Ruth Harris's Blog, page 20

Are the Big 6 Publishers Really Dying?

Today we have a different kind of post. And yes, it's long. But our guest poster, author and publisher Mark Williams, has a lot to say. 

Mark is the co-author of the thriller Sugar and Spice —the most popular self-published book in the UK for 2011. He has also started a wildly innovative publishing business of his own, which has published three of my books. I pay attention to Mark's observations because, as a publishing professional outside of the US (he lives part time in London and part time in West Africa) he can see a bigger picture than most of us.

I asked him to write this post because I find his predictions very hopeful. I've heard from a lot of you who are still hanging onto the traditional publishing dream, and you're scared when you hear all the doom and gloom about the death of bookstores and traditional publishing.
The truth is, we have lots of reasons to be hopeful. As writers, we now have more options than ever. Self-publishing isn't going anywhere, as Nathan Bransford said in an encouraging blogpost this week. And now Mark tells us traditional publishing is learning from the ebook revolution and they're coming back—better and smarter. 
Best of all, Mark sees a role for bookstores in our future. A happy thing for readers everywhere.



THE RETURN OF THE BIG SIXby Mark Williams

First off, a disclaimer, I am not anti-Amazon. 
I'm part of a writing partnership (known as "Saffina Desforges") that owes much of its success to Amazon. We applaud the role Amazon has played in liberating writers from the shackles of the old system and look forward to their global expansion. 
So why the disclaimer? 
Because it seems that anything other than obsequious praise for "the Zon" and unadulterated glee at the widely-touted imminent demise of the "Big Six" means you must be the illegitimate child of a high-ranking CEO at Simon & Schuster, a moron with your head in the sand, or rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, depending on which day it is. 
Sadly, the debate about publishing has gradually descended into a slanging match between two opposing camps, led by vociferous and high profile minorities on both sides, who actively encourage literary apartheid among the writing classes.

1) On the one side we have the snooty gatekeepers set, the stereotype trad publishers and agents who think they know best what readers should read and writers write. You've read the rants: 
"Writers only self-publish because their work isn't good enough to be published the 'proper' way." "All indie books are crap and full of typos." "Amazon will become a monopoly and destroy culture as we know it." 
2) On the other side we have the self-appointed spokespeople of the self-publishing revolution, who are busily digging the grave for traditional publishing. You've probably read them, too. As the Grave Diggers busily hammer nails into the coffin of the Big Six, they gleefully explain how—

"Any successful trad pubbed writer could make more on their own, if only they weren't so stupid." "No trad pubbed writer who has gone indie has ever returned to the trad publishing fold." "Any indie can distribute anywhere around the globe thanks to Amazon—and get 70% royalties for doing so." 
None of the above statements are true.
Which brings us back to my opening disclaimer. As the title of this post suggests, I don't think the Big Six are facing imminent demise, and Amazon isn't going to become a monopoly.

Not that I think the old system was working. Anyone who has read my past posts over at MWi and elsewhere will know my feelings on the publishers who pay royalties as low as 7%-15%, reject perfectly good books on a whim, and have probably destroyed far more writing careers than they have created. I'm no apologist for trad publishing's many downsides. 
And yes, it's very easy to point to the books the gatekeepers rejected that became big indie successes. 
We know. We wrote one. 
We have a whole wad of rejection slips from the gatekeepers for the novel that went onto become the eleventh best-selling ebook (trad or self-pubbed) in the UK last year. 
Yes, it's easy to mock after the event, and so very tempting. Examples are plentiful, and they don't come much bigger than the gatekeepers who turned down Harry Potter. A story about wizards? In a boarding school? And how long?! Get back in that café where you belong, demented wannabe-writer. Trying serving coffee. You'll never sell this drivel. 
Of course we all love stories like that. It's what keeps us going in those dark hours when it seems the years spent slaving over a manuscript have been wasted. The countless rejection slips of John Grisham, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling are part of literary legend. 
And how we all applauded last year when J.K. walked away from her publishers to set up Pottermore and self-publish her ebooks like us mere mortals. That surely was the final nail in the coffin of trad publishing?
Not at all. 
In spite of the Grave Diggers' boast that no successful trad published author ever went indie and then returned to the trad-pub fold, that doesn't seem to be true.
1) J.K. Rowling just handed her latest book over to the gatekeepers rather than publish as an indie, because she valued their expertise and marketing abilities. I think we can safely say the size of the advance was not a major factor here. And can we hear the sound of coffin nails pinging free? 
2) Stephen Leather, multi-million selling trad published author who stormed Kindle UK in 2010-11 with his self-published titles and then announced he was giving up self-publishing because he could make more money for less effort with the gatekeepers. And yes, that link does take you to Joe Konrath's blog. 
So much for the brain-drain of top writers rushing to jump on the self-publishing wagon. Yes, many are, and some are doing very well at it. But the traffic is both ways. Advances may be down (Amanda Knox aside) but plenty of writers are signing up with the trads every day. New writers. Established writers. And lots and lots of successful indie writers.

All apparently boarding a sinking ship. As the Grave Diggers tell us at every opportunity, print sales are in decline, revenues are falling and therefore the Big Six will follow Borders into bankruptcy and Amazon will inherit the Earth.

This part is true: print sales are in decline, and they'll only get worse.

But as for the demise of the Big Six: sorry, but the Grave Diggers are hammering nails into an empty coffin. Despite the undeniable and continuing fall in demand for print books, the profits of the Big Six are up, and can only get bigger and better as digital replaces print.

Take Penguin for example. Despite the falling print sales Penguin somehow managed to make a profit last year. Penguin chairman and c.e.o. John Makinson called 2011 "the most turbulent book market that anyone can remember", but said the company's growth had been driven by "excellent publishing around the globe, demonstrated by market share growth in our three biggest markets."

Obviously this is a one-off fluke, right? After all, everyone knows the trad publishers aren't investing in digital, and they don't know what an ebook is.

But let's just catch the full statement by Makinson: …the company's growth had been driven by "excellent publishing around the globe, demonstrated by market share growth in our three biggest markets, and innovation in every aspect of our digital publishing."

A Big Six publisher? Innovation in digital publishing? Be serious! Heads in sand, remember? Deckchairs on the Titanic, right?

Consider the recent news:

Penguin e-book revenues were up 106% year on year, equalling 12% of total Penguin revenues worldwide, with 20% in the USA. Penguin have recorded 50 million apps and ebook downloads since 2008.In 2011 Penguin launched more than 100 apps and enhanced e-books and the digital-only publishing programme, Penguin Shorts. Penguin also continued investment in direct-to-consumer initiatives including aNobii in the UK and Bookish in the US, both new digital platforms for readers. In Australia Penguin acquired the retailer REDgroup's online business, and Penguin's websites and social media channels now have a global following of more than 11 million.Simon & Schuster reported a similar feat in February: they're making more money from declining print sales, and other publishers will be doing the same.Scholastic this past week announced beta trials of its new digital store. According to Publishers Weekly: "After more than 18 months of development, Scholastic has begun beta tests for Storia, its proprietary e-book platform for selling and distributing its trade titles as well as digital editions of titles from other children's houses."Note the key words "after more than 18 months of development." The idea touted by the Grave Diggers that the trads are sitting about fiddling while Rome burns may bring a smile to the face of anyone who ever received a rejection slip and now hopes whoever overlooked their masterpiece will rot in hell.
But the reality is rather different. Every major publisher is investing heavily in digital, and has been for several years.
The simple fact is, change takes time. Big ships take time to turn around. And before you rush in and say "Amazon can turn on a dime," look at the reality.
Amazon didn't suddenly produce its e-book platform overnight. Amazon has been selling books on-line for nearly two decades. It moved to ebook sales as a logical extension of an existing business, and we're all delighted it did.
But it didn't lead the way. Amazon didn't invent ebooks, e-readers, e-ink, self-publishing or even the 70% "royalty". Sony and Apple, to name but a few, were way ahead (Apple started the 70% "royalty" and Amazon price-matched).
Amazon had everything in place at the right time. The selling platform, the customer base for books, and all importantly the books themselves. The genius of the Kindle was not in the creation of the device itself, but in being able to produce an affordable e-reader and tie it to the products it was already selling – ebooks.
Suggesting that publishers didn't see digital coming rather ignores the small point of who, exactly, was producing these ebooks in the first place. It certainly wasn't you and me.
Amazon didn't invest in the Kindle and then hope that just maybe tons of unknowns would self-publish and make money for them. The fact that that's what happened is a huge bonus for Amazon but there wasn't any master-plan.
Just as there isn't any master-plan now to destroy big publishing by buying off all the trad published authors.
When a successful trad-pubbed writer signs up with an Amazon imprint it makes news precisely because it's a rare event.
Amazon may have begun as a bookseller, but books are now just one small part of its empire. Does anyone but the Grave Diggers serious believe Jeff Bezos loses sleep over indie-publishers signing with the Big Six? Or conversely that the Big Six are losing sleep over Amazon signing up the odd trad-pubbed author?
Amazon isn't a major publisher. Yes, it has a few imprints, but in publishing terms it's a small press, albeit with its own very powerful marketing and distribution network. Yes, the Amazon imprint authors are best-sellers and make serious money – on Amazon. But where are the Amazon imprints in the NYT best-sellers list, or on the international best-sellers lists?
Comparing Amazon and the Big Six is comparing apples and oranges. Amazon is a hugely successful book-seller that is now dabbling in publishing. Amazon takes proven sellers on its own platform and repackages them and gives them heavy promo, skewing the market, to make them even better sellers.
Nothing wrong with that. And wonderful for the authors lucky enough to be chosen. But it means that Amazon is no longer a level playing field for the rest.
And what Amazon is doing hardly compares with taking an unknown name from submitted manuscript through to final product with nation-wide distribution both in ebook and bricks and mortar stores, and (where rights are available) internationally across digital and bricks and mortar platforms.
Of course the Grave Diggers will shout that any indie can get world-wide digital distribution and get 70% royalties—conveniently overlooking the fact that B&N only deliver to the USA, Apple serves about twenty or so countries and the Amazon world-rights box you tick in KDP that makes you think your ebook will be available everywhere is actually meaningless.
Why?
Because Amazon blocks downloads to countless countries (I live in West Africa and am blocked from buying your or my ebooks from Amazon)Amazon also imposes a $2 surcharge per sale on countless other countries.Add to which the fabled 70% royalty suddenly becomes 35% if the sale is not from an Amazon-approved country (the Kindle countries and a selected few others).Now admittedly 35% is still better than the ebook royalties currently paid by the Big Six, although these are rising and will rise further.
But let's just examine that legendary 70% Amazon royalty more closely, it being the indie's weapon of choice in any duel.
The Amazon 70% royalty is a myth. It's not a royalty at all. It's the remainder from the sale of your ebook after Amazon have taken their cut.
If you stick a book on eBay and it sells, and eBay and Paypal take their fees and hand you the remainder, is that a royalty? Of course not.
Yet when Amazon, Apple, B&N or whoever do exactly the same thing and call it a royalty we immediately start comparing with the miserly royalties paid out by the trad publishers.
But Amazon and co. aren't our publishers. They're our distributors and vendors. It's called self-publishing for a reason!
And just a reminder here: This isn't anti-Amazon. It's just spelling out a few facts that the Grave Diggers seem intent on overlooking.
I happen to like Amazon very much. Quite apart from our own self-publishing success, I own a Kindle, carry it with me everywhere, and have only read two print books in the fifteen months I've had an e-reader. As a non-American, B&N digital is anyway off-limits to me, even in the UK.
Which is a point worth dwelling on.
Amazon is the world's biggest ebook seller. At one stage it was estimated to have 85% of the ebook market, yet most objective observers would now put that at between 60%-70%, and declining. So much for Amazon becoming the monopoly that will take over the world
Amazon's biggest rival is B&N. But B&N only sell in the US. Amazon has worldwide distribution (subject to caveats outline above). As digital reading grows worldwide so the competition will increase.
The second biggest English-language market is a case in point. Kobo have just appointed a new director of British operations and is rapidly expanding its presence in the UK, operating the ebook store for the country's second largest book retailer, W.H. Smiths.
The UK's biggest book store, Waterstone's (whose flagship Piccadilly store is the largest bookshop in Europe) have a small but significant ebook store, and it's currently being revamped as part of the new look Waterstones (sans apostrophe) with a pending partnership of some sort with B&N. Just this month B&N is holding its first ever workshop in London, as it prepares to challenge Amazon's dominance in the UK.
Important here to understand why the UK lags behind the US in terms of digital embrace. Amazon only introduced KDP to the UK in 2010, before which only US authors could self-publish with Amazon. The Kindle was unavailable in the UK until that time. When it came it was new and innovative, and a lot cheaper than the Sony option, or Apple's iPad, so it got off to a great start among those readers at ease with technology and gave Amazon predominance in the marketplace.
But Amazon is going to have to do much more than just sell cheap ebooks to maintain that position. The UK doesn't even have the KindleFire yet. Yep, UK readers are stuck with the old b&w Kindle, while Kobo, Apple and the rest are all selling multi-task colour devices, to which B&N will shortly be adding with its Waterstone's partnership.
What does this mean for the future of Amazon? Rather more then you may think.
You see, the early-adopters of the Kindle and other e-reading devices were of course those comfortable with technology. If it's shiny, new and trendy then they must have it. And once they experienced the joys of e-reading there was no turning back.
But we're past that phase now. As print declines further so more and more people will turn to e-readers. Partly because prices will continue to plummet, and also because as print declines further, readers will have little choice but to adopt, in a downward spiral that will see the demise of print books and book-stores.
So the Grave Diggers were right after all, it seems. No print books and no book-stores means the Big Six are facing oblivion and Amazon will inherit the Earth.
But hold on, how did Amazon start out? Selling print books. How does Amazon make the bulk of its book-related income now? Selling print books.
Print is still 80% of the overall book market. If the Big Six are obliterated as the Grave Diggers gleefully hope, exactly what will Amazon be selling anyway? The vast bulk of its print sales and a substantial proportion of its digital sales come from the Big Six.
Luckily for all concerned the Big Six are doing just fine. Profits are up, costs are down, and the future is rosy as they continue to invest in digital, create their own platforms, and adjust their business management to the new realties. The Grave Diggers might want to pretend that isn't happening, but the facts speak for themselves.
Regardless of this, book-stores are beyond help, right? We're already seeing it happen. Borders has gone (bizarrely this huge loss of outlets for Big Six stock doesn't seem to have hurt said Big Six profits too much…) and B&N are – Shock! Horror! – selling products other than books. As we all know, this signifies imminent doom. Although curiously when Amazon diversify into other products it's sound business sense. Hmmm.
But are book-stores really doomed? Not necessarily.
I've not been to the US recently, but I understand B&N are doing pretty well at promoting digital in-store. The Nook is on the up and up, and B&N are being pretty innovative in their approach to balancing print and digital.
Amazon soared ahead with the early adopters precisely because it had everything in place and those readers were comfortable shopping online. But that era is over. The early-adopter phase is past, and the next stage is the reticent buyers who probably never have bought from Amazon and never will.
I'm talking about the loyal book-store regulars – the ones who currently account for a vast percentage of bricks and mortar book sales, who will, when the time comes, buy the in-store e-reader and sign-up to the in-store e-reading account, not rush off and buy a Kindle.
So can book-stores survive the epublishing revolution?
Yes, they can!
You see, I have a vision of a new book-selling era where we can be digital AND have bricks and mortar book stores.
Book stores don't just sell books. Like libraries, book-stores are cultural centers, where the reading classes gravitate. There's been a lot of snark recently in the blogs about ill-informed staff in B&N offering poor customer service. No doubt it's true. But it doesn't need to be that way.
Forward looking indie book-stores and chain-stores like B&N and Waterstone's could have a vital role in book-buying in the future. 
Imagine a book-store where you can still go and browse books, settle down with a coffee or chat with intelligent staff about the latest book from your favourite author.
You'll find the cover and blurb on a book-sized case (think DVD cases) on the display shelves. Want to look inside? Just waive the barcode or implanted chip in front of your personal e-reader or smartphone, or the equipment available in-store, and you can see exactly what you'll be getting.
Not silly sample pages from the first 15% but the full book, temporarily transferred to your device for examination. If you buy, it stays there. If you choose not to it is automatically deleted as you leave the store.
Maybe even in-store printable covers so you can buy the full wrap cover around and case for your shelf back home. After all, isn't the lack of covers the big downer for digital films and music?
Book-stores can still have shelf after shelf of "books" to browse, and even plinths and window displays showing the latest releases. And yeah, those prime spots will still be bought by the Big Six for their top authors. Ah well, you can't win 'em all…
Now factor in the back-of shop storage space and overheads that will no longer be necessary - or perhaps will be used to store paper and supplies for POD, where any title you want can be printed and bound while you have the aforementioned coffee.
And the beauty of this is that the technology already exists and is improving and getting cheaper by the day. With print still riding at 80% of book sales there's plenty of time for forward thinking book-stores to embrace the digital future.
The Grave Diggers will tell you Amazon's one-click ebook buying is so simple no-one will need to shop anywhere else. No question it's a fantastic service. I love it! But Amazon also sells boots, watches, fridges, computers... Easier to list what it doesn't sell. Everyone can sit at home, go online and have these goods delivered to their door, courtesy of the Zon. Yet no-one is suggesting shops that sell these products are all going to close.
Book stores don't NEED to close. They just need to innovate. 
Rather like the Big Six are already doing.
*********
Blog news: Catherine Ryan Hyde's wonderful novel, When I Found You is FREE for Kindle this weekend, and on Friday had reached # 1 on the Free Kindle books list. Anne's piece on the "Undercover Soundtrack" that inspired her mystery The Gatsby Game is on Roz Morris's blog, Memories of a Future Life. And The Gatsby Game is now available for NOOK! (It's still review-less over there. If any of you marvellous reviewers wanted to copy and paste your Amazon or Goodreads reviews to Barnes and Noble, I'd be eternally grateful.)
INDIE CHICKS: This week's installment is from thriller writer Mel Comley, who lives an idyllic life in the French countryside.
Next Week: We'll be having another give-away. I'll be giving away one of my ebooks—your choice. 

How Do You Learn To Be a Writer?

I'm often approached by parents or grandparents of children who've shown a talent for writing. They ask how a child can learn to be a writer. Or sometimes a person going through a mid-life job change will ask my advice about going back to college to pursue a long-deferred writing dream.
I have to tell them the truth: learning to write is hard--and earning money from writing is way harder.
I'm not saying certain types of writing can't be lucrative—"content providers" can find careers in advertising and various tech fields—but that's usually not what the doting grand/parents or career-changers are thinking. They might be imagining plays or screenplays, or even journalism—fast-fading professions too—but mostly they're thinking memoir and novels.  
But writing book-length narrative is one of the toughest ways to earn a living—and it's getting tougher all the time. The average book advance is less than half of what it was ten years ago. Almost all writers need day jobs.
So the question arises: how much money should people put into educating themselves to be writers? 
Anybody who visits a lot of writing sites has probably been followed around the 'Webz by ads for college creative writing degrees. Do those give students a jumpstart or prepare them for a writing career? 
Unfortunately, they usually don't. They're often based on very old ideas of what the publishing industry is like. 
If you have the privilege of attending college, by all means take courses in creative writing. Also take courses in business management, advanced string theory or Athenian red-figure vase painting—whatever interests you. None of your time learning will be wasted, and a college education is massively helpful to any career.
But don't go to college expecting to be taught how to be a professional writer who can enter the workforce and earn back the cost of college like somebody studying accounting or medicine. It won't happen.
I'm not saying degrees in creative writing will hurt, but they're not necessary for a writing career. And they're usually expensive.
Thing is: the number one thing that's NOT necessary to any creative career is…DEBT. Debt is a prison that can keep you locked into a job you hate, living in noisy, crowded circumstances, and plagued with anxieties that are the enemy of creativity
"But, wait!" says Aspiring Young Writer, "What about an MFA? That gives you a leg up into the publishing business doesn't it?"
Um, not really.
Not with most agents and publishers (although a prestigious school can provide valuable contacts.) What an MFA will do is steer you in the direction of literary writing, which tends to be less lucrative for a publisher (and you.)
An MFA DOES qualify you to teach creative writing at the college level, and as a day job, college teaching is a pretty good one. But be aware of the implied trade-off.
Think of getting an MFA like studying ballet or learning to play classical music—you're entering a fiercely competitive field with a niche audience and not much remuneration…but a lot of prestige. For those who love it, there's also a fulfillment that can come no other way. If writing and teaching literary fiction is your bliss—follow it! The world needs you to carry on that tradition.
But if your goal is writing popular fiction, treat your education more like preparing for musical theater, playing roots music, or ballroom dancing—and take a more eclectic route in your training. (And prepare to work a day job.)
Of course you first need to learn the basics just like a literary writer: grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and word usage. If you didn't get that in high school or college, you need to take some brush-up classes. Language is your instrument, and you need to learn to play before you can get in a band.
NOTE: Don't count on some hired editor to clean up your stuff after you write it. Editors cost a bundle and they can't do it all. Good language skills are essential. You wouldn't try to be a carpenter if you couldn't pound a nail.
But once you have that down, what do you do?
There's still a whole lot to learn. Straight-A grammar skills don't help you with learning how to tell a story. You need to educate yourself on story structure, how to create compelling characters, pacing and all the rest.
For that, the best approach is to study widely. Get as much education as you can from many sources as you can find. There is no one right way. You can enroll in inexpensive classes at your local adult ed. or community college extension programs. Short online courses can be really helpful, too, especially ones that concentrate on structure and story-telling techniques. Read the classic books on writing. Go to writers' conferences, especially local ones where you don't have to pay for room and board.
Sometimes professional writers will offer workshops in person or online. A short course from a well-known author is usually worth the price, because their name will hold weight in a query and you may be lucky enough to have them mentor you.
If you live in a place where there's a local writer's club or chapter of organizations like RWA, SCBWI, or Sisters in Crime, join. Clubs like those can be amazingly valuable resources. And a good critique group can sometimes teach you as much as a college class about how to write. (But beware group-think. Critique groups are only as good as their members, and ignorant people can spread bad habits. See my post on Bad Advice to Ignore from your Critique Group ) 
And these days, a whole lot of what you need to learn is available on the Internet for free. I know people who have learned a huge amount by working with other writers in various writers' forums.
To become a professional, you need to learn the business side of publishing as well as grammar and story structure. They are equally important these days. Agent blogs are a valuable resource here. Agents like Rachelle Gardner , Kristen Nelson and Janet Reid offer mini-courses in publishing in their archives.
And you'll need to learn to use social media. It's as important to a writer today as it is to know how to use an apostrophe. I recommend Kristen Lamb's valuable blog and her book We Are Not Alone: The Author's Guide to Social Media . 
If you ask most professional writers what's the best way to learn to write, they're going to tell you two things:
1) Read 2) Write
And some will add:3) Live
Writing may not be a lucrative profession, but creating worlds out of words is still one of the most exciting ways to spend your time, so I tell those parents and grandparents and mid-life career-changers that nobody should be discouraged from following their dreams.
But I also warn them not get talked into expensive college courses they can't afford. (And people should especially beware writing degrees from for-profit colleges. Recruiters can tell a lot of half- and un-truths and provide a slick, easy path to a lifetime of debt.)
The electronic age may bring more responsibilities to writers—social media and online marketing can seem like a huge time-suck—but it also opens up hundreds of new paths to our goals, many of them inexpensive or free. So I say embrace the journey and accept the abundance of information at your fingertips.
Now I could use your help, scriveners. Tell me how you learned/are learning your craft--and how you're educating yourself in the business of writing for a living. I'd love for you to give some tips and suggestions for things that worked (or didn't work) for you.
NEWS: On Wednesday, March 7th, I'll be talking to Roz Morris at her blog Memories of a Future Life for her Undercover Soundtrack series. I'm talking about the "soundtrack" for my Fitzgerald-themed mystery, THE GATSBY GAME. This one is from another Fitzgerald: Ella. 


DECADES CONTEST: Our two winners, selected by Random.org, are Steven J. Wangsness and Martha Reynolds. Congrats! Steven and Martha, contact Ruth at rca.harris at gmail dot com for your free books. 
INDIE CHICKS: This week's amazing installment is from Barbara Silkstone, whose comic mysteries were inspired by some pretty grim real-life villains.

8 Tips for Turning "Real Life" into Bestselling Fiction

A lot of people start writing because they've got a real-life story to tell—something that happened in their own lives or the lives of friends or family members they think would make a great book. Sometimes these stories work well as memoirs, but, for a lot of very good reasons, a lot of us prefer to present the stories as fiction.
But if you decide to write your story as a novel, you have to take that raw clay of factual material and shape it into something that is your own creation. Sometimes this can end up being more work than writing a story entirely from scratch, because you have to distance yourself from the "real" characters and make them your own.
This week, Ruth Harris tells us how to do just that.
But remember, unless the real story is something that made major headlines, most readers aren't going to care what your source material is. In fact, the Query Shark, (agent Janet Reid) says: "I really don't care if it's based on a true story. If anything that makes me less likely to read on because, zut alors!, most people's lives don't have much of a plot."

Along with letting us in on her creative process here, Ruth is also offering two free ebooks of her based-on-a-true-story novel, DECADES, to our commenters. All you have to do is put "DECADES" in your comment, and you'll be eligible for our drawing. Contest goes until midnight March 3rd. Winners will be announced next Sunday, March 4th.


8 TIPS FOR TURNING "REAL LIFE" INTO BESTSELLING FICTION
Make-overs, plot twists & a search for meaning
by Ruth Harris

Writing a novel based on a real life situation is a lot more than just regurgitating a story you happen to know—even if it's a whizz-bang, humdinger of a story. The challenge is turning real people and real events into fiction. Having no guidelines at the time I wrote DECADES, I figured it out as I went along. I made plenty of mistakes along the way but had several advantages even I wasn't aware of.
1) Learn your craft.
It's basic but bears repeating: learn the nuts and bolts of creating compelling fiction. Decades was my first "big book," but prior to writing it, I had been writing professionally for over ten years—weekly articles for men's and male adventure magazines and original paperbacks, mostly Gothic romances and romantic suspense, under a variety of pseudonyms.  Publishing salaries were as lousy then as they are now and I needed the money. In the process—and hardly intending to—I learned how to write action, emotion, and sex; how to grab a reader from the first sentence and how to create a cliffhanger. That knowledge of the craft would be the invaluable underpinning of the novel.
2) Be a good listener—and don't gossip.
Coincidence—and real life—provided me with the initial inspiration for Decades, the story of a marriage in crisis. The coincidence was that I happened, quite by accident, to know each of the three main characters, two much better than the third. They were:  a successful but restless husband, the shy, rather insecure, rich girl he marries on his way up, & the glam fashion editor who is "the other woman." They told me "their" versions of what was happening because they knew they could trust me not to gossip. They didn't know—nor did I at the time—that one day I would turn their dramas into fiction.
3) Just because "it really happened" doesn't mean it's good fiction.
In writing a novel based on real life, I faced the same challenges a writer does with any novel—the need to create believable characters and  a dramatic plot—with the added twist of having to structure the formlessness, confusion, and indecision of everyday real life into the demands of a novel. Knowing the "real people" turned out to be both a blessing and a hurdle.
4) Protect the privacy of your "real life" characters.
Of course I changed names but, as I began to write, I went further and changed initials, too.  It wasn't enough to change John Doe into Jack Dawson. A radical name change—to Mark Saint Clair, for example—guaranteed JD's privacy and had the secondary effect of freeing me from any reminders of the real John Doe/Jack Dawson. I also changed the character's physical appearance, details of his childhood, and gave him military experience he never had.
5)  Help your reader relate to your story.
IRL my fashion editor friend was a stylish, never-married Manhattan single girl who led a hectic, high-profile social life. In the novel, I wanted a character more in touch with everyday experience so I left out all the glitzy fashion-world details. Instead, I portrayed a woman more characteristic of the times who marries young, has two kids, goes thru a drab, depressed, is-this-all-there-is? period. She divorces the husband who was her college boy friend & learns (the hard way) how to conduct herself in a challenging and competitive business world.
Each of the other characters got a similar makeover. I made the husband taller, handsomer and more successful than he really was and changed the nature of his business. I gave the fictional wife a talent even she didn't recognize—a talent that, in the end, rescues her.
6) Give your characters room to roam.
IRL the story took place mainly in Manhattan but I thought the setting too confining. In the novel, the characters do live in Manhattan, but I added scenes in Florida, Nantucket and the Caribbean. Using different settings helped me show how the characters behaved in different geographies and in different social milieu. Trust me, a week in the Caribbean with a wife is much different from a week in the Caribbean with a girlfriend in the middle of a steamy affair!  For the novelist, pure gold.
7) Expand the scope of your story.
Almost any "real life" story by its nature, tends to be limited to the people directly involved. (Unless your story is about a friend who happens to be President of the United States.) As I drafted the novel and its plot and characters took shape, I wanted to show how the consequences of what started out as a casual affair affected people not directly involved. I ultimately created a teen-aged daughter torn between her charming, straying father, her loyal, devastated mother, and the come-hither lure of contemporary culture, in this case, the go-go Sixties.
8)  Look for the larger significance of your story.
I don't mean you should hit your reader over the head with The Meaning Of It All. The final element that transformed real life into fiction came to me as I was halfway through the draft and paused to write what passed for an outline to the end (outlines aren't exactly my strong suit!). I realized that the age difference between the married couple, the younger "other woman" and the teen-aged daughter led naturally to portraits of three transformational, mid-20th Century decades—and to the title.
By the time I was finished with my makeovers, plot twists, and search for a more substantial framework for the story, the characters had taken on their own, fictional lives, the plot moved with its own energy to a far different conclusion from the one in real life, and I was able to portray massive cultural and social changes in an entertaining and story-appropriate way.
But coincidence wasn't finished with me. As it turned out, the main situation of the novel—a marriage in crisis and an adulterous affair—was being lived by not one, but two, prominent publishers—"This is my life," one of them told me. They competed for hard cover and mass market paperback rights, a situation my agent and the publisher's subsidiary rights director took great advantage of.
I never planned it, had no idea that my fictional affair reflected the real-life experiences of the two publishers. All I knew was that coincidence had handed me an incredible basis for a novel that combined fascinating personal dynamics set against an era of tumultuous social and cultural change, the repercussions of which we still feel today.
What about you, scriveners? Have you written a book based on a true story? Thinking about it?


Other News: Ruth also has a post at WG2E this weekend with some honest talk from bestselling authors about where they get their inspiration. Anne tells all in an interview with Catherine Ryan Hyde, and Anne got gentrified and canonized by Porter Anderson on Writing on the Ether this week. 
INDIE CHICKS: this week's installment from the anthology is from bestselling indie author Sibel Hodge "From 200 Rejections to Amazon top 200"

How to Blog Part V: 12 Dos and Don’ts for Author-Bloggers

This is the 200th post on this blog. Since I started it on Friday the 13th  in March of 2009, I’ve learned an awful lot. (The first thing I learned was that you have to actually post stuff. My second post wasn’t until late June.)
Another thing I’ve learned is there’s no wrong way to blog—BUT if you’re an author who wants to get published, you need to be professional about it. If you want to be taken seriously in the industry—and we have to remember it is an industry—you need to create a helpful, reader-friendly place that’s an easy-to-navigate hub for your online presence as a writer.

For the other parts of this series, check Part I: How to Blog, Part II: How not to Blog, Part III: What to Blog About, Part IV, Difficult Blog Visitors. 
Here are some more dos and don’ts I’ve learned along the way that might make your job easier:
1) DO post your Twitter handle somewhere prominent on your home page if you tweet. Don’t just use one of those birdy icons. Make sure you put your whole @twittername up there. I spend way too much time using Twitter’s iffy search engine (why is it so useless?) trying to find the handle for somebody I’m quoting or want to reach. If it’s right up there on your blog home page, people are much more likely to be able to tweet you or follow.
2) DO post a Facebook link, (or “badge,” or “Like” button) so people can join you on Facebook. (Unless you’ve managed to resist the pressure to venture into Zuckerland. For which I applaud all three of you.)
3) DO provide an email address. I don’t know how many blogs I visit and find no contact information. The place most people will look is on your “about me” page. So that’s a good place to put it. If you’re afraid of spambots picking it up, write it this way : “myname (at) gmail (dot) com” –but do it! Imagine an agent or editor reads that short story that won the online contest and loves it. She wants to find out if you’ve got any full length fiction (yes, this does happen) so she Googles you, finds your blog, and…no contact information. Opportunity is knocking and nobody’s home.  
4) DO post your blog schedule. Here we say “This blog is updated Sundays, usually”—six simple words that keep us disciplined and keep readers coming back. We’ve never missed a post, but if we do, that “usually” covers our derrieres—we’re not running a boot camp here. On the other hand, it’s very important to remember it’s your professional profile. When you’re trying to get published, you’re basically applying for a job. You don’t want a sloppy blog any more than you  want to show up late for an interview, wearing stained sweats and smelling like last night’s party.  
5) DO learn to write 21st century prose. Writing for the Interwebz is very, very different from what you learned in school. It’s light, punchy, and easy to skim. The vast majority of online readers are skimmers. They want:lists major points highlightedbullet pointsBoldinglots of white space See where your eye went? There are a couple of important publishing industry blogs I hardly ever read because they’re written in the dense, repetitive prose of the old paid-by-the-word, pre-electronic era. I wait for somebody else to post excerpts or summarize those posts, because sweetie, I have things to do….
6) DON’T let yourself get pressured into too many blogfests and bloghops and blog awards and other blogmania. Just because somebody gives you an award doesn’t mean you have to drop your WIP and spend a day visiting 80 blogs to tell them all the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done with a book or whatever today’s game is. Thank them politely, tell them you’re honored and do as much as you have time for. Same with invitations to blogfests. No matter how much fun it sounds, just gathering a lot of blog followers isn’t as important as getting that novel written!
7) DON’T die intestate. No matter how young and healthy and immortal you feel, appoint a blog executor. Make sure somebody besides you has the passwords to your blog so if anything dire should happen, they can attend to it and/or take it down. Yes, it’s kind of icky to think of, but stuff happens. Not just kicking the bucket. You could get in a parasailing accident while you’re on that vacation in Mazatlan. Or get stuck without power for 2 weeks in darkest Connecticut. Be attacked by angry bees. You don’t want your blog hanging unattended in cyberspace as it collects Ukranian porn and fake Viagra ads.
8) DON’T neglect your “About Me” page. Keep it updated (speaking to myself here. I’d let mine get sloppy.) Make sure it’s friendly but professional. You don’t want a resume/curriculum vitae snoozefest. But you also don’t want to use it to post pix of yourself after your tenth margarita at Señor Frog’s or photos of your puppy learning to go potty outdoors. This is about you, the author. Even if you aren’t published, you want this to be about your writer-self. Give a short bio, a list of what writing organizations you belong to, your genre if you’ve settled on one, plus links to any short pieces you’ve published, or contests you’ve won—and anything else that relates to you as a writer. Make sure you include links to all your social media pages, especially book-related ones like Goodreads, AuthorsDen or RedRoom. You can talk about your favorite books, your philosophy, or your life goals as long as it’s short and not preachy. You can mention your family, but even if you’re a devoted stay-at-home parent, don’t make this all about the kids. This is for you.
9) DON’T try to maintain too many blogs. OK, I’m kind of hammering people about this, but I see a lot of misinformation about this circulating. To me, two is too many. If you don’t have a day job, and you aren’t in a hurry to finish that WIP, maybe you can handle two—especially if the second is a group blog. Or if one is the blog for your XXX-rated erotica and the other is for your sweet Christian romances. But please, don’t try to do any more. Multiple blogs don’t only take too much of your time—they also fracture your follower count and really annoy people trying to reach you.
Do you think it’s more impressive to an editor that you have 60 followers on your Sweetie Snookums, Vampire Slayer blog, 90 on Susie’s Scribblings, 43 on Sassy Susitude and 50 on Storytime Snippets—or 243 people reading Susie Smith, Scrivener? Do you think followers want to hop around to all those blogs?? Do you think we’re going to keep searching your blogs after we’ve landed on the one that hasn’t been updated since you posted that rant about Fox canceling Firefly in 2003???
Sorry. Got carried away. As I have said many times before, a Blogger blog has 20 pages. Count them: twenty. You can have one for your vampire stories, one for your musings and scribblings, one for giving yourself pep talks, and one for writing about being a storyteller—and still have 16 to go. So don’t start another blog until you’ve filled them all, OK?
10) DON’T make commenting difficult. This is another thing I’ve been hammering on about but it’s important. I just read a new study of customer habits and discovered the #1 motivation for the contemporary customer is ease of use. They’re not so worried about fancy or special. They want things to be easy. That’s why Amazon is so successful. First they invented a way to buy books with a couple of clicks and then they offered us a way to publish them with a few more. “Quick and Easy” wins the day, hands down.
So remember those CAPTCHA word verification things do NOT make it easy to comment. You can remove robo-spam yourself if it gets through the spam filter, which is a little harder for you and a lot easier for your potential customers. And as for insisting on moderating all new comments—especially if you don’t get around to them for days—that’s pretty much saying, “I don’t need no stinking comments/customers.” Try being open to comments on new posts for a while. If you get a troll attack, by all means go back to moderating, but with a small blog following, it’s very unlikely you’ll get a troll unless you blog about politics or religion. If you moderate (I moderate older comments myself, because that’s where the spam shows up) DO check many times during the day so you don’t send people away mad. These are your potential customers. Saying "just sit there until I have time to decide if you're special enough to buy my books," isn’t going to make the sale.
Note: Blogger loves to play Big Brother. It often turns your CAPTCHA back on after you’ve turned it off. It’s happened to me. So ask a good friend to let you know if it’s on.
11) Don’t delete a blog you’ve neglected. Bring it back to life by giving it your own name (you can’t change the url, but you can change the header very easily) and post a blog schedule and keep to it.
Yes: this is a total reversal on what I used to say, but I was educated by a savvy reader,Camille LeGuire, the Daring Novelist  who left a comment letting me know the older a blog is, the higher its rating with search engines. So remember that nine-year old Firefly blog? You can delete content and change the title, but keep the url and you’ll have much better SEO.
But: if you have 42 blogs, delete all but one or two of the oldest. Seriously. Did I mention people find multiple blogs annoying?
12) Don’t let yourself be pressured into letting somebody guest blog just because they asked. Good guest posts are informative and target your audience. Somebody with a book or service to sell may approach you with what is essentially an advertisement. Even if you’re just starting out, remember your blog is about presenting yourself to the world, and if something doesn’t work with your audience, politely decline. Good guest bloggers should already have relationship with you: they should have been by to comment a few times, or know you from other blogs.
I’ll talk more about guest blog etiquette in another post.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have any other tips to add? Have you learned any of these things the hard way like I did?
Valentine Blog Hop peeps: Our winner is Elizabeth Hyatt, aka the Book Attict. Congrats, Elizabeth! Let us know which of our books you want as your prizes. You get one of Ruth's and one of Anne's. Check the BookLuvin'Babes site for the name of the big grand prize winner.
Blog news: Ruth Harris and I now have pages on this blog for our books. Ruth’s is here  and mine is here. We’ve got synopses, quotes from reviews and all the links you need to browse our extensive oeuvres. (And they’re all remarkably cheap. Even my paper books are a deal—under $10 bucks.)
Next week Ruth is going to blog on creating fiction based on factual events. And she’ll be doing a giveaway of DECADES, her own novel that is based on real incidents and historical fact.
Today, my mystery SHERWOOD, LTD. will be featured on Saffina Desforges "no bullshit" Sunday series on her SaffiScribe blog. You can find out how much of that book is fiction and how much was based on actual personal misadventures
Next Friday, Catherine Ryan Hyde will be posting an in-depth interview with me on her blog. If you haven’t stopped by her great new interview series , she runs them every Friday on her blog.
Indie Chicks: This week’s inspirational story is from Christine DeMaio-Rice. A fun one. Check it out here. 

How to Blog Part V: 12 Dos and Don'ts for Author-Bloggers

This is the 200th post on this blog. Since I started it on Friday the 13th  in March of 2009, I've learned an awful lot. (The first thing I learned was that you have to actually post stuff. My second post wasn't until late June.)
Another thing I've learned is there's no wrong way to blog—BUT if you're an author who wants to get published, you need to be professional about it. If you want to be taken seriously in the industry—and we have to remember it is an industry—you need to create a helpful, reader-friendly place that's an easy-to-navigate hub for your online presence as a writer.

For the other parts of this series, check Part I: How to Blog, Part II: How not to Blog, Part III: What to Blog About, Part IV, Difficult Blog Visitors. 
Here are some more dos and don'ts I've learned along the way that might make your job easier:
1) DO post your Twitter handle somewhere prominent on your home page if you tweet. Don't just use one of those birdy icons. Make sure you put your whole @twittername up there. I spend way too much time using Twitter's iffy search engine (why is it so useless?) trying to find the handle for somebody I'm quoting or want to reach. If it's right up there on your blog home page, people are much more likely to be able to tweet you or follow.
2) DO post a Facebook link, (or "badge," or "Like" button) so people can join you on Facebook. (Unless you've managed to resist the pressure to venture into Zuckerland. For which I applaud all three of you.)
3) DO provide an email address. I don't know how many blogs I visit and find no contact information. The place most people will look is on your "about me" page. So that's a good place to put it. If you're afraid of spambots picking it up, write it this way : "myname (at) gmail (dot) com" –but do it! Imagine an agent or editor reads that short story that won the online contest and loves it. She wants to find out if you've got any full length fiction (yes, this does happen) so she Googles you, finds your blog, and…no contact information. Opportunity is knocking and nobody's home.  
4) DO post your blog schedule. Here we say "This blog is updated Sundays, usually"—six simple words that keep us disciplined and keep readers coming back. We've never missed a post, but if we do, that "usually" covers our derrieres—we're not running a boot camp here. On the other hand, it's very important to remember it's your professional profile. When you're trying to get published, you're basically applying for a job. You don't want a sloppy blog any more than you  want to show up late for an interview, wearing stained sweats and smelling like last night's party.  
5) DO learn to write 21st century prose. Writing for the Interwebz is very, very different from what you learned in school. It's light, punchy, and easy to skim. The vast majority of online readers are skimmers. They want:lists major points highlightedbullet pointsBoldinglots of white space See where your eye went? There are a couple of important publishing industry blogs I hardly ever read because they're written in the dense, repetitive prose of the old paid-by-the-word, pre-electronic era. I wait for somebody else to post excerpts or summarize those posts, because sweetie, I have things to do….
6) DON'T let yourself get pressured into too many blogfests and bloghops and blog awards and other blogmania. Just because somebody gives you an award doesn't mean you have to drop your WIP and spend a day visiting 80 blogs to tell them all the most embarrassing thing you've ever done with a book or whatever today's game is. Thank them politely, tell them you're honored and do as much as you have time for. Same with invitations to blogfests. No matter how much fun it sounds, just gathering a lot of blog followers isn't as important as getting that novel written!
7) DON'T die intestate. No matter how young and healthy and immortal you feel, appoint a blog executor. Make sure somebody besides you has the passwords to your blog so if anything dire should happen, they can attend to it and/or take it down. Yes, it's kind of icky to think of, but stuff happens. Not just kicking the bucket. You could get in a parasailing accident while you're on that vacation in Mazatlan. Or get stuck without power for 2 weeks in darkest Connecticut. Be attacked by angry bees. You don't want your blog hanging unattended in cyberspace as it collects Ukranian porn and fake Viagra ads.
8) DON'T neglect your "About Me" page. Keep it updated (speaking to myself here. I'd let mine get sloppy.) Make sure it's friendly but professional. You don't want a resume/curriculum vitae snoozefest. But you also don't want to use it to post pix of yourself after your tenth margarita at Señor Frog's or photos of your puppy learning to go potty outdoors. This is about you, the author. Even if you aren't published, you want this to be about your writer-self. Give a short bio, a list of what writing organizations you belong to, your genre if you've settled on one, plus links to any short pieces you've published, or contests you've won—and anything else that relates to you as a writer. Make sure you include links to all your social media pages, especially book-related ones like Goodreads, AuthorsDen or RedRoom. You can talk about your favorite books, your philosophy, or your life goals as long as it's short and not preachy. You can mention your family, but even if you're a devoted stay-at-home parent, don't make this all about the kids. This is for you.
9) DON'T try to maintain too many blogs. OK, I'm kind of hammering people about this, but I see a lot of misinformation about this circulating. To me, two is too many. If you don't have a day job, and you aren't in a hurry to finish that WIP, maybe you can handle two—especially if the second is a group blog. Or if one is the blog for your XXX-rated erotica and the other is for your sweet Christian romances. But please, don't try to do any more. Multiple blogs don't only take too much of your time—they also fracture your follower count and really annoy people trying to reach you.
Do you think it's more impressive to an editor that you have 60 followers on your Sweetie Snookums, Vampire Slayer blog, 90 on Susie's Scribblings, 43 on Sassy Susitude and 50 on Storytime Snippets—or 243 people reading Susie Smith, Scrivener? Do you think followers want to hop around to all those blogs?? Do you think we're going to keep searching your blogs after we've landed on the one that hasn't been updated since you posted that rant about Fox canceling Firefly in 2003???
Sorry. Got carried away. As I have said many times before, a Blogger blog has 20 pages. Count them: twenty. You can have one for your vampire stories, one for your musings and scribblings, one for giving yourself pep talks, and one for writing about being a storyteller—and still have 16 to go. So don't start another blog until you've filled them all, OK?
10) DON'T make commenting difficult. This is another thing I've been hammering on about but it's important. I just read a new study of customer habits and discovered the #1 motivation for the contemporary customer is ease of use. They're not so worried about fancy or special. They want things to be easy. That's why Amazon is so successful. First they invented a way to buy books with a couple of clicks and then they offered us a way to publish them with a few more. "Quick and Easy" wins the day, hands down.
So remember those CAPTCHA word verification things do NOT make it easy to comment. You can remove robo-spam yourself if it gets through the spam filter, which is a little harder for you and a lot easier for your potential customers. And as for insisting on moderating all new comments—especially if you don't get around to them for days—that's pretty much saying, "I don't need no stinking comments/customers." Try being open to comments on new posts for a while. If you get a troll attack, by all means go back to moderating, but with a small blog following, it's very unlikely you'll get a troll unless you blog about politics or religion. If you moderate (I moderate older comments myself, because that's where the spam shows up) DO check many times during the day so you don't send people away mad. These are your potential customers. Saying "just sit there until I have time to decide if you're special enough to buy my books," isn't going to make the sale.
Note: Blogger loves to play Big Brother. It often turns your CAPTCHA back on after you've turned it off. It's happened to me. So ask a good friend to let you know if it's on.
11) Don't delete a blog you've neglected. Bring it back to life by giving it your own name (you can't change the url, but you can change the header very easily) and post a blog schedule and keep to it.
Yes: this is a total reversal on what I used to say, but I was educated by a savvy reader,Camille LeGuire, the Daring Novelist  who left a comment letting me know the older a blog is, the higher its rating with search engines. So remember that nine-year old Firefly blog? You can delete content and change the title, but keep the url and you'll have much better SEO.
But: if you have 42 blogs, delete all but one or two of the oldest. Seriously. Did I mention people find multiple blogs annoying?
12) Don't let yourself be pressured into letting somebody guest blog just because they asked. Good guest posts are informative and target your audience. Somebody with a book or service to sell may approach you with what is essentially an advertisement. Even if you're just starting out, remember your blog is about presenting yourself to the world, and if something doesn't work with your audience, politely decline. Good guest bloggers should already have relationship with you: they should have been by to comment a few times, or know you from other blogs.
I'll talk more about guest blog etiquette in another post.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have any other tips to add? Have you learned any of these things the hard way like I did?
Valentine Blog Hop peeps: Our winner is Elizabeth Hyatt, aka the Book Attict. Congrats, Elizabeth! Let us know which of our books you want as your prizes. You get one of Ruth's and one of Anne's. Check the BookLuvin'Babes site for the name of the big grand prize winner.
Blog news: Ruth Harris and I now have pages on this blog for our books. Ruth's is here  and mine is here. We've got synopses, quotes from reviews and all the links you need to browse our extensive oeuvres. (And they're all remarkably cheap. Even my paper books are a deal—under $10 bucks.)
Next week Ruth is going to blog on creating fiction based on factual events. And she'll be doing a giveaway of DECADES, her own novel that is based on real incidents and historical fact.
Today, my mystery SHERWOOD, LTD. will be featured on Saffina Desforges "no bullshit" Sunday series on her SaffiScribe blog. You can find out how much of that book is fiction and how much was based on actual personal misadventures
Next Friday, Catherine Ryan Hyde will be posting an in-depth interview with me on her blog. If you haven't stopped by her great new interview series , she runs them every Friday on her blog.
Indie Chicks: This week's inspirational story is from Christine DeMaio-Rice. A fun one. Check it out here. 

Trolls, Sockpuppets, and Cyberbullies—How to Blog Part IV: Dealing with Difficult Blog Visitors

Blogging is fun, and a wonderful way to network and build your author platform. But it's not always rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes a visitor may disagree with you or be confrontational in some way. Nothing wrong with that. If it's done in a friendly manner, disagreement can be an excellent way to stimulate conversation and learn to see things from another point of view. I've learned a lot from people who have pointed out my mistakes and blogging faux-pas.
But the occasional commenter crosses the line from polite disagreement to a verbal attack or full-on temper tantrum.
Starting a blog is like opening a shop. Anybody out there on the street can drop in. Most people who come by will be great. But some might be substance abusers or suffer from mental illness. Some might be looking for a fight. Others can be just plain mean.
Do remember it's your blog, and it's your responsibility to make it a safe place for your commenters, so if one of your followers is attacked, speak up. 
Problems can be compounded by the fact that online we can't see the dangerous ones coming. When you meet somebody in person, you get a lot of clues about how to interact with them. A woman wearing a tinfoil hat and muttering about the invaders from Betelgeuse probably won't be the one you choose to chat up as a new friend, and most of us aren't going to worry much whether some guy sporting racist tattoos and an Aryan Nation baldscape likes us or not.
Age is a major clue, too. When you meet somebody in her seventies, you won't expect her to have the same world view as somebody of seventeen.
But when people comment on blogs, we treat them all as peers. This can be good or bad, depending on the type of interaction.
Here's an example. This week I used the word "Luddite" in a short, friendly blog comment. Another commenter found the word highly offensive and went into a three paragraph rant against me.
(Actual Luddites were an early 19th cent. group in the English Midlands who resisted the Industrial Revolution and revered a mythical Robin-Hood type figure called King Ludd.)
When a Boomer like me uses the word, we usually mean somebody who thinks the Internet is a fad and still takes photos with the Instamatic he got in 1976. To the young woman who had the melt-down, apparently it means somebody who doesn't have the latest Kindle Fire. If she'd seen my matronly, aging self, she might not have assumed I was attacking her lack of geek-chic.
Although you can't be sure. She also might have been one of those people who surf the 'Net looking for ways to feel insulted. Insults generate self-righteous rage, which produces endorphins that some people find addictive. They will ferret out anything that can set off their anger triggers, so they'll feel justified in beating others to an emotional pulp.
Insult-Ferrets are just one of the disruptive types who might wander into your blog. I've listed some others here.
Your first instinct will be to delete an out-of-line comment, but that's not always the best solution, especially if you're dealing with Cyber-Taliban types. They may feel you haven't properly submitted to their will, so they might launch a crusade against you on other blogs and forums and the problem will escalate.
I've made suggestions on when to delete comments. Do immediately delete anything that is bigoted, libelous, or deliberately hurtful to any of your readers.
It helps to remember you can't please all of the people all of the time. Humor is subjective, and some people will feel offended by any kind of joke. There are common brain conditions that leave people unable to understand whimsy, hyperbole for comic effect, or irony of any kind, so a lot of humor is a mystery to them.

Remember people tend to judge other people by themselves. Happy, friendly people assume others are happy and friendly until proved otherwise. Angry, nasty people assume everybody else is angry and nasty, too. When they accuse you of bizarre things, they aren't saying anything about you; they're telling you what is in their own heads.
And the truth is—no matter how nice you are, some folks are just not going to like you. You have to ignore them and concentrate on the people who do.
Here are some of the disruptive people to watch out for.
1) Trolls. "Troll" is an all-encompassing term that means pretty much anybody who's looking to cause trouble and might be lurking under a cyberbridge. Trolls thrive on creating conflict for its own sake. If they happen on a Christian blog, they'll post an atheist manifesto. Then they'll go to an atheist site and tell them they're all going to Hell. Their posts are often obscene or bigoted. They're probably living in their mom's basement and haven't had work since they lost the dishwashing job at Krusty Burger in 2008. These are people who feel pretty helpless in the world, and this is how they make themselves feel powerful.
Solution: Don't feed trolls! Any engagement at all will be perceived as encouragement. They crave attention and don't care if it's negative or positive. Delete the post and try to laugh about it with offline friends. No matter how nasty the remark, remember it's not aimed at you. It's the whole world these people hate. And even if you feel sorry for them, if you're not a mental health professional hired to treat them, your best bet is to give them a wide berth.
Tip: Trolls usually post as "anonymous" so if you're hearing from them regularly, you can change your settings to require a name in order to comment.
2) Sockpuppets. On the Interwebz, "sockpuppet" means somebody using a false identity to praise himself or attack his competitors, posing as an independent third party. The term first originated in Internet communities and spread when customer reviews started gaining importance on shopping sites. Somebody using a false name might post comments praising his own product or knocking competitors. Sockpuppet reviews are sometimes offered for sale. I saw a site recently that offered positive one-line reviews on Amazon for $5, or negative ones for a competitor's book for $10. That explains why you sometimes see Amazon pages with 25 or 30 nearly identical, generic reviews. (I don't think they fool very many readers.) People also use sockpuppets for blog comments that promote their own agendas. Bogus, fee-charging agents, for instance, sometimes pose as clients to talk up their agency on writing blogs.

Solution: Use your judgment and delete as necessary. If you know the puppet's true identity, you can respond with the person's real name, and that may deflate them. If you see an obvious sock puppet review on a writer's Amazon page, report abuse.
Tip: If you have a tech-savvy friend, they can usually find the identity of a puppet visiting your blog through their IP address.
3) Insult Ferrets. These people are rage addicts looking for a fix. They're surfing the 'Net looking for things that make them feel insulted, so they can justify going on the attack. If the young woman I mentioned above is one of them, she'll have a whole list of trigger words besides "Luddite." She might go off on a blogger for using the word "Heffalump," because that's what her cheating ex-husband called her when she was in her third trimester. Or the word "blue" will send her into a wild temper tantrum because everybody says her eyes are blue, but they're really blue-green, kind of, when she wears that green blouse. Insult Ferrets tend to be narcissistic and think everything is about them.
Solution: Try to soothe ruffled feathers, but realize you've done nothing wrong. If a Ferret attacks one of your commenters, call her on it in a friendly but firm way. If you're attacked on your own blog, apologize, even if you're clearly not in the wrong, but only respond once. Don't engage in conversation. Don't delete unless the comment is seriously over the top, because that will anger the Ferret further and anger is what they feed on. They'll come back for more.
Tip: You can block addresses by reporting them as spam.
4) The Politically Correctibot. This is a version of the Insult Ferret—people who browse blogs looking for perceived insults—not to themselves, but some downtrodden demographic. They often have the linguistic sense of Spellcheck software. They might attack a blogger for using the word "fatuous," calling it an insult to fat people. Or they'll attack anybody who talks about Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" as being unsympathetic to the Holocaust. I once got attacked for being "ageist" on this blog because I suggested that some of us Boomers have trouble learning the latest ways of the Interwebz. I can guarantee the attackers weren't Boomers, because we KNOW how hard it is to keep up with this stuff.
Solution: If they're berating you, it's probably best to simply ignore them, but if it's one of your commenters being dissed, speak up. Often you can leave an idiotic comment in place, because it doesn't harm anybody but the person who wrote it.
5) The Cyber-Taliban. These are Ferrets and Correctibots who operate as a tribe. They see themselves as the righteousness police—often enforcing a set of rules unknown outside their own niche demographic. I knew an author who had in some mysterious way stepped on the cybertoes of a fanatical online group. The day his next book came out, he got ten one-star Amazon reviews. I sent him a sympathetic tweet and immediately got flooded with DM's warning me not to associate with the "evil" author.
Solution: Report abuse. Then run. Disengage from these people in any way you can. Delete if the comment is over-the-top, but otherwise, it may be wiser to let it stand so they think they've "won." But then unfollow, block, and unfriend. There's no way to have a rational encounter with mass hysteria.
6) Cyberbullies. The fanatics above were being cyberbullies. But bullies don't need to be motivated by righteousness. Some are just mean. Destroying innocent lives and reputations is fun for them. You've seen the headlines. They often work in packs and can, in some cases, actually cause death by making vulnerable people commit suicide. Teens are especially susceptible to this, both as victims and perpetrators, but adults can be victimized too. I have personally received death threats from some Cyber-Taliban bullies. Scary stuff.
Solution. Report them and get help on the National Crime Prevention Website if you're in the US. They are breaking the laws of most countries. There is no reason to put up with criminal behavior, even if it's "only on the Internet." Delete seriously offensive comments, but you might want to leave some up if you can stand it. A self-incriminating post will catch up to the perpetrator eventually and will get you lots of support and sympathy from sane people.
If you see somebody being bullied on a blog, try to reach out to them through their own blog or other social media. They may be newbies who could end up seriously hurt.
Some bloggers are cyberbullies themselves and can cause real pain to unsuspecting people who think they're in friendly territory. Victims may think they've somehow done something to deserve the snark or personal attacks.
NOTE: If you feel you're in real, physical danger from a cyberbully who shows knowledge of where you live and work, contact local law enforcement immediately.***
The most important thing to keep in mind when dealing with blog meanies is: DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. Remember it has nothing to do with you. You're just a random victim. How you should deal with them individually depends on the severity of the attack and how strongly it affects your blog and your followers. 
NOTE: That word verification 'CAPTCHA' thing does nothing to keep the meanies out. It only keeps out spam robots—the ones trying to sell Ukrainian porn and knock-off handbags. Your spam filter also works on bots, and it's usually just as good as the CAPTCHA. The rest you can delete yourself.
But CAPTCHA will keep out commenters. I highly recommend turning it off.
Monitoring your comments will keep the nasty comments from appearing on your blog, but it also prevents any type of conversation in the thread, and comes across as amateurish and paranoid, so I don't suggest monitoring comments on your newest posts unless you're under a severe meanie attack.
What about you, scriveners? Have you had any encounters with these people? How did you handle it? Do you have any disrupters to add to the list?
Next week, on February 15th, I'll be visiting Romance University, where I'll be talking about introducing your protagonist. On Sunday February 26th, Ruth Harris will be at the helm here, talking about how to write fiction based on factual events. 
VALENTINE BLOG HOP: Click the pink box on the right for our Val Hop page. You have two more days to enter for some pretty amazing prizes.
INDIE CHICKS ANTHOLOGY: This week's great episode, from Cheryl Bradshaw is here. 

How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?

When I teach blogging, the most frequent question I get is "What do I blog about?" (For info on what not to blog about, see Part II of this series: How Not to Blog )
A writer starting a blog right now faces two problems:
1)     There are already, like, a trillion writers out there lecturing the blogosphere about how to write vivid characters, prop up saggy middles and avoid adverbs. A lot of them probably know more than you.
2)     If you're a writer with books to sell, you want to reach a general audience, not just other writers selling books.
So how can you be different? How do you create a blog that somebody will read—somebody besides your stalky ex-boyfriend and your mom?
The most important thing to remember with any kind of blog is you need to offer something. It should be fresh, informative, and/or entertaining.
How you approach your new blog is going to depend a whole lot on your stage in the publishing process and your immediate goals.
Stage #1: You're a developing writer.
You're working on your first or second novel, and maybe have a few stories in literary journals or a couple of contest wins. You want to be a published author sometime soon, but you're not quite ready to focus on  writing as a career.
Your goal: LEARNING THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS AND NETWORKING.
You want to make friends in the writing community for career help and mutual support. You want to learn the best writing techniques, network with publishing professionals, and educate yourself about the business.
Stage #2: You're ready for the marketplace.
You're querying agents and ready to publish. You've got a couple of books polished and ready to go. You've been to writing conferences, taken classes, and maybe hired a freelance editor. Your writing is at a professional level.
Your goal: BUILDING PLATFORM
You want to get your name out there to the general public. When you query an agent or ask for a blurb or review, you want a Google search to bring up ten pages of listings about you.
Stage #3: You're a published author
Your agent/marketing dept. says, "Get thee to the blogosphere!"
Or you realize the brilliantly blurbed oeuvre you've self-published is sitting there on Amazon with only two sales in three months (both to your spouse) because nobody has heard of it—or you.
Your goal: FINDING AND CONNECTING WITH READERS
If you're in stage #1, it's OK to blog about writing. (I know social media guru/Jedi Master Kristen Lamb says you shouldn't do this but I think her caveat is aimed more at people at stage #2 and #3.)
I'm not talking about lecturing on craft as if you're a pro when you're not. But an equal-to-equal post about something interesting you've discovered about pantsing vs.outlining, writing the dreaded synopsis, or what agents are looking for this month is just fine when you're reaching out to other writers.
Why do you want to reach other writers? Because writers help each other. (We're kind of a nice bunch, in spite of our stereotyping as depressed substance abusers.) I know a number of authors who got their agents through a referral from a fellow blogger. I found both my publishers through blogging. I'm not sure I would have made it through the darkest rejection phases if it hadn't been for the support of writer blogfriends.
When you have a writing blog, you get to participate in blog hops, flash fiction days, contests and all kinds of networking events that help you meet people who can be important in your future career.
But do make sure the blog has something interesting going for it—something that's helpful. There are all sorts of ways you can help:
Author interviews Profiles of small publishers or agents who are interested in your genre (take them from websites—you don't have to bother the agents and editors) Info on contests, giveaways and blog hopsLinks to great articles and posts in your genre or field of interest. Book reviews. If you write thoughtful, useful reviews, you'll immediately become everybody's best friend.If you're a stage #2 writer, you should heed Kristen's advice. If you're starting a blog right now with the goal of building platform, writing is definitely not the best choice of subject matter. You've got a trillion competitors and you're limiting your audience.
So try something that's related to your writing but has a unique slant. Here are a few suggestions:
Focus on your genre or subgenre (unless you're still experimenting with different genres.) You can discuss movies, videogames, TV shows, even jewelry and costumes—as long as they relate to your niche. A great example is SciFi writer Alex J. Cavanaugh's super-popular blog that specializes in all things SciFi.
Blog about your home town or state, especially if they're the setting of your novels. Travel sites that link to local landmarks and Chamber of Commerce will help you make friends locally that can be a big help later on.
Choose a writing-related subject that has a broader audience. A brand new general-interest writing blog is The Wordmonger, where YA writer C.S Perryess gives a fun, in-depth study of the etymology of one word per week. I learn something with every post.
Offer links to important information. If you're writing a memoir or fiction about certain health issues, promote organizations that help with those issues. Link to support groups and they might even link back.
Provide people with the benefit of your research. If you're writing historical fiction about a certain time period—post the research on your blog. (This is doubly useful because it will help keep you from cramming it all into the novel at the expense of story.) Have to research guns for a thriller? Poisons for a cozy? Are you basing the story on a real case? There are people who would love to read about this stuff.
Appeal to another Internet community. If that historical novel is based on a real person or your own family history, you could target readers from the genealogy blogosphere and links to historical research sites. If your heroine loves to fish, sew, or collect stuff, connect with blogs for fly fisherpersons, quilters, or collectors of floaty pens.
Provide a forum for people in your target demographic. If you write for a particular group—single urban women, Boomers, stay-at-home moms, or the just-out-of-college dazed and confused—focus on aspects of life of special interest to them.
Offer recipes or how-tos. Have a character who's an expert at something? Give readers the benefit of his expertise in the woodshop, garden or kitchen. Have some great recipes that relate to your character, time period, or region? Write about the food in your books, or food in fiction generally.
If you've reached Stage #3, you can be more eclectic. People will be coming to your blog because they want to get to know you and find out about your books—so focusing on one subject isn't as important. The blog becomes a place to showcase who you are. Think if it as your own version of Oprah magazine: not a place to toot your own horn as much as share things of interest to you that will also be of value to your readers. So you can continue whatever you've been doing in Stage #2, plus add stuff about you and your books.
Yes, you can talk about your books. I think people are silly who say you shouldn't use your blog for self-promotion. That's why you're in the blogosphere in the first place. It's fine as long as you don't use hard-sell tactics and you don't project an attitude of "I'm an author and you're not."
Each type of blog can evolve into another as your goals change. 
A few tips for the new blogger:
Make a list of topics you might like to explore before you begin, so you have a running start. If you visit other blogs regularly (and you should) you may find yourself making long comments on some subject that gets your hackles up/juices flowing. That's the stuff you should be putting in your own blog.
I STRONGLY advise against having more than one blog. It saps your energy and fragments your audience. (It also annoys the hell out of them: I hate hitting somebody's profile and finding six blogs. Unless one is clearly marked "author" I don't even try to wade through them: you've lost me.) Blogs have many pages. Use them.
Put your own name in the blog title! Yes, I'm saying it again: your name is your brand. And also, you'll find it easier to transition from Stage #1 to #2 and #3. Subtitles are easy to change. Titles, not so much. "Susie Scrivener's Blog" can go from "writing and ranting" to "Floaty Pen Collecting" if Susie decides to change the blog's focus. But "Floaty Pen Central" can't be changed to "Susie Scrivener's Amazing Books" without a lot of confusion. And you want to keep the same blog. The longer a blog exists, the higher it ranks with the Google spiders. (Thanks Camille LeGuire for cluing me in on the importance of longevity in SEO.)
Write an inviting "About Me" page with clear contact information. I'm amazed at bloggers who don't even post their names or contact information. The whole purpose of blogging is to let people know who you are and how to find you! (And don't just post your resume. Be informal and friendly.)
Don't succumb to pressure to blog more than three times a week. Posting once a week on a regularly scheduled day is better than posting often but erratically. Allow yourself time to write your books. Remember you're in this for the long haul. Quality over quantity. Slow blogging works. 
Be friendly. The way to build an audience, no matter where you are in your writing career, is to be likable and helpful. You don't have to be chirpy. Just don't project a phony or selfish tone. Kristen Lamb has a great post this week on how to be liked in the blogosphere. 
More blog advice in my blogpost How To Blog: A Beginner's Guide for Authors.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a blog? Does it suit your stage of writing? Are you going to be able to give up those six semi-neglected blogs and concentrate on one great one? What advice would you give a new blogger? 
VALENTINE BLOG HOP:  Here's our Valentine blog hop page: All you have to do is send your email address to annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com, or leave it in the comments here, and you'll be entered to win two books from Ruth and me, as well as a $75 gift certificate or a diamond necklace AND you'll be eligible for the drawing next June for a signed, first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel, Pay it Forward. For more info, click the pink box in the sidebar.
INDIE CHICKS: This week's inspirational story is from Dani Amore. She tells us why it's important to write what you love to read. Read it over on our Indie Chicks Page.

How to Get Out of Your Own Way: The Secret to Becoming a Successful Writer

First, we have a few announcements:
#1 Our blog has been nominated for the Top Writing Blog Award by ECollegeFinder. UPDATE: Votes are open again through February 3rd.
#2 Ruth's thriller HOOKED which she wrote with her husband Michael Harris, has been zooming up the charts this month. It's in the Kindle top 100, and made it to #3 on Movers and Shakers!
#3 Treeware lovers: Anne's first Camilla Randall mystery THE BEST REVENGE is now available in paper ($9.95.) You can buy it at Popcorn Press or Amazon .
#4 NOOK Owners: Anne's other two Camilla mysteries GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY ($.99) AND SHERWOOD, LTD ($2.99) are now available at B & N. And Ruth's romantic saga DECADES ($.99) is featured this week on the Nook Lovers blog.

#5 SLO folks: Judy Salamacha interviews me for her column in the Tribune on Monday, January 30th.
And now I'm going to get out of Ruth's way and let her give you some very sound advice—a lot of which I could have used a few years back. I hate to admit it, but I spent almost a decade trying to "perfect" a book that wasn't that bad to begin with—but got worse with every "please all of the people all of the time" revision. My perfectionism killed my own book. So listen to the lady. She knows what she's talking about:
The secret to becoming a successful writer is not learning writing one perfect book. It's learning to write as many good books as you can. So once you've got the nuts and bolts down, stop obsessing and write another book.

HOW TO GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY:  TOUGH LOVE, RULE BREAKERS & A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE GUY IN THE DELI
You know what I'm talking about. I know you do. Most of us recognize it as The Enemy Within, the devil with a thousand faces, the ugly, waxy build up of negative forces that stand between you and Writing The Book/Finishing The Book/Editing & Polishing The Book.
Science still hasn't come up with a cure for the common cold but, as an editor, I've worked with lots of writers over the years and I've learned that writers, crafty creatures that we are, struggle with the lit version of the common cold.
I'm going to list a few of the symptoms and propose cures, but be warned: If you like to play it safe, don't pay any attention to me.
 Are you a perfectionist?
Do you suffer the misery of unfinished drafts, half completed novels, computer files so ancient only Methuselah remembers the program that created them? Have you settled into an endless rut of rewriting, revising and second guessing yourself? You're working hard but getting nowhere—and not fast?
Then, please, stop! Ask yourself what are you afraid of: failure? Or is it success? And what's the worse thing that can happen if you upload a less-than-"perfect" book? Heavens gonna fall? Earth stop in its orbit?
So you think it's a POS? Maybe you're right—but maybe you're wrong. Writers are notoriously lousy judges of their own work. So get over yourself. No one except you is going to give a bleep.
Who knows, maybe readers aren't as picky as you are. Maybe no one will notice whatever it is that's worrying you and maybe whatever's bothering you is only the monster under the bed anyway. If people like your book and buy it, what's the problem? Close your eyes, think of the money, and smile.
If they don't like it, if they actually hate it, and your reviews absolutely, positively stink, take the book down. That's what the "unpublish" button is for.
Give yourself a day to lick your wounds and shore up your ego, then look at the book with a fresh eye. Maybe you ought to hire an editor to offer some objective perspective, then fix what's realistically wrong.
Give that sucker a new title, a new cover, maybe use a pseudonym (although I don't think people remember writers' names unless they're Stephen King or William Shakespeare), write a brand-new, more come-hither blurb and re-upload.
Think: "Why, Miss Brown, you're beautiful without your glasses!" Same deal, the magic of the makeover. 
Like shampoo, a book can be rinsed and repeated. Big 6 editors hate this but these days you're not writing for an editor. You're trying to reach thousands and maybe millions of readers. Huge, huge difference.
Heed Voltaire: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Accentuate the positive.
In a tizzy about your alleged weaknesses? Your critique group sez your characters are stereotypes? That means readers will recognize them immediately. They'll fill in the blanks themselves.
Your bff sez your plots are creaky? There are only 6 plots anyway….starting with the Bible and going up to Harry Potter. It's what you do with the plot that counts. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl? What if the boy is Clark Kent and the girl is Lois Lane? What if the boy is a scruffy junkyard mongrel and the girl is a snooty Park Avenue poodle?
Do more of what comes easily and work on your strengths. 
Snappy dialogue? Scorching sex? Elegant descriptions?
Whatever you like to write will likely be a key to developing a style that is uniquely yours.
Whether your style is Tilda Swinton or Lady Gaga, George Clooney or Judd Apatow, work it. Robert M. Parker did. Elmore Leonard did. Style counts, style matters, style lasts.
Raymond Chandler nailed it: "Style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time."
Bottom line: Style is you being you on purpose so embrace it.
Make friends with your subconscious.
If you respect your subconscious and treat it right, your subconscious will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
That guy who works at the deli on page 3? You had to stick him in when your heroine stopped for coffee and needed change?  You put him in, didn't spend two seconds thinking about him. You needed him so you typed something.
Maybe on page 106, he reappears. Maybe he's the murderer. Maybe he's an undercover cop. Maybe he's a billionaire who wants to find out how the 99% live. Maybe he's the long-lost sister who's had a sex change op. Maybe that guy at the deli will turn out to be the key to a great plot twist.
That guy—the one you didn't spend two seconds thinking about—was a creation of your subconscious. He appeared out of nowhere because you needed him while you were concentrating on your heroine.But later?
Later, that character turns out to be gold.******** Scriveners, have you ever had an experience like that with the deli guy--has a minor character reappeared to become a major player? Are you tired of the writing gurus who tell you rejections will stop if you do yet another edit of your Work-that-has-been-in-Progress for a decade? Are you working as hard to be YOU as you are at following directions and coloring inside the lines?
Indie Chick News: This is my week to post my essay from the Indie Chick Anthology: A KINKY ADVENTURE IN ANGLOPHILIA. Click here. Or click through the Indie Chicks link in the sidebar. You can read an interview with me on Cheryl Shireman's blog later this week, and see the clothes I chose for Camilla to wear when she arrives at Sherwood Ltd. on Christine DeMaio-Rice's blog , Fashion is Murder And there will be a giveaway of THE BEST REVENGE  on Lizzy Ford's blog on February 1st.
BOOK LUVIN' BABES Valentine Blog hop: Starting February 1, we are participating in an exciting contest. Sign up for our mailing list and you'll be entered to win a $75 gift certificate, a diamond neckalace and wonderful free books click here for our contest page, and for more on the  whole blog hop, click the (very) pink Valentine blog hop button in the sidebar. 

How to Write a Publishable Memoir: 12 Do's and Don'ts

They say we all have a book inside us—our own life story. The urge to put that story on paper is the most common reason people start writing. Adult education programs and senior centers everywhere offer courses in "writing your own life." Memoir is the most popular genre at any writers conference.
Unfortunately, it's the hardest to write well—and the least likely to be published.
Agent Kristin Nelson once blogged that she's seen so many bad memoirs that she cringes when she meets a memoirist a writer's conference. Author J. A. Konrath offered the simple advice: "Unless you're one of the Rolling Stones, don't write anything autobiographical." Miss Snark pronounced, "every editor and agent I know HATES memoir pitches…I'd rather shave the cat."
But memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love, In the Garden of Beasts and Townie: a Memoir, top the bestseller lists.
In this age of "reality" TV, there's a huge audience for shared real-life experience. Readers are hungry for true stories: look how angrily they reacted to writers like James Frey and Herman Rosenblat, who passed off fiction as memoir.
So keep working on that masterpiece-in-progress. But hone your craft—brilliant wordsmithing and/or stand-up-worthy comedy skills help a bunch—and follow some basic dos and don'ts:



1)     DO read other memoirs. Before you put pen to paper, it's a good idea to read some currently selling memoirs. See what works and what doesn't. Know the genre and the market
2)     DON'T write an autobiography: An autobiography is a list of events: "I was born in (year) in (place) and I did (this) and (that.) Mr. Konrath is right—unless you're Mick Jagger, nobody cares. (Except your family. Don't let me discourage you from self-publishing a chronicle of your life as a gift to your descendants.)
3)     DO tell a page-turning story. A book-length memoir is read and marketed as a novel. It needs a novel's narrative drive. That means tension and conflict—and ONE main story arc to drive the action. Most memoirs fail from lack of focus. Choose a basic storyline, like: "Orphan kids save the family farm during the Depression," or "A cross-dressing teen survives high school in the 1950s."
4)     DON'T confuse memoir with psychotherapy: Writing a book about a traumatic personal event may be cathartic for the writer, but there's a reason shrinks charge big bucks to listen to people's problems. Put the raw material in a journal to mine later for fiction, poetry, and personal essays.
5)     DO remember that a memoirist, like a novelist, is essentially an entertainer. A memoir may be nonfiction, but it requires a creative writer's skill set. Always keep your reader in mind. Never fabricate, but only tell what's unique, exciting and relevant to your premise.
6)     DON'T expect a big audience for medical journaling: If you or a loved one has a serious disease, chronicling your experiences can be invaluable to those suffering similar trials. To the general public—not so much. You may find it's best to reach your audience through online forums, blogs, and magazines. (See #6) Remember that publishing is a business, and no matter how sad your story, if it's not an enjoyable read, it won't find an audience.
7)    DO consider non-book formats to tell your story. Beginning writers often make the mistake of jumping into a book-length opus. It's smarter and easier to start with short pieces—what a writer friend calls "memoiric essays." Nostalgia and senior-oriented magazines and blogs are great venues for tales of life in the old days. Some niche journals and websites focusing on hobbies, pets, disablities, veterans, etc. even provide a paying market. These will also give you some great publishing credits, and you won't have to slog for years before reaching an audience.
This is one area where BLOGGING can provide you with a fantastic forum. A new blog I love is by Tony Piazza, a veteran of the film business—and mystery author—who has insightful stories about every Hollywood star you ever heard of. 
8)     DON'T include every detail because "it's what really happened." Just because something is true doesn't mean it's interesting. Your happy memories of that idyllic Sunday school picnic in vanished small-town America will leave your reader comatose unless the church caught fire, you lost your virginity, and/or somebody stole the parson's pants.
9)     DO limit the story to an area where your experience is significant and unique. If you gave birth in the mud at Woodstock, dated Elvis, or helped decipher the Enigma code, make that the focus of your book. I knew a musician who worked with of some of the great legends of American music. His memoir of those jazzy days was gripping, but because it was buried in his "happy ever after" life story, he never found a publisher.
10)   DON'T jump into the publishing process until you've honed your skills as a creative writer. Unless you're only writing for your grandchildren (nothing wrong with that—but be clear in your intentions) you need to become an acomplished writer before you can expect non-family members to read you work. Even the most skilled editor can't turn a series of reminiscences into a cohesive narrative.

NOTE: There are ghostwriters who specialize in memoirs, so if you want to get your story into book form and aren't interested in becoming a professional writer, you can hire one. Many editing services offer ghostwriting—a more expensive process than editing—but worth the cost if you don't enjoy the writing process. I'd recommend using a memoir specialist like YourMemoir.co.uk., which looks like an excellent service.
11) DO look at small and regional publishers. A national publisher may not be interested in stories of the vanished ranch life of old California, but a local publisher who has outlets at tourist sites and historical landmarks may be actively looking for them. Another plus: you don't need an agent to approach most regional publishers. A good example of a memoir that found a home at a regional press is Anne Schroeder's Branches on the Conejo,Leaving the Soil after Five Generations  (Another perk of being with a small regional press is that the book can still be in print after a decade.)
12) DON'T get discouraged. Ann Carbine Best, an award-winning poet, knew she had a story to tell that would help thousands of women who shared her experience. Unfortunately, most publishers thought her subject matter was too niche and controversial to be a blockbuster. But with a small press, she found a welcoming audience for In the Mirror , her memoir of a doomed marriage.
If you're working on a memoir, polish your creative writing skills, remember publishing is a business, keep your reader in mind--and you'll avoid the cringe-making amateurishness that agents, editors and readers fear.
What about you, scriveners? Do you read memoirs? What is likely to make you pick one? What are your pet peeves in memoirs? Memoirists--any advice to new writers who are working on theirs?


WE HAVE A WINNER of the signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's wonderful novel, WALTER'S PURPLE HEART. I assigned every address a number went to the random number generator at Random.org to select the winning number. 


The winner is Cathryn Leigh! Congratulations, Cathryn! CRH will contact you to get your snail address. 


Cathryn, and everybody else who signed up for our HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE  launch newsletter, you're still in the running for the signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel, PAY IT FORWARD.


INDIE CHICK fans:  This week's exciting episode comes from Sarah Woodbury, author of some wonderful historical novels set in medieval Wales. I predict we'll be hearing more from Sarah, who out-did me by publishing no less than seven novels last year. Her inspiring piece is here. 

This just in!! The paper version of THE BEST REVENGE--the first of the Camilla Randall mysteries--is now available from Popcorn Press! Only  $9.95 

Rejection: Why it Doesn't Mean What You Think it Means

FIRST: AN ANNOUNCEMENT: 
The book I've been writing with Catherine Ryan Hyde, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—and keep your E-sanity! will be published by Mark Williams international  in June of 2012. The book will be available as an ebook that will include free six-month updates. AND it will also be available in paper in both a US and UK edition.
We've had some interest from more traditional publishers, but decided to go with the innovative people at MWiDP because we need a nimble publisher who can keep up with industry changes and offer timely updates. Also, Catherine has a large international fan base, which made "Mr. International's" offer especially attractive.
Win a signed first edition!This is not another how-to book for writers. It's a how-to-survive book. It's something we think a lot of writers might need right about now. 
If we'd known the challenges writers would face in the 21st century, we'd have gone into a more stable profession…like maybe running an all-ayatollah drag show in downtown Tehran.

Let's face it. Aspiring writers need help. Writers today need to learn to ride the roller-coaster of a rapidly changing publishing business and deal with an overload of conflicting information. We can find thousands of blog posts every day on the subject of writing and publishing, and we can't read them all. Which ones do you trust?  Who do you believe? So much of it is negative, snarky, or either/or.
Making a living as a writer gets more difficult by the day—does that mean fledgling writers should give up their dreams?
Our answer is a resounding no. The life of a creative writer can be the most rewarding in the world. A writer lives a life of the mind—an examined life. Whether you hope to become the next Stephanie Meyer, a self-publishing writer-preneur, a crafter of literary short stories, or just want to write for family and friends, life is infinitely enhanced by the process of creating worlds out of words.
Our book is about helping newer writers learn how to navigate the publishing business as it zooms into the future, to learn to be the best writer you can be—and keep on writing, no matter what.
WIN PRIZES!! If you leave your e-address in the comments thread (or send it to me at annerallen.allen (at) gmail (dot) com) we will send you the formal announcement of the launch of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE. This will also make you eligible for a drawing to be held next Sunday for a signed, first edition hardback copy of Catherine's novel, WALTER'S PURPLE HEART, which she discusses in this post.
The Denver Post said, "Walter's Purple Heart" serves up 315 distinctive pages of reconciliation and hope...Hyde subtly captures the most powerful elements of sentiment—qualities we all recognize and understand—and adds a dash of metaphysical hope. She suggests that when it comes to love, nothing is ever truly lost, but rather redirected."
Signing up for our announcements will also make you eligible for the REALLY BIG drawing to be held on launch day in June. The REALLY BIG, launch-day prize in June will be a signed first edition of Catherine's iconic inspirational novel, PAY IT FORWARD. 
My Ultimate Rejection Story (Chosen out of Literally Thousands)by Catherine Ryan Hyde
I have a number of rejection stories. I'll bet it's a larger number than the best guess in your head right now. I've written a sort of "best of" series of my rejection stories into Anne's and my new book HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—and Keep your E-Sanity
Each of the stories is meant to illuminate rejection, to show that it doesn't mean what you think it means.At first you think it means the work is no good, you're not a good writer. But then how can you reconcile the fact that my short stories were rejected an average of 17 ½ times each before going on to find a good home without further revision? (You'll read that story in our book.) Okay, so then you figure the work may be good, but you're trying to place it with the wrong publisher. But if that were true, I wouldn't have placed my first short story with the same magazine that issued my most vicious rejection. (You'll also read that one.)
Now, hopefully, you're almost where you need to be, thinking rejection really only means that this particular editor won't publish this particular work. Hold onto your socks for what comes next: It doesn't even mean that much.
This is the one I consider to be my ultimate rejection story.
I'd had an agent who marketed Walter's Purple Heart to no avail (25 rejections!) and wouldn't even take on Pay It Forward. Hated it, hated it, hated it. (Told that one in the book, too.) I told her to send both home to me, and then gave them to a newer, hungrier agent.
The new agent sold Pay It Forward to Chuck Adams at Simon & Schuster, who then immediately asked what else I might have. Out of the drawer came Walter's Purple Heart.

He bought it in a six-figure deal right before Christmas.
Available hereWhy is that my best rejection story? Because one of Walter's Purple Heart's 25 previous rejections was from…wait for it…Chuck Adams at Simon & Schuster.            And he knew it.
His statement on why: He said Simon & Schuster had changed. They didn't used to let him take on the smaller, more literary works. Now they did.
My statement on why: My career had changed. A book he might not have successfully marketed as a debut could be much more saleable as a follow-up to Pay It Forward.
So there you go. The true story of rejection. It doesn't even necessarily mean that any one particular editor won't buy that work of fiction. It just means he (or she) chose not to buy it on that day. Later, things can change. Reader tastes, the book industry, or your name recognition.
Here's a final question before I move on from the subject of rejection.
Second Hand Heart now available in USI once received a plain, printed rejection from a small literary journal on my short story Nicky Be Thy Name. But they accepted the next story I sent. In a phone conversation with the editor, he remembered "Nicky," and referred to it, saying he'd come within "a hair's breadth" of taking it.
Now, I hadn't known that. He hadn't said. I just figured he didn't like it.
When we get a rejection back in the mail, we usually don't know the process the work has gone through. We don't know if one paragraph was read by an editorial assistant (translation=first reader, probably straight out of college) or if our work made the rounds of all editors and survived everything but the final cut.
Here's the question:
Why do we always assume the editor(s) hated it, that we have been branded as hacks? Why don't we ever assume that it came within "a hair's breadth" of acceptance, and is being returned with deep regret?
Catherine's Workshop Announcement:
On the first weekend in February (and possibly the second weekend as well if I get enough takers) I'm going to be doing a weekend workshop at my studio in Cambria. This will be a read-and-critique workshop with a heavy focus on self-editing. In other words, the stuff your read-and-critique group will miss if they are only listening to the work, not reading it on the page (students will be encouraged to bring enough copies for everyone). Self-editing is a must for any author considering the indie, rather than traditional, publishing model. Class size is limited to eight. Hours on Saturday and Sunday will depend on class size, so please email for more information, and to reserve a space: ryanhyde@cryanhyde.com
Traditionally I have charged $175 for workshops of this length (14 hours of instruction if maxed at 8 students). I'm doing the workshops, quite frankly, because I need the money, yet I am more than aware that most of my students are not exactly rolling in it these days, either. So I am conducting this workshop as a "recession special," which is another way of saying "pay what you can." Make me the best offer you can afford to make, and I won't turn anyone away over financial considerations. ******
This week's inspiring excerpt from the INDIE CHICKS ANTHOLOGY is here. It's a make-lemonade-out-of-lemons story from historical suspense writer Suzanne Tyrpak. 
What about you, Scriveners? Do you have any good rejection stories? We'd love to hear them. Yes, it's OK to vent! (And don't forget to leave your email address--or send it--to enter the contest.)