ahead of you off the Amazon bestseller lists. (I’ve personally seen review mill sites, but they move around, so I don’t have a link right now.) On the plus side, their mostly illiterate “reviews” get taken down quickly. Amazon is on to them and will remove the review if you report abuse.  
Then there is the segment of the population who invent reasons to criticize and find fault with everything because they get off on it—especially if they can work themselves up into a self-righteous rage to justify their cruelty. Rage can produce a high very like cocaine. (See my post on Trolls, Sockpuppets and Cyberbullies.)
Unfortunately the anonymity of the Internet is where they thrive.
I’ve observed that freebie books tend to get the most troll attacks. That’s partly because people devalue things they don’t pay for, partly because they’ll download free books in genres they don’t usually read, and also because a lot of people simply hate self-publishing (change is scary).

Some people assume all freebie books are self-published—they’re not, but nobody is accusing these people of being rocket scientists.
You can usually tell a troll attack from an honest review. Trolls make it pretty obvious they haven’t read the book and use generic phrases—usually including “riddled with typos” and “obviously in need of an editor” even when they’re reviewing Jane Austen. They often dump lots of identical one- and two-stars all over Amazon. 
This is why Amazon has that “report abuse” button. (But never use it for an honest negative review.)
Sometimes a reader can leave a negative review because of something that has nothing to do with the quality of your book. Maybe your protagonist has the same name as the guy who just dumped her, or her own novel just got rejected by an agent who sat on the full for 18 months, or his mom just told him he he’s got to move out of the basement, and at 42, he really ought to find full time employment since he’s been working on that novel for 13 years now...
They aren't "abuse" in the Amazon sense, but do remember those rants aren’t reviews of your book. They’re verbal temper tantrums--the result of somebody having a bad day—or a bad life. You just happened to be in the line of fire. Smart readers can usually tell when the review is about the reviewer's issues, not the book. 
And chocolate helps. Or throwing rocks at the ocean.  Or maybe even watching a Hugh Grant movie.

What about you, scriveners? Have you seen clueless reviews of your favorite authors? Have you started to get bad reviews yet? Do you have any advice on how to cope with them? ***
I have a bit of sad news this week. My US publisher, Popcorn Press, has closed its doors. But they have been incredibly gracious about handing all the files to me so I can re-publish with MWiDP. Thanks, Les—you’re a meticulous editor and fantastic book designer. And Kate—your covers are fabulous! Popcorn started as a poetry press and may be reborn as a poetry-only publisher some time in the future.
FOOD OF LOVE is now live under the MWiDP imprint on Amazon US and Amazon UK as well as Barnes and Noble. THE BEST REVENGE should be up there by tomorrow. The one downside is that I’ve lost my Amazon rankings, so FOOD OF LOVE, which had been on the bestseller list for romcoms in the UK since December has lost its status. A few “likes” and tags would be helpful, if you have the time. 

And YES, MWiDP will be re-publishing the Popcorn books in paper, AND, my other three mysteries should all be available in paper in the next few months. Yay treeware!***
And don't forget the Digital Age Authors Intensive on July 14th!

You can learn all about how to be a writer in the digital age from iconic author Catherine Ryan Hyde and author, screenwriter, and radio personality Dave Congalton, as well as tech wizards, marketing specialists...and me. So if you're going to be on the Central Coast of California next weekend, don't miss this. There are still a few places available. Go here to register. 
And thanks to all of you who bought HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE last week and pushed us up the writing guide bestseller list into the top 20--ahead of the new Kindle edition of Strunk and White! 

What if Hollywood Rewrites Your Book? Survival Tips from Catherine Ryan Hyde

First: The big day has arrived!The ebook version of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…And Keep Your E-Sanity which I wrote with my mentor Catherine Ryan Hyde is now available on Amazon from MWiDP. For a limited time, the e-book price will be $2.99 in the US and roughly the equivalent in the UK. (This book is for writers all over the world, not just the US, and we had a Brit for an editor—thanks Mark!--who steered us from the usual America-centric advice.) 


Why did we write this book, when there are already so many writing books out there? 
Because this one is different: It isn’t a book about how to write, although we’ve got some great tips for self-editing and how to construct an opener that will grab readers and not let go. It’s also not a book on how to get published, although we have tons of info on how to find the right agent and how to write and format an e-query, as well as find publishers who don’t require an agent. It’s not a book on how to self-publish, although we provide the information to help you do that and decide if that’s the route you want to take. It’s not a book about building platform, although it includes my whole step-by-step “how to blog” series and tons of info on how to use Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest and other social media sites to establish your author presence on the Web before you take the publishing plunge.
It IS a book about how to BE a writer. How to take care of yourself and avoid getting scammed; how to make sense of criticism; how to build platform without giving up too much of your writing time--and a whole lot more about how to navigate the treacherous waters of today's fast-changing publishing business.
Plus, when you buy the ebook now, you can sign up for FREE updates, which will be issued every six months—since half of what we say today may not be true by then.
You can win a free copy of the ebook of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE if you comment on my post over at Meghan Ward's blog, Writerland before 9 PM Pacific time on Monday July 2nd. 

Catherine had the life-changing experience of seeing her novel PAY IT FORWARD made into a major motion picture. The only problem: the screenplay made major changes to the story and characters. Like, for instance the powerful African-American hero became a wimpy white guy. The setting was changed from small town California to Las Vegas, and most of the characters were eliminated.
So Catherine is going to tell us what to do when your dream comes true…and turns into a nightmare. We all dream of our books becoming Hollywood films, don’t we? I'm sure you've done some fantasy casting in your head. Come on, admit it. I sure have.
But what do you do if they cast Danny DeVito as your hero instead of Johnny Depp? Move the setting from post-apocalyptic Detroit to Beverly Hills? And they want Eddie Murphy to play the Betty White part in a fat suit?
Catherine has the answers. Read on…

The drawing for the signed first edition of PAY IT FORWARD will be held at the launch of the paper edition of the book. You can still enter by signing up for our mailing list, either by leaving your email address in the comments or emailing me here .
What to Do when Hollywood Rewrites Your Book: How to Survive a Writer’s Most Desirable Problemby Catherine Ryan Hyde
A big screen adaptation of your novel.
It IS possible. Likely, no. But possible.
If your book takes off and enjoys great sales, a big film company might step up and ask to option the rights. Which does not mean the movie will ever come to a theater near you.
Hundreds of properties are optioned yearly for every film that’s released. But it happens.
If you’re wondering how to make this happen, I’m sorry to say I’m not sure you can. It’s a bit like being struck by lightning (and often similarly painful). Lightning strikes happen to hundreds of people every year. And yet, if you’re looking for such an experience (you’re not, but go with me on this tortured simile) there’s no special path to finding it. My only advice is to stand outside in a lot of rainstorms. Lightning rarely strikes those sitting inside by their comfortable wood fires.
Maybe you have a film agent, or your literary agent has a subagent for film. And said agent is shopping it around. Good. That’s the equivalent of standing outside in a storm. Now all you need is a whole universe full of luck.
And then, in most cases, somewhere in the adaptation process, authors begin to wonder just how lucky they really are.
My novel Pay It Forward was adapted for film. I am commonly asked what I think of the movie version. My answer is always the same.
“I thought the book was better.”
Then again, I would, wouldn’t I?
When I say that, just about everybody says the same thing: "Oh, the book is always better than the movie." Which leads me to wonder why, as a society in general, we see so many movies and read so few books. But that’s another rant for another text.
I have theories as to why the book is always better.
Theory #1: The author is not a person responsible for recovering an investor’s fifty million dollars (or hundred million these days), and so spends less time second-guessing him- or herself. (Isn’t it nice to know there’s somebody on the planet doing more second-guessing than the writer?)
Theory #2: Most books have only one author. A Hollywood movie is like the textbook definition of too many cooks in the kitchen.
Theory #3: People don’t seem to realize that Hollywood will make whatever kind of movies we will support, and that we "vote" with our box office dollars.
If I had singlehandedly made the movie Pay It Forward:The world would actually have changed at the end; Reuben St. Clair, my African-American Viet Nam vet protagonist would have appeared in said film (Eugene who?); All the gay, transgender, physically large, or minority characters would not have turned thin, white and straight, or disappeared entirely (ah, Hollywood is a magical place!); I would have made sure that the only black and (arguably) Hispanic characters left were not gang-bangers and knife-wielding thugs. 
Ah, you say. But it will be different with me. Because I will retain control.
Really? You think you can control a Hollywood film?
I’m not so sure.
First of all, if you’re not J.K. Rowling, attaching script approval might very well relegate your project to a shelf forever. But let’s say your work is hot, and you get what you want: script approval, or even collaboration on the screenplay.
Screenwriters do not control Hollywood films.
The director leaves fingerprints on it, calling it “A Fill-in-the-name-of-the-big-director Film” and making insane choices based on ego to prove it.
The actors come in with “script notes” (i.e., I just can’t see my character saying that). The bigger the actor, the harder it is for anyone to say no to the often rotten ideas.
New writers can be brought in to make new changes. Even if you could conquer those forces, a film editor can completely transform the feel of a film in post production. For better or for worse.
No matter what it says in your contract, a film is going to be out of the novelist’s control. So, if I had it to do over again, would I still sell them the rights?
You bet I would. In a Hollywood minute.
Let’s face it. This is what you call a high-end problem.
I know other fortunate writers will face similar happy disasters (I want to go on record as saying I wish this problem on each and every person reading this) so I’ll offer some tidbits of advice for the adaptation experience.
1) A useful mantra: "It’s not my hundred million dollars."
2) A great quote from Jacqueline Mitchard: "Where I come from, you can either take the money or you can moan about the process, but not both."  My advice? Take the money. Moaning is not all its cracked up to be.
3) Remind yourself that they are not, as people will suggest, "changing your book." Go back and read your book. You will find it blissfully unchanged. This is not your book, it’s their movie. Separate the two in your brain for purposes of continued sanity.
4) If your problems feel overwhelming, complain to your writer friends who are still struggling to get published. (Example: "Boo hoo. They cast Kevin Spacey in my movie instead of Denzel Washington.”) They will help you regain perspective. Trust me. They will.
Just promise me that you won’t be that writer who gets everything he or she ever wanted, and is still unhappy. A big screen adaptation is the brass ring. It boosts your name recognition (and I don’t mean boosts like a booster seat, I mean boosts like a booster rocket via NASA) and sells more books. That title, plus your backlist if you have one, plus every other book you’ll ever write.
And let’s say they make a bad film. I mean a really bad film. Not like Pay It Forward, which I think of as a flawed film. I mean hold-the-nose-and-ask-for-your-ticket-price-back crappy. Then what will people say? 
They’ll say, “Oh, don’t even bother with the movie. The movie sucks. Read the book. The book is much better.” 
And this hurts the writer how?
Once Hollywood comes calling for your book, nothing they can do to it will ever be as bad, in my opinion, as the hurt caused when they don’t.
There are some very well-known writers who simply refuse to option their work for film because they know Hollywood is going to ruin it, and they know it’s going to hurt when they do. I’d advise you not to be one of them. This is the kind of pain we should all be happy to dive into. Put on your best grown-up suit and be prepared to let go.
As my old mentor Jean Brody used to say, “We should all have such problems!”
What about you scriveners? Have you cast all the major parts in your book with Hollywood actors? Have you dreamed of getting nominated for an academy award for the screenplay? And come on, haven’t you--at least once--rehearsed what you’re going to say when you get that Oscar? Are you going to go out and read the actual Pay It Forward now you know how different it is from the Kevin Spacey movie?
***
Catherine Ryan Hyde has two new books this week. Not only our joint effort, but her heartbreaking, funny, and life-affirming  novel, DON’T LET ME GO, formerly only available in the UK. It's now available in ebook and paper at Amazon.com. Yesterday it hit #1 in Kindle books!


And if you live on the Central Coast of California, you can meet and learn from Catherine in person. She and I are giving a seminar in San Luis Obispo on July 14th on How to Be a Writer in the E-Age. (Isn't Bastille Day a perfect day to liberate yourself from the old publishing ways?) No matter what your level of writing expertise, we have information that will help you on your publishing journey, from how to write an e-query to how to deal with bad reviews. More info at Digital Age Authors. It's going to be a fun, positive learning experience!


If you want to hear a podcast of an interview with Catherine and me on the Dave Congalton show, you can hear it in the archives at KVEC for June 28th.

11 REASONS WRITERS GET REJECTED—AND WHY ONLY 3 OF THEM MATTER

by Ruth Harris

I‘m a TradPubbed NYT bestselling author gone indie. I was also an editor for over 20 years (Macmillan, Bantam, Dell) and the Publisher of Kensington—so let me put rejection into a little perspective.

Let’s be clear: Manuscripts get rejected; not writers. Trust me. (Most of the time) it’s not personal. Let me count the ways.

1. THE BASICS: The reasons for rejection start with the basics, i.e. the ms. sucks. Author can't format/spell/doesn’t know grammar, is clueless about characterization, plotting and pacing.

Maybe, though, it's not that bad and with competent editing, it's publishable. But the days of Maxwell Perkins are long gone. These days, staff editors don't have the time and sometimes not even the necessary skills.

If you need an editor, hire one.

2. WILDLIFE INFESTATION: Occasionally, other hazards present themselves. Way back when I was a child working at Bantam, a would-be author showed up at the office, ms. box in hand.

As the least important, most expendable (what if this guy turns out to be a nut & has a gun?) warm body on the staff, I was sent out to Reception to find out what he was offering. Shook hands, introduced myself, he yackety-yacked, blabbity-blabbed about his masterpiece.

Then he opened the ms. box and a cockroach jumped out. True story. Ms. rejected. Politely, I’m pleased to say.

3. WOW, BULL’S EYE: Timely subject, credible characters, good plot, well-executed pacing. Lots of us really like it BUT...

Here’s only a partial list of the buts:

4. OVERLOAD: We have too many thrillers, Regency romances, zombie epics etc. already. We need to trim the inventory so right now we’re not buying any of your particular genre. Sorry. Right now it doesn’t fit our needs.

5. PMS/LOW TESTOSTERONE: The boss (or my secretary or DH or teen-aged kid) is giving me or the editor-in-question a hard time today & I'm/he/she is in such a lousy mood we'd turn down War & Peace. So fuddgetaboutit. You’re Tolstoy? Tough. You’re toast.

6. CAN’T SELL ICE TO ESKIMOS: The sales dept just informed us that books about trans-gendered pigmy werewolves in Lower Slobovia aren't selling the way they used to so we’re not going to make an offer for your (well-written, scary, hilarious, fabulous) novel about trans-gendered pigmy werewolves in Lower Slobovia. Sorry. Right now it doesn’t fit our needs.

Africa. An Orphan. A love story. 7. SOMEONE YOU NEVER HEARD OF HATES IT: The boss (or his/her wife/husband/best friend/shrink/third cousin) hates (insert genre) so be glad your ms. got turned down because even if we bought it, it would be published badly.

Very badly. You’ll get a crappy cover, miniscule print run, zero advertising, promotion or publicity, positioning spine-out on a top shelf in the poorly-lit back of the unventilated, un-airconditioned third floor next to the men's room. You won’t be able to find your own book. Not even with a state-of-the-art GPS.

Your book is guaranteed to be a floperoo. You’ll be miserable and you’ll blame us and you’d be right.

So frame your rejection letter & be happy.

8. CASH CRUNCH: Of course we’re never going to admit it but the company’s in trouble, maybe even on the verge of bankruptcy & we’re not buying anything. Nada. Not right now and not for the foreseeable future. Not until/unless said crunch passes and the money’s flowing again.

Bottom line: you don’t know it and you never will but your timing sucks. Not your fault.

9. CORPORATE CANOODLING: A major “reorganization” has taken place. The decision has come down from somewhere Up There in Corporate and half the staff (at least) has been fired.

A new regime is hired & they hate all the genres & authors the previous regime loved. The new regime wants to prove that their predecessors were stupid, incompetent and a toxic blight to literacy and that they are going to turn the company around by doing exactly the opposite.

Not your fault, has absolutely nothing to do with you or your ms. but your ms. is going to get turned down.

10. OOPS: Plenty of times editors and publishers are just plain wrong...zillions of examples of that all over the place from J.K. Rowling to Steven King. We turned down your ms.? Maybe we made a mistake. We’ve made plenty of misjudgments in the past and we’ll make plenty more in the future and we know it. Turning down the ms. that becomes a hot bestseller is an occupational hazard. We don’t like it any more than you do but it’s a fact.

11. WE HATE YOU: Once in a while, it is actually personal. We’ve published you before or a friend at another publisher has and we know from experience (or the grapevine) that you’re a whiny, demanding, narcissistic, high-maintenance PITA. No one wants to take your phone calls and everyone who’s had the misfortune of working with you hates you.

We’ve had it with you and your diva-like tantrums and we’re never, ever, ever going to publish another book of yours again.

Except, of course, if you’re making us a boatload of money. Even then, we still hate you and we’ll tell everyone (off the record, of course) that your books “aren’t as good/aren’t selling as well as they used to.” Payback is a bitch.

Just like a lot of things, rejection isn’t always what it seems to be and writers need to put that stack of rejection letters into perspective. Self-published novelist Tracey Garvis Graves, whose debut romance, ON THE ISLAND, was rejected by fourteen literary agents, just signed a two-book deal with Penguin Group's Plume imprint for "seven figures, a good seven figures." We’re talking OVER A MILLION DOLLARS for a book no one wanted.

I once got a form rejection letter for HUSBANDS AND LOVERS while it was on the NYT bestseller list.

No kidding.

Who knows why? I don’t and never will. My agent and I laughed our asses off and I went back to my computer and continued working on my next book.

You should do the same.

EXCEPT if you’re being rejected because your manuscript sucks (#1)—or your behavior does (#11) ...oh yes, and absolutely, positively check for wildlife before submitting (#3). 

In the first case, re-read & re-write with a critical eye and/or hire an editor and pay attention to what s/he says. In the second case, remember the Golden Rule and Do Until Others As You Would LIke Them To Do Unto You. You know, just like your mother said…and maybe get out the Roach Motel?
***What about you, scriveners? Have you got a rejection you suspect was for one of these reasons? Have you got an outrageous rejection story to share? Does it help to know it’s not your book, it’s the editor’s hormonal imbalances?
Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD
HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which Anne wrote with her mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic PAY IT FORWARD, and 19 other published and forthcoming books) is coming out very soon! 
It contains Anne’s entire “how to blog for authors” series and a whole lot more stuff she’s discussed on this blog and elsewhere, plus wisdom from Catherine’s popular workshops and seminars. It offers material you won’t find in any other writing book.
It’s not a book about how to write, but about how to be a writer. It’s about how to cope with the increasing pressure to do too much, and learn what advice to listen to, what’s best to ignore, and how to make the choices that are best for you personally and professionally.
Mark Williams international Digital Publishing will publish it in ebook and, a few weeks later, in paper (available the US and internationally.) When you buy the book, you will automatically be signed up for those updates and you’ll be able to download them free.
On the official launch day, we will hold a drawing, and the winner will receive a signed first edition of Catherine’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD. The winner will be announced on the blog on July 15th.
If you’d like to be eligible for the drawing, just sign up for our email list. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments You can write it like this to avoid spam annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com. Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com  (Some of you signed up in January, so you’re already in the running.)
Official Launch of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE to be held at the Digital Age E-Authors Seminar in San Luis Obispo on July 14th
Do you live near the Central Coast of California? Any chance you’ll be visiting around July 14th?  If you do, you’ll have a chance to take a seminar with Anne R. Allen and Catherine Ryan Hyde, authors of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…And Keep Your E-Sanity! The seminar is hosted by radio personality Dave Congalton and features Charlotte Alexander, Josh Ernstrom and Deborah Bayles.
The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. 

Anne will be out visiting this week. On Tuesday, June 26th, she'll be stopping by Meghan C. Ward's Writerland. Anne will be talking about how to choose the publishing path that's best for you. On Wednesday, June 27th, she'll be visiting Catherine Ryan Hyde's blog to talk about the perils of blogging.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: New Research Helps Writers Fight Depression

I started feeling it this last week: that dark heaviness lurking somewhere just below my conscious thoughts. It makes me burst into tears for no reason. I get clumsy and out of touch with my own body. I feel raw and unprotected. My joints ache. All I want to do is sleep, but sleep won’t come. My digestion gets wonky. Food has no taste.
Depression: I’ve had bouts with it all my life. It runs in my family. I lost my father and brother to suicide.
But I have better ways of fighting it than I used to. I now understand why it happens, and how to fight it off before it gets worse.
If you’re a writer who fights depression, know you’re not alone: a lot of great authors tend to be depressives. From Plato, who was reported to suffer from “melancholic disease,” to recent suicide David Foster Wallace, writing and depression seem inexorably linked. In Nancy Andreasen’s famous study at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, 80% of writers surveyed met the formal diagnostic criteria for depression.
Until recently, nobody knew the reason for this. But new research is giving us fresh data on the anatomy and purpose of depression. In his bestselling new book Imagine, How Creativity Works Jonah Lehrer gives some fascinating information concerning what he calls the “common cold” of mental illness.
He says brain function researchers have discovered the part of the brain active in depressive episodes is the same area we use for complex thought.
That’s right: CREATIVE THOUGHT IS ANATOMICALLY IDENTICAL TO DEPRESSION.
As a result of the new research, some evolutionary psychologists are hypothesizing that humans developed depression—with its accompanying rumination and lack of interest in normal activities—as a mechanism for focusing on problem-solving.
In other words, when Gog’s BFF died trying to spear that saber-toothed tiger, Gog got sad, mooned around not eating, sleeping or making little Gogs, and…invented a longer spear.
So there’s a reason for the darkness: if humans are too happy to see there’s a problem, they can’t become problem-solvers.
These studies show depressed people have enhanced reasoning power. In an article in the New York Times on the subject, Lehrer quoted one researcher who said, “the results were clear: [depression] made people think better.”
This seems especially true for writers. Lehrer quoted another researcher who discovered “sadness correlates with clearer and more compelling sentences,” and Lehrer concluded, “because we’re more critical of what we’re writing, we produce more refined prose, the sentences polished by our angst.”
See—you’re not crazy, you’re just a really smart, creative writer!
Lehrer does admit:  “To say that depression has a purpose or that sadness makes us smarter says nothing about its awfulness.”
Whether or not you buy the evolutionary cause-and-effect, this research gives us tools for understanding—and perhaps managing—the depression that overwhelms so many of us.
If we accept that depressive episodes are going to come with long periods of building complex worlds in our heads, maybe we can cope by making sure we take frequent breaks for physical activity, social interaction or non-cerebral tasks (who knew that boring day job was saving you from mental illness?)
It’s like those folktales about journeys to fairyland: you can only stay in there a certain amount of time, or you'll die/go mad. The land where magic happens is also full of demons.  
I know exactly why depression has been attacking me: I’m about to launch my sixth book in less than a year. Nine if you count the anthologies and the Kindle single. I’m pushing to finish number seven/ten. I've been overusing that dark, creative part of my brain. 
It’s ironic that my newest book is called HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY!


I was starting to lose my own sanity—because I wasn’t taking my own advice. I've been spending too long in the brain territory where creativity lives side by side with the depression demons.

But I’m not going to get stuck there. Because of this new research, I’m not afraid of the darkness any more. Now I know it’s part of the creative process. When I see the pain as part of the package instead of a disease, I don’t have to label myself “crazy”—a sure-fire way to trigger the self-loathing that leads to severe depression.

I’m going to work with the darkness instead of medicating it away with pills. Those pills have always decreased my creativity and now I know why. If depression lives in the same place as creative thought, when you block out one, you’re going to interfere with the other.
NOTE: I’m not telling people with severe depression to forego the meds—they can be life-savers.

But to treat my incipient version of the disease, I’m going to lighten my load, spend more time away from the computer and shut out the noise that tells me that whatever I do isn’t enough. Last night I was invited to a fun party with a lot of creative, intelligent people. Earlier in the week, I decided I'd pass. I was supposed to bring a potluck dish--and it would be too much work and my digestion was a mess.
But as I started to think about this post, I realized I had to go. I knew it would be good medicine. And it was. My tummy is fine and I'm feeling amazingly more cheerful. Fun conversation and great food is one of the best ways to get out of your head and into the real world.

Of course I had to fight a little guilt.
When you spend most of your time on the Interwebz, you can feel as if you’re surrounded by superpersons who all have more hours in their days than you do. You’re bombarded by voices that say, “you can’t succeed unless you do this! And that! And these other 100 things! How dare you eat/sleep/read/have a family? You obviously don't really want to succeed!"
So you keep pushing yourself more and more. You become like the evil CEO who never hires new workers but expects a  higher and higher productivity level from an ever more stressed-out staff.
So I've stopped being the evil CEO of my own body.
I came across a fascinating fact last week in a post from Robin LaFevers on Writer Unboxed:
Suzanne Collins has almost no Web presence.
Really. The phenomenal bestselling author has no Facebook page, no Twitter account, no Goodreads, Red Room, Library Thing, or Kindleboard profile. She’s got one tired website and has only written 8 books in her whole career.
But none of that seems to have hurt the sales of her HUNGER GAMES trilogy, does it?  
So it IS possible to succeed as a writer in the 21st century without churning out a book a month and being online 24/7! You can be a successful author and take care of yourself, too.
This gives me hope.
And for any of you out there who are prone to depressive episodes, it should give you hope, too.
Depression is indeed awful. But it helps to know why it exists. And it helps even more to know that you can nip it in the bud by shutting out the voices who push you to stay too long in that creative place that is equally full of magic and danger.  
What about you, scriveners? Have you ever had a bout with inner darkness?  Did it come after a long period of intense thought? Are you feeling depressed by the demands that you do too much?
Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD


HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic PAY IT FORWARD, and 19 other published and forthcoming books) is coming out very soon! 
It contains my entire “how to blog for authors” series and a whole lot more stuff I’ve discussed on this blog and elsewhere, plus wisdom from Catherine’s popular workshops and seminars. We have material you won’t find in any other writing book.
It’s not a book about how to write, but about how to be a writer. It’s about how to cope with the increasing pressure to do too much, and learn what advice to listen to, what’s best to ignore, and how to make the choices that are best for you personally and professionally.
Mark Williams international Digital Publishing will publish it in ebook and, a few weeks later, in paper (available the US and internationally.)  Although Catherine is mostly published Big Six publishers, we decided to go with a small, nimble international publisher for this book.
When you buy the book, you will automatically be signed up for those updates and you’ll be able to download them free.
On the official launch day, we will hold a drawing, and the winner will receive a signed first edition of Catherine’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD.
If you’d like to be eligible for the drawing, just sign up for our email list—which we will use only for important notifications about the book. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments You can write it like this to avoid spam annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com. Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com  (Some of you signed up in January, so you’re already in the running.)
The official launch will be on July 14th in San Luis Obispo, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 
The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors.

Hey, James Patterson Stole my Plot!

Plot theft. It tends to be on the minds of a lot of new writers.

You were planning to write that book some day. You had this brilliant plot. Now that *#%! Patterson/Nora Roberts/Stephen King has written a bestseller with the exact same premise.

Or the story is eerily similar to the one you pitched to an agent at a writer’s conference.
Or you're sure your plot will be stolen if you talk about your book online or in critique groups.

What should you do?
Nothing.

Writers have a lot to be wary of these days—bogus agents, inexperienced editors, overpriced coders/designers, scam publishers, draconian contracts, trollish critiquers—but plot-purloiners should not be high on the list.
Consider the old saying: “There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them.”
Experts don’t agree on the exact number of narrative plots, but there aren’t many:
· In the 19th century, Georges Polti listed 36 Dramatic Situations.· In 1993, Ronald Tobias counted 20 Master Plots.· In 2005, Christopher Booker compressed the list to Seven Basic Plots.· The legendary agent who used to blog as "Miss Snark” said there were six. · I found a 2010 article in Author Magazine that listed only five.
The number seems to be shrinking, but everybody agrees it is finite.
So—no matter how original your story feels to you, somebody has probably told it before.
Maybe a bestselling novelist like James Patterson.
They didn’t steal it. They thought it up just the way you did.
It’s amazing how often an idea that sprouts in your brain from the seeds of your own imagination can take root in other people’s brains at the same time. Human minds often respond in similar ways to prevailing news stories, music, weather patterns or whatever—and end up generating similar thoughts.
Evolutionary biologists call this phenomenon a “meme.” The term—from the Greek mimema—meaning something imitated—was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He observed that certain stories, melodies, catch phrases and fashions can flash through a whole culture in a short amount of time, changing and mutating as they go. Darwin and Wallace simultaneously came up with the theory of evolution while on different sides of the world. Newton and Liebnitz simultaneously invented calculus.
This explains why we can’t copyright ideas. Everybody has them. Very often the same ones at the same time.
Unfortunately, new writers don’t always realize this, and we can embarrass ourselves with plot-theft paranoia. That’s why you never want to mention copyright in a query letter. It red-flags you as an amateur.
Of course, if you’re having severe anxiety about it, you can indeed copyright your magnum opus, although it’s not necessary under current copyright laws. And if you’re really sure nobody ever thought of mixing classic 19thcentury fiction with B-movie paranormal creatures, you can even copyright that logline for “Silas Marner meets Gremlins.”
 Just don’t mention this to industry professionals.
This is because delusions about the uniqueness of story ideas can get pretty off-the-wall.Victoria Strauss at WriterBeware wrote last year about some guy who was trying to sell his plot idea on eBay for ten million dollars. He said, “It can be compared to stories like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Indiana Jones…and will bring in endless fame and money to anyone who takes it.”
And he’s not the only starry-eyed doofus who’s combined delusions of grandeur with total cluelessness about the effort required to actually write a novel or screenplay.
In the thread of the same post at Writer Beware, children’s author Kathleen Duey said, “I have been approached so many times by people who want me to buy a story, or who are willing to share half the proceeds if I will just do the writing. I never know what to say. I am not rude, but...really? Try that split on any other kind of business person. ‘I think that a colony on Mars would be awesome and I am willing to give a 50% share of all eventual proceeds to anyone who can make it happen.’ I am always careful to walk away, if that's what it takes, to keep anyone from telling me the idea…just in case I ever write something similar by accident.”
I’ll bet a lot of writers have been approached in a similar way. I sure have.
I have a feeling this delusion is as old as writing itself. I imagine Virgil probably met a guy at the Emperor Augustus’s orgy who said, “You’re a writer? Hey, I’ve got this idea for a book about a guy who sails around the Mediterranean. Meets up with big storms. Monsters. Some hot nookie. You can write it down and we’ll split the proceeds 50-50.”
I hope Virgil had a good lawyer.

Kathleen Duey’s instinct to run is a good one. These people can get scary. (They’re more likely to resort to lawsuits than murder, but I used it as a plot device in my comic mystery set at a small publishing house: SHERWOOD, LTD.)
When somebody approaches me with this “proposition,” I say, “the going rate for ghostwriters is $50-$100 an hour. I don’t provide that service, but I can get you a referral.”
Thing is--most writers have plenty of story ideas of our own. Our biggest fear is not living long enough to write them all.
But what do you do when somebody big like Patterson does publish a book that’s similar to yours? Even if they didn’t literally “steal” it, you can feel kind of ripped off.
Don’t despair. Memes can work in your favor. If you’re writing the final draft of your version of your Silas Marner/Gremlins mash-up, and somebody else comes out with a Silas Marner/Poltergeist  mash-up, you’re now part of a trend.

Readers tend to be sheep. If the first book is popular, they’ll want another. And if yours is better, you’re way ahead. It’s not about being first.

You can be pretty sure you’re not.

I’ll bet some guy told Virgil when he first pitched the Aeneid, “a lost dude sails around the Mediterranean after the Trojan War having adventures? Sorry, that’s been done. Haven’t you heard of that Homer guy’s story, the Odyssey?”
Hey, Virgil stole Homer’s plot!

I suppose he did--in a way. But it doesn’t seem to have hurt sales for either of them for the last couple of millennia.

It’s the telling that makes each story unique. And that’s going to be true of your story, too. It’s not about the plot. It’s about the writing. Nobody can steal that.
You should be more worried that your plot has been overdone.

Unfortunately, memes have short life spans. So it's important to keep up with what's selling in your genre. You need to know when the reader-sheep have moved on to greener pastures..

I'm not telling anybody to abandon a WIP with an well-used plotline. But be aware you're going to have to work a little harder to make it stand out. I thought I'd never want to see another vampire movie, and then Dark Shadows came out. And I laughed my head off watching Vampires Suck last night. You can always take something tired and make it fresh with humor. Or Johnny Depp.

Here are some overdone plots I see agents and readers complain about:
1) The thinly disguised memoir/rant
The Health-Crisis Survivor: The protagonist has cancer, lost a loved one, or has a disabled child—and after much agony, learns what’s important about life. Heart-wrenching, but misery won’t sell books unless you’re Joyce Carol Oates.
My Terrible Childhood: Child abuse is tragic stuff, but after somebody has seen 1000 versions Bastard Out Of Carolina, she gets calluses on her eyeballs.
Days of Wine and Roses: Too many addicts have twelve-stepped before you. It’s hard to make a story of  “I was soooo f***ed up” sound fresh. Journal about it, and use your insights in other work.
The Government Sux: Most of what you’re ranting about will probably be old news by launch date, even if you self-publish. This is why we have blogs.
2) The wish-fulfillment road-trip fantasy
Me and Bobby McGee: Unappreciated husband leaves soul-stifling life for the freedom of the road. He picks up a sexy hitchhiker who teaches him what’s important about life and some nifty things to do in bed. Been there, read that.
Thelma and Louise: Unappreciated housewives leave soul-stifling lives for the freedom of the road. Sounds fun, but we all know how it ends.
Zen and the Art of… Same story, with motorcycle/sailboat/classic Corvette.
3) Obvious or copy-cat plot devices
Grail Quests: J. R. R. Tolkien provides some pretty stiff competition in the “searching for a magical object” category. If you saddle this old warhorse, make sure it takes you somewhere wildly original and/or funny.
Wardrobing to Narnia: I’ve seen a lot of agents kvetch about the proliferation of “portals” in SciFi/Fantasy queries. Pop your characters to fantasy worlds by magic toaster or something.
The Chosen Hero: the ordinary Harry Potter-type kid who doesn’t know he’s the anointed hero destined to fight the Evil One and save the school/civilization/planet. Old when young Arthur pulled the sword out of that stone. 
Improbable high school love fantasies: Dorky new kid in school attracts the most popular kid of opposite sex. Been done. With sparkles. Just once, we’d like to see dork meets dork.
Creatures of the Night: The curtain has fallen on werewolves and vampires.
The Da Vinci Homage: If your hero has found a secret code or artifact that holds the key to a shocking revision of ecclesiastical history, you’d better set it on Mars or reveal the fetid meatballs at the Pastafarian heart of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or you’re going to have a hard time.
A writer writing a novel: We’re told to write what we know, which is probably why most writers try this one. But you’ll do better with a story about your day job at the laundromat.
On the other hand, oldies can be goodies in the right hands. Nothing was more tired than the English boarding school melodrama before J. K. Rowling put her spin on it.
The way to avoid this is to read books in your genre before you start. It’s essential to know what’s out there. You may think you’re the first person ever to think of mashing up B-movies with classics, and unless you look at your local bookstore shelves and see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you won’t know it’s been done, and you’ll think “Seth Grahame-Smith stole my plot!” ***
What about you, scriveners? Have you ever had your brilliant plot show up in somebody else’s book? Have you had somebody try to sell you a plot or use their plot and split the proceeds 50-50? What did you do? Have you tried to write a book with one of the overdone plots? (I sure have: writer writing a novel—still have it in a drawer.)
You can Still Sign up to Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD
HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic PAY IT FORWARD, and 19 other published and forthcoming books) is coming out very soon! 
This is not another book on self-publishing or a how-to-write book. It’s about how to be a writer: navigating the perils of the industry and keeping up with the latest information to save you time and money.
If you want be eligible to win a signed FIRST EDITION of Catherine’s iconic novel, PAY IT FORWARD, all you have to do is leave your email address in the comments or send me an email.  You can write it like this to avoid spam annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com. Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com  
The official book launch and drawing will be on July 14thin San Luis Obispo, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 
The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. (But you don’t have to be there to win the first edition.)

The Slow Blog Manifesto...and 8 Reasons Why Slow Blogging Will Help Your Career, Your Love Life, and Protect You From Angry Elephants

What is the Slow Blog Manifesto?
It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy. You can read the Slow Blog Manifesto here. Slow Blogging is modeled on Alice Walker’s “slow food” movement (the opposite of McBurgerish “fast food.”) The point is quality over quantity.
Todd wrote:
“Slow Blogging is the re-establishment of the machine as the agent of human expression, rather than its whip and container. It’s the voluntary halting of the light-speed hamster wheel dictated in rules of highly effective blogging.”
He urged people to write a few thoughtful, well-researched posts a month rather than daily blabber. A number of influential journalists, technicians, and academics joined his movement. It built steam until mid-2008, when it merited an article in the New York Times. 
It’s a principle that’s caught on. I see a lot of publishing industry bloggers cutting back on their number of posts—even uberbloggers like Nathan Bransford and Jane Friedman.
But unfortunately, not everybody has got the message. This week I saw a post on a popular writing blog telling new authors they should blog every single day.
I couldn’t disagree more. I think new authors, especially, need to limit their distractions. Yes, authors absolutely need social media these days, but we shouldn’t give it any more of our writing time than absolutely necessary.  (Especially since we are all supposed to write 12 books a year—more on that nonsense in another post.) 
Also, in order to get a readership in this saturated blogosphere, it seems to me we should be stressing quality over quantity. People don't want more stuff to take up their time.
If you aren’t quite sure what to blog about, check out How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?   in my "How to Blog for Authors" series.
BTW, you’ll find all of my "how to blog" posts—plus a huge amount of helpful, positive information in the new book I’ve written with Catherine Ryan Hyde: HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—And Keep Your E-Sanity! Which will debut later this month. (Shameless plug below.) 
See below for more info on the launch!
I didn’t start out to be a Slow Blogger. 
When I started this thing three years ago, I was simply too busy bloodying my knuckles on the doors of the publishing industry to have time to post more than once a week.
But now, largely thanks to this blog, I’m about to launch my sixth book in a year. Tenth if you count anthologies and singles. ( But no. I don’t intend to make a habit of that.) The blog has won dozens of awards—and even made the list of finalists for Best Publishing Industry Blog in the Association of American Publishers/Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. (Many, many thanks to all of you who voted for us!)
I did this without blogging more than once a week. In fact, thanks to a wonderful blog partner (the spectacular Ruth Harris, who joined a year ago) plus some fabulous guest bloggers, I usually now blog only twice a month.
Which is why I get really annoyed when I see new authors getting hammered with advice to blog every day.
Don’t. Just don’t.
Need more reasons?
1) A slow blog has a longer life-span.
The average life span of a blog is three years. But you want your writing career to last longer than three years, don’t you? A neglected blog hanging in cyberspace is worse than none.
Of course some people can blog brilliantly every day. But I don’t know a lot who can sustain that pace AND write book-length narrative every day.
So you’ve got to plan a blog that’s going to beat the odds. A slow blog is more likely to do that.
Think marathon, not sprint: slow blog.
2) You reach more people by commenting on other people’s blogs than by madly posting on a blog nobody reads.
Author/publisher/social media guru Bob Mayer pointed out on his blog recently:
 “One of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.”
Yes, an author needs a blog—it’s more dynamic than a static website (and free) so it’s the best way to interact with readers and fellow writers. But it’s not your best sales tool, especially when you’re starting out—it’s more like your Internet home. If nobody knows you, they won’t come and visit.
Think of it this way: would you reach more people by sitting in your basement making a thousand signs, or by making one sign, standing in a public place, and getting it filmed for a clip on the nightly news?
So use your blogging time to visit other blogs, and only post on your own blog when you have something to say that you can tell people about on other blogs. Then they’ll come visit. See how that works?
Get your sign on the nightly news: slow blog.
3) Busy people are less likely to subscribe/follow a blog that’s going to clutter their email inbox/rss feed every day.  I sure won’t. I don’t read ANYBODY’S blog every day. I’d be so glad if they’d only send notifications of the good ones. Or—even better—only write the good ones. (Which, um, is called “slow blogging.”)
When you write mostly good posts, people will know a visit to your blog is a valuable use of their time and they’ll spread the word. Then maybe an agent or publisher will visit and like it so much they’ll ask you to send them a novel and you’ll end up published. That’s what happened to me—twice. Seriously. Both my publishers contacted ME because they liked this blog.
So if you want to get published, slow blog.
4) Everybody has bad days. When you have to think of something to say on the day you got that nasty/clueless review/rejection, your emotions are going to leak out. 
You’re going to write what you really think about that agent who has hair like Medusa and the literary taste of an orangutan. You’re going to call that agent Monkey Medusa on your blog. Then it will turn out she wasn’t actually the agent who rejected you. That was a different one at an agency down the hall. Monkey Medusa actually loves your book and was about to offer you representation. So she visited your blog to find out more about you and got seriously offended and you lost your big chance for a major book contract.
If you don’t want to lose out on a major book contract, slow blog.
5) Nobody can come up with that many interesting posts. When you slow blog, and you don’t have anything to say, you don’t have to say it.
But if you succumb to pressure to blog every day, you’re going to blather-blog. You’re going to talk about your stupid boss who’s been acting like b***  in heat since the hot new guy joined the department. And it will turn out your boss’s husband is an aspiring writer who subscribes to your blog, so he’s going to dump that b***. She’ll be so mad she’ll fire you. You will not be able to get another job in this economy and you’ll lose your apartment and end up moving in with your girlfriend who will be so PO’d at you for blogging all the time, she’ll break up with you.
Don’t blather-blog and wreck your relationship: slow blog.
6) Writing nonfiction—which is what you should be writing on your blog—uses a different part of your brain from fiction.
When you’re on a roll with a novel, and have to stop to write something perspicacious on the subject of sentence structure, you can stop that flow dead. Maybe you won’t ever get it back. Maybe you’ll have to give up your writing dream and join the circus. When you join the circus, you could get stepped on by an angry elephant.
Don’t get stepped on by an angry elephant: slow blog.
7) You write narrative--remember? The blog is supposed to be about getting your name out there as a creative writer. It’s an aid to your serious writing, not a substitute for it.
If you spend every day working on your blog, you’re going to neglect your novel. When you neglect your novel, you’ll forget why you wanted to be a writer. So you’ll accept that promotion at work where you have to work all hours with no overtime because you’re management now. You’ll wake up one day and discover you’re middle-aged and have nothing to show for it, so you’ll buy yourself a very fast, very expensive car. But you’ll be so exhausted from all that work that you’ll drive your fast, expensive car off a cliff and die in a fiery crash.
Don’t die a fiery crash: slow blog.
8) Trying to blog every day is impossible to keep up, so you’ll constantly feel guilty. Guilt is bad for your mental health. When you feel guilty you eat/drink/smoke too much and then feel guilty about that too.
See where this is going…?
My apologies to the people who write the Direct TV commercials for the “don’t do this…” silliness.

But seriously: slow blogging rules.
Yes, I am aware these comments aren’t true for everybody. There are always the superpersons who can do it all—and I’m in awe of them. But if you don't have tights and a cape in your closet, don’t succumb to the pressure.
Two examples of successful slow bloggers are:
The insightful Nina Badzin, whose thoughtful, eclectic blog has become wildly popular. In fact, her essays now appear in the Huffington Post. She’s recently discovered she’d rather blog than write fiction. (The world needs more thoughtful essayists, so this is a great thing.) But she continues to blog once a week.
My publisher, the esteemed Mr. Mark Williams of International fame, sometimes doesn’t post for six weeks. But when he does—he always informs, entertains and tells us stuff we never knew we needed to know. So his Alexa rating is higher than most daily bloggers.
And the late, great pseudonyminous agent, Miss Snark was all for slow blogging, too. In spite of all the pressure to “build platform,” she advised new writers to always put their writing first:
“Your job is to write…
…There's a lot to be said for sitting down with your ownself and writing. Nothing, literally NOTHING replaces that. Focus. You're wasting time.”
Tell that to the idiots who say you have to blog every day.****Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD



HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde  is coming out very soon!  
It contains my entire “how to blog for authors” series and a whole lot more stuff I’ve discussed on this blog and elsewhere, plus wisdom from Catherine’s popular workshops and seminars. We have material you won’t find in any other book for writers.
It’s not a book about how to write, but about how to be a writer. It’s about how to cope with the increasing pressure to do too much, and learn what advice to listen to, what to ignore, and how to make the choices that are best for you personally and professionally.
Mark Williams international Digital Publishing will publish it in ebook and, a few weeks later, in paper (available the US and internationally.) Although Catherine is mostly published by Big Six publishers, we decided to go with a small, nimble international publisher, because with the business changing so rapidly, a traditionally-published book would be out of date by the time it went to press. But the people at MWiDP will be able to update the book every six months.

So as an added perk, when you buy the book, you will automatically be signed up for those updates and you’ll be able to download them free. Plus we will supply information for an international as well as a US audience. 
On the official launch day, we will hold a drawing, and the winner will receive a signed first edition of PAY IT FORWARD.
If you’d like to be eligible for the drawing, just sign up for our email list—which we will use only for important notifications about the book. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments. You can write it like this to avoid spam "annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com." Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com (Some of you signed up in January and February, so you’re already in the running.)
The official launch will be on July 14th in San Luis Obispo CA, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 
The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. 

How Writers Can Learn to Cope: 6 No-Fail Strategies for Achieving Mental Toughness

Thanks to all of you who voted for our blog in the Association of American Publishers and Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. We made it to the Finalist list for Best Publishing Industry Blog. 10,000 people voted in a field of over 800 nominees. The winner in that category is the uber-awesome Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, so we're in some pretty impressive company. Congratulations to Victoria! 


Also: Ruth has some HOT new covers for her books. Check them out in the sidebar.
Writers don’t tend to be tough people—but unfortunately, we’re in a tough business. We’re by nature a sensitive lot.  We’re more tuned-in than most people—a necessary quality for our craft.  But being open to stimuli also means we’re more open to hurt. How do we cope?
It’s a lot like learning to play guitar. You’ve got to build up some callouses in order to play in the band. The callouses are as important as learning to play the right notes. And you have to build them slowly--there are no shortcuts. That’s one of the reasons a first time writer shouldn’t immediately jump into the publishing fray. 
It’s not just about learning to write well. It’s about learning to fail well. (See my post on “Three Questions to Ask Before You Jump on the Indie Publishing Bandwagon”.)


6 NO-FAIL STRATEGIES FOR HEALING THE HURT & ACHIEVING MENTAL TOUGHNESS: HOW WRITERS CAN LEARN TO COPE WITH REVERSES, SETBACKS & EFFING CATASTROPHES

By Ruth Harris
These are a few of the everyday, predictable set-backs that each and every writer is guaranteed to face:You ARE going to get terrible reviews.You WILL be rejected by the editor who “loves” you and your work.Agents WILL diss you.The book of your heart—the one you worked on for ten years—won’t find any takers.Not even if you buy it a gorgeous cover, get lavish praise from famous writers and celebrities, self-pub it and give it away free.No one wants it, no one “gets” it, no one—except you—gives a damn.Yes, it can be lonely out there. Not to mention miserable. And depressing.
Unfortunately, it’s part of the job. Comes with the territory. Better get used to it and better figure out How To Snap Back.

That’s where mental toughness comes in. Not tough like Clint Eastwood packing heat and snarling, “You feeling lucky, punk?”
But tough like the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, the best reliever in baseball.
The New York Timesexplained:

“If a thick skin is the most important attribute a baseball closer can have, then Rivera is made out of leather. He holds the record for most career saves, has won five World Series titles and is thought by many to be among the most mentally tough athletes in baseball history. Nothing sticks to Rivera. Poor pitches are forgotten immediately, crushing losses go out with that day’s sweaty jersey. Rivera, long the Yankees’ safety net, is a master — the master — at moving on.”

The mental toughness that makes Rivera “the best” is a necessary quality for relievers—and for writers. If you get blocked or stymied at rejection, if you melt into a tearful/incoherent puddle at every bump and bruise, you need to develop a much tougher attitude. The qualities I’m talking about include:

1)  THE ABILITY TO “SHRUG IT OFF” whatever the it is: your editor leaves & your book is stranded/orphaned, your agent fires you, your publisher goes bankrupt and everything you looked forward to—the ads, the TV appearances, the reviews, the copies in stores—ain’t gonna happen. No way Jose.

Solution: Think like Mariano. You blew the save? You gave up the game-winning home run? You walked in the winning run? In Game Seven of the World Series?
Remember the old Bud ad: Let it go, Louie.
One way or another, you need to regain your focus and move on: write the next book, think of a new ending for the old book, revise, rewrite, redouble your efforts.

2)  TENACITY & FLEXIBILITY.Call it stubbornness or stick-to-itiveness but, if you think you’ve got a good idea, don’t give up. If your book doesn’t work as a mystery, maybe it will if you write it as a comedy. If your screen play doesn’t find a home in the movies or tv, maybe you should turn it into a novel—which is exactly what Lee Goldbergdid. (He's the creator of the great TV series Monk--A)

In his essay about the writing of KING CITY, recently published by Thomas & Mercer, Lee, details the long, obstacle-strewn path that led—finally—to success:

“KING CITY began as a TV series pitch that I took all over Hollywood four or five years ago. It generated some interest but ultimately didn't lead to anything.  So I put it in a drawer and moved on.”

But the idea nagged at him and Lee didn’t give up. He rewrote, revised, cut, expanded, outlined—and then he did it all over again. You can read his detailed account of the process here.

3)  FOCUS.  Mental toughness also means the ability to concentrate and to lay down rules.  Mariano Rivera did not allow himself to be distracted by crowd noise, an umpire’s bad call, shouted advice from leather-lunged fans or all the woulda’s-coulda’s-shoulda’s. Laser-like, he concentrated on the next pitch, the third strike and the last out.

Nora Roberts takes a similar approach: She was quoted as saying that her family knows that when she’s working, there are only two reasons to interrupt her: “blood or fire.” She’s one of the world’s best-selling writers, the author of 200 books and someone who obviously has a few good ideas about productive working conditions!

4)  MISTAKES, BAD DECISIONS & TUITION. Not someone else’s screw-up but your own. The terrible contract you signed. The agent-who-couldn’t-sell-Gone-With-The-Windyou chose to represent you. The undercapitalized small publisher who disappeared in the dead of night. If the cost of your own poor judgment is financial, think of the price as tuition.

You’ve certainly learned something, most of all about yourself and also about the sharks and incompetents to beware of. The cost of that expensive knowledge is financial loss. It’s the tuition you paid to learn a valuable lesson.

5)  HUMOR. Sometimes all you can do is laugh it off. Definitely a sign of mental strength. As a friend of mine—she’s a bestselling writer—once said when a guy she wasn’t even that crazy about dumped her: “Sometimes you can’t even get what you don’t even want.”

Black humor works wonders so don’t forget that looking through a noir lens can be a jolting brace of reality-adjustment (aka mental toughness).

6)  THE LEFT/RIGHT BRAIN STRATEGY. Analyze the problem rationally and figure out coping strategies. You’ll feel much better.

Cozy mystery author Elizabeth S. Craig explains: “I’ve gone a step farther, too. Besides looking for data from reader emails, I’ve sought out and read my stinky reviews online…and analyzed them for a common thread. When I saw something mentioned repeatedly, I made a note of it. It’s not too hard to get past any hurt feelings when you’re being analytical—easier than it might seem, actually.”

Bottom line: Don’t wallow. Analyze!

Winston Churchill, who led England to victory in World War II, knew something about mental toughness: “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Also from the Brits: Keep calm and carry on.

You’re tougher, more resilient and flexible, more able to laugh at yourself and the world around you than you might think. After all, as Carlos Castaneda said, “We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

What about you, scriveners? Have you been able to develop mental toughness? Do you have any tricks to share with your fellow writers who might not have been around long enough to build those callouses on their souls? 

Who Are the Big Six? What Does “Indie” Really Mean? Answers to Not-So-Dumb Questions You Were Afraid to Ask

There’s much talk on the Interwebz about “Big Six, “small presses” and “indie publishing.”  But a lot of newer writers aren’t quite sure what these terms really mean. None of us wants to sound dumb, so we usually don’t ask. So I’ll pretend you did. (And thanks, Yumi, for asking about the word “indie” in the comments last week.)Here’s a quick guide:The Big Six
These are the six multi-national corporations that control most of the Western world’s publishing. 1.     Simon and Schuster 2.     HarperCollins3.     Random House 4.     Macmillan 5.     The Penguin Group6.     Hachette Two are American: Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins, (although Harper is a division of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, so it’s pretty international.) Two are German: Random House is owned by Bertelsmann and Macmillan is owned by Holzbrinck. One (Penguin) is BritishOne (Hachette) is French. Some people include the Canadian Romance giant Harlequin when they’re talking about “big publishing” (which I guess would make them the “Big Seven.”)Most books you see in stores come from the Big Six/Seven. They have hundreds of imprints with familiar names like Little Brown, Knopf, Viking, NAL, Pocket, Scribner, St. Martins, Dutton, Avon, William Morrow, Crown, Tor, Zondervan, Grand Central, Dell, etc. but they’re all owned by one of those six corporations.In almost all cases, you need an agent to query the Big Six. There are a few exceptions, like Tor/Forge/Tom Doherty—which is a division of MacMillan—and some children’s divisions of the big houses. Five of the Big Six—all but Random House—have recently run afoul of the US Department of Justice because of their attempts to keep the price of ebooks artificially high. A lot of people think this means the Big Six are doomed. I’m not so sure about that. Multinational conglomerates tend to be rather good at hanging onto their trousers in a crisis. But there’s no doubt the ebook revolution is changing the face of publishing. Most of the changes the Big Six has come up with recently have NOT been author-friendly, but maybe they’ll learn from their mistakes. (We can hope.)
Mid-Sized publishers (sometimes called “small” just to confuse you)
This covers a lot of territory, from university presses to big international operations like Canada’s Harlequin(see above) and the UK’s Bloomsbury (which has branches in London, New York, Berlin, and Sydney.)  When mid-sizers are successful, they tend to be bought up by the Big Six. (Thomas Nelson, the largest independent Christian publisher, was bought by HarperCollins in 2011.)There are many dozens of mid-sized houses. They often address particular niche markets. Here’s a sample list—by no means comprehensiveKensington: Most genres except sci-fi and fantasy Llewellyn: New Age nonfiction and mysteries (under their Midnight Ink imprint)Chronicle Books: Art, food, pop culture (and some illustrated fiction like Griffin and Sabine.)Perseus Books: Travel and other nonfiction genres. Workman Publishing: Tends toward the literary. Imprints are Algonquin, Black Dog & Leventhal, Storey Publishing, Timber Press, Artisan Books, HighBridge Audio, Fearless Critic.Sourcebooks: Formerly a publisher of financial guidebooks, it’s grown to include fiction in all genres in the last decade. Sunset: Gardening, cookbooks and how-toPoisoned Pen: (Maybe on the cusp of small and mid-sized.) One of the largest mystery publishers.F + W Media/Writer’s Digest Books: How-to Dorchester: Genre fiction. Now in bankruptcy. It was the premier mid-sized independent publisher of mass market paperbacks until 2010, when it suspended most paper operations and went to ebooks only (see below.) Its financial difficulties have given it a “not recommended” stamp from most writers’ organization. Titan Books: UK publisher of movie and TV tie-ins as well as graphic novels. Took on Dorchester’s crime fiction imprint, Hard Case CrimeHoughton Mifflin Harcourt: Textbook publishers (merged with the Irish company Riverdeep in 2008)Most mid-sized publishers want agented submissions, but not all. Kensington still accepts unagented queries for all their lines (snail mail only.) Check websites for submission guidelines. Midnight Ink no longer accepts unagented queries, but some Harlequin lines do. Right now, they include Harlequin Heartwarming, Kimani Press, Harlequin Historical Undone, and Nocturne Cravings . Here’s a database of midsized and small publishers compiled by Canadian thriller author Jack King .NOTE: Mid-sizers tend to pay smaller advances and lower royalties (that includes Harlequin.) They also tend to be the most financially precarious. So expect some of these to go the way of Dorchester if they don’t keep up with the times.
Retailer/publishers
Amazon is a bookstore that has become a book publisher. It has a number of lines in different genres: ·       Amazon Encore: Reprints of self-published and out of print books·       Amazon Crossing: Books in translation·       Thomas and Mercer:  Thrillers ·       Montlake: Romance·       47 North: SciFi·       New Harvest: General Fiction—which will be published in conjunction with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (see how convoluted this all gets?)
You need great sales as a self-pubber to be approached by Amazon’s publishing wing, but agents are also selling directly to Amazon. Amazon has some of the most author-friendly deals around, BUT other bookstores are reluctant to carry their products because of the obvious conflict of interest. Other online retailers like iTunes/Apple may follow suit. Brick and mortar bookstores are also producing their own books. This isn’t new. City Lights in San Francisco has had its own publishing wing since 1955, but with POD technology, this may become a trend that will help bookstores stay alive.
Independent Ebook Publishers
These are new publishers like Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Press (with more start-ups all the time.) They publish primarily ebooks and usually appeal to a particular niche.Expect to see more and more of these. Because ebooks have low overhead, they can be more author friendly and often provide some marketing help for their authors. (Samhain is branching into print, although the bulk of their titles are ebooks.) These generally do not require an agent for submissions. But because this is a new industry, check them out thoroughly and try to get referrals from satisfied clients.
Small Presses
These are sometimes called “indie presses.” (Ten years ago, this is what people meant by “indie” publishing, but now self-pubbers have kind of taken over the word.) There are thousands of them. It’s hard to find useful listings because the number is never stable. They spring up and get knocked down like a literary version of Whac-A-Mole. Some, like Beacon Press, GrayWolf, and Copper Canyon Press are prestigious and have been around for decades. Some are regional and publish books specific to one area--like guidebooks and local history.Others address niche genres, like Canada’s SciFi publisher Edge , and noir mystery publisher BleakHouseBooks, or New England Cozy specialist Mainly Murder Press .They tend to focus on poetry and literary fiction, so if you're a literary writer, you may find your home here. Poets and Writers has a great database of literary small presses.Small presses are usually labors of love and nobody gets rich, but they’re often a good way to break in to print and lots of authors are very happy to stay with a small press where there is a more personal interaction with editors. Authors are responsible for their own marketing and there’s generally no advance, but higher royalties. These publishers generally don’t want to deal with agents—writers should query the editors directly. (Remember to check for submission guidelines on their websites.) But beware: Check them out thoroughly with sites like Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors and if they’re not well-established, contact other clients before you sign. And always have a lawyer or publishing professional look at the contract before you sign.
Micropresses
These are a tiny version of the small press—usually one or two-person operations, generally oriented toward the literary. They often publish chapbooks of poetry. They operate on a shoestring, and are usually run as a hobby. Often these are run by authors who are essentially self-publishers who also take on a few colleagues and friends. A micropress can be a friendly, supportive place for a writer to start out. But beware: they can also be clueless and unprofessional. There’sa horror story at Writer Beware this week about a writer who had her book rewritten without her permission by a “publisher” of this type. Some of these can be a great first step into publishing, but look for red flags. Grandiosity, unrealistic promises, negativity about the industry, and bad spelling/grammar on the website are tell-tale signs.
Vanity Presses
These are publishers who make their money from services to authors rather from sales of books. Before ebooks and POD (print on demand) technology, vanity presses were mostly pricey self-indulgences—although every so often a vanity-published book like 1990s phenomenon The Celestine Prophecy made it to mainstream readers.Two of the best known of the traditional vanity presses are Vantage and Dorrance. But as prices came down and self-publishing took off, the line between real publishers, printing services, and vanity presses has blurred. A lot of authors are taken in by vanity publishers posing as real publishers. But others successfully use vanity presses as printers for self-publishing and--with a lot of promotion--make the bestseller lists with books like The Christmas Box and Legally Blonde. 
               The problem is, most vanity publishers overcharge for services so their books are too pricey to be profitable for the author. And there can be other problems. For instance, PublishAmerica ties up the author’s copyright for seven years. 
              But vanity publishers are not all scammers, and they can be useful for books that aren't produced to be profitable, like family histories and recipes, memoirs and poetry collections.Here are some of the best known vanity publishers·       PublishAmerica (aka Independence Books)·       Tate Publishing·       AuthorHouse (which has many imprints)·       XLibris·       iUniverse·       Ivy House·       Trafford Publishing·       Poetry.com
Indie Publishing
True DIY publishing. You do everything yourself or hire somebody to do it for you. You can do this several ways:·       Get help from a publishing facilitator like Smashwords or BookBaby, who for a flat fee will code your ebook and upload to different retail platforms and keep track of royalties. They also offer inexpensive cover design and other services.·       Get shepherded through the process by an agent. A number of agents are actually helping authors become indie publishers these days—usually existing clients. Some industry purists consider this a conflict of interest, but the agented authors I know who have published through their agents have nothing but good things to say about this. ·       Hire your own private editor, cover designer, and coder and keep complete control. NOTE: “Complete control” does not extend to Amazon. Author-friendly as it is, the ’Zon has glitches that can’t be controlled by anybody, apparently. Ruth Harris has been trying to get Amazon to post the correct book cover art on her Amazon author page for six months now, to no avail, and Saffina Desforges had her bestselling thriller Sugar and Spicedisappear from Amazon.co.uk for over a month with no explanation—when you’re selling an average of 10,000 books a month, that’s a hefty price for some glitch. If you’re an indie publisher who wants your books printed in hard copy as well as electronic form, you’ll need the services of—
P.O. D. Publishing Service Providers
These are printer/distributors who use print on demand technology. This means that instead of having a huge print run for your book that has to be stored in a warehouse, the book is only printed when it is ordered. Most small presses use these providers, too.The primary POD providers are:

CreateSpace: Owned by Amazon. Printing with them gets you on Amazon, which owns a huge share of the book marketLightningSource: Owned by Ingram, the biggest book distributor in the US. Ingram supplies bookstores, so if you want to see your book in your local bookstore window, LS has the advantage. Lulu.com: The only printer I know of that doesn’t charge upfront fees. So even though they keep 20%, I’m putting them in the service provider category rather than with vanity presses. They'll sell your books on their own site (not terribly customer-friendly) and post them to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online retailers worldwide.For a great comparison between Lightning Source and CreateSpace, small press owner Robin Sullivan has a great analysis on her blog Write to Publish. ***The ebook revolution is rapidly shifting the old publishing paradigm, and nobody’s quite sure what’s coming next. Much of what I’ve written here will probably be obsolete by next year.But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the old guard. They may have life in them yet.. I think educating yourself about the industry as it is now will help you make decisions about what path might work best for you in the future. One of the best ways to learn about the industry is to subscribe to Publishers Lunch, a free newsletter from Publishers Marketplace.Yes, publishing companies do seem to merge and change partners like square dancers on speed, but they’re still very much with us. And they're learning to adapt with the changing times. (Some are learning faster than others, and I have no doubt some will fall to the e-revolution.)As I said last week, learn everything you can and don’t let anybody bully you into making a choice you’re not comfortable with.  We live in an age when authors have more choices than ever before, and if you don’t like the choices you’re being offered right now, wait a few weeks and something new is bound to pop up!
What about you, scriveners? Did you know the names of the Big Six? How many mid-sized publishers can you name? (Let’s add some to my list. I hardly scratched the surface here.) And if you know of a great small publisher or ebook publisher, do leave that name, as well. If you’ve had experience with them, good or bad, we'd like to hear about it. Any additions, subtractions or caveats welcome.