Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 150

On Toeing the Line

  by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

After my post Wednesday, where I extolled
the virtues of the feeling of control that one gets through the self-publishing
process, I thought I’d backtrack a bit today and talk about the times I don’t have a feeling of control as a
self-publisher.

A large exception is dealing with a
certain mammoth retailer.  When Amazon
writes me an email, I pay attention and immediately do whatever it is that they
want me to do. 

This is the first time I’ve received this
particular email from Amazon:

Hello,

We
recently noticed the digital list price for the title(s) listed below is higher
than the list price of the same book listed on Amazon.com or another website.

A Body in
the Backyard (A Myrtle Clover Mystery) (ID: B009YAVVAU) is listed on Amazon.com
at $3.99 and at $2.99 on Sony

According
to our pricing policy, your book should be priced no higher than the list price
on Amazon.com or any other sales channel for either the physical or digital
edition of the book. Please adjust the list price for the above book(s) within
the next 5 business days. If the price isn’t updated within 5 business days, we
may remove the book(s) from the Kindle Store, at which point you will need to
republish the book with an updated price.

For more
information on our list price requirements, see section 4 on our Pricing Page
below:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=200634500

Thanks
for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The
Kindle Direct Publishing Team

When I read the email, I said, “Whoa,
whoa, whoa!” and quickly hopped over to the Sony page and the Amazon page to
see what the heck was going on.  Had I
signed something like that?  A “list
price requirements” thing? Why didn’t I remember signing something like
that?  Note to self—review
contracts from time to time! I’m running a business, but clearly—at
least sometimes—I’m not completely paying attention.

Honestly, I had never been over to the
Sony page for my book.  In fact, I’d
never been over to the Sony bookstore, period. 
I deal with Smashwords for Sony, Kobo…the odds and ends of my income
from non-Amazon sources that aren’t B&N (whom I deal with separately.)

Sure enough, there was the book in
question, listed for $2.99.  I do know that Sony can be painfully slow to
make changes to pricing. I know this from when I’m done with a free book
campaign and I’m trying to end it…and they’re the last holdout. I immediately
raised the price on Smashwords to $3.99, and then pulled up the book on Amazon.


I looked at my Amazon page for Body in the Backyard…they’d already lowered
the price to $2.99 without waiting for approval.

So, not really wanting to lose 95% of my
self-pub income for that title by having Amazon boot the book from its catalog,
I quickly lowered the price on the Amazon Bookshelf page (where it was still listed at
$3.99, even though the price for readers was a dollar lower.)  Sony might not raise that price in five
business days and I wanted to cover my bases.

Not a lot of control here, right?  But then—no
one has control over Amazon. 
Penguin would agree with me there. How eager was I to correct this
matter and put Amazon on better terms with me as a publisher? I can’t
overemphasize how eager I was.  I make a
good deal of income from them.

Where else do I feel as if I toe the
line?  As I’ve mentioned many times
before—with my readers.  They have Ideas
about Things.  :)  Their ideas encompass everything from chapter
length to profanity to storylines to characters they’d like to see more
of. 

I’d like to say that I write to please
myself, but if that were solely the case, I’d be writing crummy and unpublished
poetry. No, I’m a commercial writer and I’m writing for an audience…am I
concerned about their opinions?  You
bet.  I’m not going to incorporate every
single suggestion I get (that would be taking things a bit far), but if I see a
trend on a particular idea or complaint—I’m absolutely
taking it into account.  It would be
silly of me not to, considering my goal is to please my readers and have them
keep reading.

Summing up, I’d say that even on the
self-publishing side of things, we’re not totally independent.  If we are, then
we’re perhaps not working with our retail outlets well or providing our readers
what they want.  It’s good to be
independent…I enjoy it…but we still have responsibilities, red tape, etc.

If you self-publish, have you come across
an email like this one from Amazon? Do you follow reader feedback?  Are there other examples you can give where
you’re not really completely an
independent contractor/publisher?



Update: I just checked (8:30 a.m. EST 8/9) and Sony has raised the price for the book. Took them about 72 hours.  Going to re-adjust on Amazon now. Whew.

Truths About Being a Hybrid Writer

  by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



I’ve discovered that there are many
things that I like about being a hybrid writer (one who self-publishes as well
as publishes traditionally.)

I like the visibility that traditional
publishing still affords me.  There are
still some folks out there who shop in bookstores and have discovered me that
way.  Penguin’s mysteries do tend to get
decent visibility on Amazon, too, and they’re doing a good job with Facebook
mentions and tweets on their end.

I like that my output tends to be higher
when I’m working with my publishers’ deadlines.

I like the editing and story development
assistance that I receive from my editors.

On the
other hand, I like the higher income that I receive from
self-publishing. 

I like that I’ve continued a discontinued
series by self-publishing it, and that it became popular among readers who
hadn’t discovered it when it was traditionally published. 

That all being said, there are definitely
problems hybrid writers face.  I’m
working through them. Here are two big ones:

Production
delays—for both traditional publishing
and self-pub.

Production
delays with traditional publishing: Unfortunately, it’s one of those
scenarios where “failure to plan on your part constitutes an emergency on
mine.”  It usually means I need to go
through my edits quickly or my copyedits quickly or my pass pages quickly.
Other than that, I usually don’t have any part to play in the process…and
usually, I don’t even know where the production failure occurred.  We always end up releasing on time. There’s
not a whole lot you can do to prepare for this with trad. publishing…my advice
would just be to expect a tight deadline and be aware you might have to put a
current project down for a while to address edits in a previous project.

Production
delays with self-publishing: You’re a lot more involved, here.  Have you put up an expected launch date on
your website or blog? You’ll need to adjust that. I’ve gotten emails and
Facebook comments for the past 1 ½ months from readers asking where the book
is…because I publicized the release date. 
Unfortunately, a series of events that really wasn’t anyone’s fault in
my production team has caused a delay of nearly 2 months in the expected
release of the latest book in the Myrtle series.  A potential solution would be to be a bit
vaguer with your launch date, or else adjust it on your website, accordingly.

Traditionally-published
projects interrupt self-pub projects. If we really want to be a hybrid
writer, unfortunately this means that paid-in-advance projects come first.  You’ll have a contract binding you to a
particular date to deliver the manuscript to the publisher. If you don’t
deliver you might have to forfeit your advance. I was recently working on
another Myrtle Clover for an October release (which, yes, I’d stupidly
announced on my website) and then was asked to write two more books in one of
my series. This is good news, but it meant that I either needed to work on both
books at once (I’ve drafted two books at once before, and it’s very, very
confusing), or else stop one to work on the other.

I’ve been able to keep working on the
first draft for the Myrtle book, and outline
the other book at the same time…but now I’m at the point where I need to write
the first chapter for the new book (so that it can be included as a teaser in
the book coming out in December). And I’ve got to temporarily stop work on the
Myrtle.

Other than juggling work (and postponing
work) it’s not especially challenging to have a hybrid writing career.

Do you write more than one series?  Do you have a foot in both publishing worlds?

The Importance of Knowing Our Audience and Genre

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



Considering how much I post on Twitter, it’s amazing how little time
I spend there (thanks to a handy-dandy free tool called “Social Oomph").

There are a few things that I see on
Twitter that make me wince.  One is a BSP
(blatant self-promotion) tweet that’s a variant of: my book is for anyone who loves a great story!

Well…sure.  We hope that anyone who enjoys reading will
love our books, right?  Just the same, I
know a good deal about who I’m aiming for with my books. I know how and where
they shop, their general age range, their interests, their general thoughts on
profanity and violence in books.  I know
their gender and some of the things they enjoy doing in their spare time. I know what they're looking for when they pick up a mystery.



Clearly, not everybody is going to fit
into that very general reader demographic. But many do.  I aim for them with my books.  How do I know so much about them?  Readers email me.  They’re my friends on Facebook and Pinterest.
I listen to them and pay attention. My publisher helps me with demographics, too, and
nudges me in the right direction if I stray too far (which happened in my last
manuscript, as a matter of fact).  And I sure hear about reader preferences in
the customer reviews…good, bad, and ugly.

This isn’t a difficult task.  And structuring a story for a particular
genre or audience doesn’t much alter the most basic aspect of our story,
either. We do this all the time…this process comes naturally to us.

For instance, y’all know I recently
returned from a family vacation in Kenya (photo above. With baby elephant in the background). :) Upon my return, I’ve been asked about my trip by different friends and
family.

When young children asked me, I talked
about the big cats and the elephants we saw.

When my son’s teenage friends ask me, I
share with them that we had a leopard and hyenas running through our safari
camp at night.

When my parents asked me, I may have left
out the bit about the leopard and the hyenas since they wouldn’t have been wild
about the fact their grandkids were in a tent with wild animals around.

When an epicurean friend asked me about
the trip, I talked about the food that we ate there and how it was prepared.

A well-traveled friend specifically
wanted to know more about our flights over there and where we stayed for our
layover.

You get the idea. And this is just
filling people in on a vacation…in a way that hopefully makes the
vacation story at least a wee bit more interesting to them.  We do this all the time, right?  Tailor our stories for different groups of
people we know.  Our boss will hear one
version, our parents another, our children another, our best friend a different
one still.

If we’re writing genre fiction, it does
help to know the genre…not to limit ourselves, but because we have a good
picture of our reader.  We know some
general expectations that readers of a particular genre may have.

So, for me, if I’m writing a story about
a con man who gets murdered, I’m slanting it in a different way because I’m
writing for readers who enjoy cozy (traditional) mysteries.  The con man’s death won’t be gory, or, if it
is, I’m sure not going to describe it. My main character will be an amateur
sleuth who is tangentially involved with the case and feels a personal duty to
investigate.  Forensics won’t be
included.  The dead man’s wife won’t be
cussing up a storm when she comes across his body. The pace I’m aiming for is
one that moves along, but isn’t afraid to have some gentler detours.

Now, let’s pretend I’m writing a story
about a con man who gets murdered—but I’m writing a police procedural.  Now my main character is likely a cop.  I will probably describe the crime scene in
some detail, since the police must examine the crime scene. Forensics will be
there and my protagonist will be checking in with them later to get all the
clues they need to help solve the case. 
My victim’s wife can throw any kind of a fit she likes.  The pace of the story is fairly measured (but
never slow) as the police investigate the crime with a structured approach.

Now I’m writing a thriller about a con
man who gets murdered.  Maybe the reader
is even in the killer’s head sometimes….heck, maybe we even know the killer’s identity (which we sure wouldn’t know in either of the
other two genres I’ve mentioned) because the important thing in this story
isn’t the whodunit puzzle, it’s the race against the clock. Perhaps the killer
has a long-standing grudge against the man who conned him out of his life
savings and all the people the con man cares about.  We’re in a race against time and jump from
the killer’s POV to the cop’s POV with nerve-wracking parallel editing.  The mood is dark and tense and the pace is
very fast.

The fact that I know what I write and who
my readers are means that I’m not going to turn a thriller over to my editor
for my cozy readers. 

When I get an occasional email from a
teenage boy or a college-age woman saying they love my books…I'm thrilled. I
really am. And it shocks me to pieces. 
They aren’t the demographic I’ve shot for. And I’m delighted when I pick
up readers along the way.

Who is your reader? 

Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

 



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30 Days of Screenplays "Little Miss
Sunshine": http://bit.ly/1cjXPxo
@gointothestory

How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit: http://bit.ly/18KPRep @rfwilliford

Another Update on ACX and My Thoughts so Far

  by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

It’s time for another update on ACX—the audiobook
platform that distributes to Audible,   I first wrote about ACX in an
April post, so if you’re interested in getting details, take a look.
Basically, ACX is your audiobook option if you’re self-publishing.
Amazon, and iTunes.




I also wrote a
follow-up to the April post a couple of weeks later, talking about how the
audition process had gone.

Where I am
now in the process:  I’ve got two
titles for sale as audiobooks and 1 title in production (which should be
released in the next week or so).

What I
like:

I like that I’m opening up another venue
for sales.

I like that sales seem to be a lot
brisker than I’d thought (I’m around 177 sales for the past month and sold
copies even a day or so after the audiobook’s debut).

I like that the process was very
streamlined and that there were many FAQs if you got confused.

I like receiving a monthly statement from
Audible which includes sales figures for all three platforms (Audible.com,
Amazon.com, iTunes.) You can also check sales during the month on ACX’s site.

What takes
a bit of working through:

The audition process.  I think it’s good to take breaks.  I had quite a few auditions to work through.

Rejecting narrators (bleh).  Writers aren’t exactly naturals when it comes
to rejecting others.

Editing the finished narration (because,
honestly, all you can think about is why you chose that particular word, why
you didn’t add more conflict to the scene, what you were thinking…and this is
not the point of what you’re doing.)

The audio cover.  It’s a bizarre bit of squatty square.  Somehow I decided that I would work on making
it fit their specs myself, with PhotoShop. 
Many hours later, I finally realized that I would much rather pay
somebody to do this for me. 

What I
learned for next time:

I’ll start earlier.  When I’ve published a book, I’ll find a
narrator for the audiobook right then.

I’ll think about the narrator stipend
before I contact my narrators or open a book up for audition.  My books do seem to qualify for the $1000
incentive for my royalty-share narrators. 
What I really haven’t seen mentioned…an email to ACX where you brag a
bit about your numbers and the size of your social media platform seems to make
a good deal of difference as to whether your book has a stipend attached. I
didn’t know this until one of my narrators pointed it out. The email is
rights(at)acx(dot)com.

A nice
touch:

ACX provided me with five free downloads
for each of my audiobook titles—for giveaways and to increase awareness.  I wasn’t expecting this and I was impressed.

What I
hope ACX will soon change:

I’m hoping it will open up to non-US
residents soon.  They appear to be
working on it (their website
states: “We hope to open up to a wider
global audience in the future.”)

And, yes, I’ll complain a bit more about
the odd cover
requirements.  That’s because I lost
quite a few working hours while trying to figure out what I was doing
wrong.  There must be a reason for this
cover art requirement…except I can’t for the life of me figure out what it
is.  It’s not like these are CDs we’re
talking about. These are digital downloads.

Have you taken a look at ACX for your own
books?  Do you listen to audiobooks?  Have any questions for me? (I’ll try to
answer them.)

Writing Advice and Advice to New Parents

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



This post is especially for all the newer or
more uncertain writers out there.  The
ones who are frozen while working on their manuscript because they’ve read so
many writing craft books and posts that they’re just afraid of messing up if
they work on their story.

My sister had twins last summer and
quickly found that there was something about a new mother that made experienced
moms want to give them advice…on any and all topics.  But every baby is different and every mom is
different.  I decided I’d bite my tongue
and only give advice to my sister when asked for it.  After all—what did I even know about raising twins?  I had my babies 4/ ½ years apart and they’re
getting pretty old now.  And I’m
forgetful.

When she did
ask me for advice, I tried to phrase it so it didn’t sound bossy coming out:
“Sometimes I’d try to….”

Ultimately, each parent has to try
different approaches to see what works. 
Maybe the babies need a nap schedule. 
Maybe they don’t adhere to a schedule well.  Maybe they need a late-morning nap and then
skip the afternoon nap and then turn in for the day after an early supper.  Who knows? 
You have to experiment to find out what works.

This is what makes me nervous about
giving advice to new writers, too (which I’ve already done via email twice in
the past week. And, clearly, which I try to do on this blog.)  What do I know, when it comes down to it?  I know what’s right for me and my
books (most of the time.)  Each genre,
each writer, each book—is different.

Some books are more commercial than
others. Some books have a clear genre classification. Some books are lyrical
and different and unable to be easily categorized.

Some writers are retired. Some are
parenting challenging children. Some care for aging parents. Some work weekends
and nights.  Some face health problems.
Some are still in school.

I remember reading volumes on
writing.  I read books from the
library.  I read blogs and forums.  My mind was boggled by all the information—and
the way that so much of it appeared to be contradictory to other bits of advice
or information.

It’s not any easier now.  Should we get an agent?  Query publishers?  Self-publish? 
Should we write every day?  Write
to trends?  Outline?  Wing it? 


I know what I did.  I took it all in and tried different
approaches until I figured out what worked for me.  And even then…I’m still making adjustments,
ten years in.  What I need, what works
for me, is always changing.  I would have
never believed that I’d choose to use an outline, if you’d asked me. Even if
you’d asked me two years ago.

It’s good to be informed.  It’s good to listen to others and hear what
works for them.  But, ultimately, we have
to experiment on our own to find out what works.  And maybe we have to be open to new ideas and
new approaches if what used to work no
longer works for us now. 

We can read all the new parent books and
all the writing craft books…but at some point we have to put it all into
practice and give it a go.  Make mistakes
and learn from them and grow and improve and try and screw up.

There really are no rules. And the only
way we can really fail at writing is if we don’t write at all.
Image: MorgueFile: kamuelaboy

Character and Series Backstory and the Traditional Mystery

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



Backstory can be a real problem for
writers…if readers find it boring. Many readers won’t put their finger on
exactly what it was that made the story boring, but they’ll put it aside.  No one really enjoys an expository  dump of information—they just want an
engaging story.

In a mystery, this might seem
tricky.  A suspect’s backstory is
frequently what comprises their motive for murder.  How a suspect’s past intersects with the
victim’s past is important.

For mysteries, though, you’ve got a very
helpful element that allows you to work the backstory in fairly seamlessly: the
interview process.  Your sleuth or
detective is trying to find out information to determine a suspect’s
motive. 



My suspect
backstory is frequently revealed through:

The sleuth’s conversation with another
character about the suspect.

Or

The sleuth’s interview with the suspect
himself.

Backstory with a traditional mystery
should, in general, tie into the mystery itself.  Unless you’re trying
to build in red herrings: for example, you could mention Tim is a teetotaler
now because of some terrible drunken episode in his past.  Maybe that doesn’t tie into the current
mystery…but it could make readers wonder if Tim and the victim had a run-in of
some kind during that period in Tim’s life. 
It provides the reader with a red herring.

Exceptions—the protagonist’s
backstory.  If your sleuth has a past
that affects his current life in some way, that’s always relevant.  Protagonist backstory can also tie into an effective
subplot when it deals with the sleuth’s family or romantic relationships.

What about series
backstory?  What if you’re writing
book 2 or book 3 of a series and are worried that readers aren’t following
along?

I think it’s better to fill readers in,
but briefly.  Keep it really succinct.
After all, you might even need to reacquaint even your regular readers if it’s
a traditionally published series…frequently, those books release once a year
and readers might need a bit of a refresher.

Characters recurring from an earlier book
in the series could be quickly identified in a way that won’t be obvious or
irritating to the returning reader.  John, Beth’s brother, commented on….  Short tags
that act as reminders.

If you like, you could also keep some
backstory as a small mystery in itself. 
Regular readers might remember that John and Tom don’t like each
other—and they’d remember why.  But a new
reader might read some of the tension between the two characters, read the
terse dialogue, and wonder about their relationship.  Adding hints as to the source of the problem
can keep a new reader turning pages—as long as it’s ultimately addressed or if
there are more hints to the underlying issue as the story progresses.

You could also reveal backstory with
dialogue (make sure it’s not stilted), a character’s thoughts or memories, or
even flashbacks.  All of those will work
if given in small doses and done well…if it’s not done well, it can be awful.

How do you slip in character
backstory?  If you write a series, how do
you handle series backstory in your sequels? 

Image: MorgueFile: Mensatic

Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig,
@elizabethscraig

 

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming)
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If This Is What I Want As A
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The 7 Basic Plots: Rebirth:
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Things that change in First
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Crime
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How to Style Alphabetical
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The definition of
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Tips for writing in public:
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Women's Fiction—A
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Free eBook Formatting &
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Superfluous Words: http://bit.ly/18uQSXG @artzicarol

Back up your manuscripts
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Doing Something Different

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



One of the reasons that I went on break
for a couple of weeks was that I was on vacation in Kenya. :)

It was a wonderful vacation.  We have family that live and work in Africa
and had encouraged us to experience Kenya. 
It was great to have guides who were so familiar with the area (and who
spoke several languages).  We saw the
bustling Nairobi, the lovely Rift Valley, went on safari, and experienced the
Kenyan coast.  It was an amazing trip. (And I'm clearly trying to still catch up, since this post is a day late!)

And y’all know that I rarely even leave
my house unless I’m running errands or shuttling children around—so this trip
was a big deal to me. 



As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a
planner.  I’m very cautious and need an
abundance of information on something before I experience it—that’s even true
of small events I attend near my home or camps for my children.  I packed weeks before we left…and repacked.
And shifted things from bag to bag.  Yes,
I’m fairly neurotic.

When I talked with friends and family
about leaving, I’d bring up all the aspects of the trip that made me
anxious—the vaccinations we needed, organizing the flights, staying healthy,
our accommodations, etc.

People who knew me best had a particular
reaction to the news.  “Oh, Elizabeth,”
said more than one person, “that will be so good for you.”

They were right and I knew it when they
said it.  We can be too fond of the
familiar, too eager to keep away from crowds, too happy to stay at home.  As writers, it’s also good to grow a
little.  To stray from our comfort
zone.  To fire up our imaginations with
different experiences, different sights, different tastes, different people.

I don’t think we have to go to Africa to
do it, either.  We can push ourselves
into new and different situations nearer to home, too.

Have you broken out of your routine or
your comfort zone lately?  What was it
like?  How did it go?

Word Count

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



I do like to keep track of both where I
am in a story and how much I’m able to accomplish each day.  That’s mainly because I deal with
deadlines.  I’ve had to feverishly finish
a story before in the 11th hour and
boy, that wasn’t fun (that was also an un-outlined book, so I wasn’t even sure
exactly where I was going with the story. 
Thankfully, it somehow ended up fine.)

I like to pay attention to my progress
also because with my genre, there’s a pattern to the events there and I need to
stay on-target or else my pace may be off. 
I don’t need a bloated beginning—that’s no fun to read.  But I don’t need a bloated ending, either,
with a sleuth going on and on about how
clever she was in figuring out the killer. 
I like a second body near the middle of the book to keep readers
guessing, so I also need to know when I’m about halfway done with the
manuscript.



But—I know some writers who are messed up
by worrying about their progress while working on the first draft.  Tracking their word counts makes them feel
frantic and as if they need to catch up. 
So there’s really no need to keep
up with your progress as you’re working on the story if it makes things worse.

For those who like to track their
progress on the story, there are different ways of doing so.  I think I’ve done all of them.  One is word
count—the actual number of words. 
I do track this from time to time, to make sure I’m on target for the
75,000 words I’m supposed to shoot for.

For me, though, I like tracking my page progress on a day to day basis.  When I’ve got a deadline, I’m writing 3.5
pages a day to stay on goal.  With my
self-published books, I might give myself a little more leeway…but still around
3 double-spaced 12 pt. font Word pages each day. Usually I don’t write them all
at once—writing half of them in the morning when I wake up and half later in
the morning or after lunch.

I set myself a daily goal, but for others
a weekly goal might work better.  If you
have a chaotic schedule, setting a weekly goal can give you a chance to make
your goal by either spreading your goal out each day or having a marathon
writing session all at once to catch up. 


When should
we worry about word counts? 

Definitely before we submit a manuscript
to a traditional publisher because there are genre guidelines. Any publisher is
going to be worried about a 170,000 word book from an unpublished author with
no track record.  My contracts hold me to
75,000 words for my cozy mysteries.  I’m
usually either right under that or right over it. 

Too short is also a problem, although
sometimes it’s not as much of a problem. 
I tend to write really short—Midnight Ink took my 206 page book without
making a mention of plumping it up.  I’ve
also written short for Penguin and haven’t heard any feedback on it (although
they did reduce the price of that book by a dollar compared to the others in
the series.)

More articles on word count:

India Drummond’s “How I Easily
Doubled My Daily Word Count”

Chuck Wendig’s “How to Maximize Your Word Count
and Write More Every Day” (as always, I have to give a warning about the strong language Chuck
uses in his posts…but he does provide excellent advice.)

Do you track word count or pages written?
Why or why not?



Image: Flickr: Tom Raftery