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5 On: R.J. Keller

Author R.J. Keller on the notion of the “second-book slump,” how she dealt with a book idea similar to her own beating hers to the market, why to write the things that scare you, and more in this 5 On interview.

R.J. Keller (@rjkeller) is the author of Waiting for Spring. An avid independent movie enthusiast, she was managing editor of The Movie Fanatic website and created episodes of the writer-centric YouTube series Inside the Writers’ Studio with author Kristen Tsetsi. She co-hosted Book Chatter with Stacey Cochran from 2011 to 2014. She lives in central Maine with her family, where she enjoys gardening, collecting geeky memorabilia, and watching other people cook.

5 on Writing

CHRIS JANE: There’s no shortage of sex and/or swearing in books, but for some reason you seem to get passionate(ly negative) feedback about the sex and swearing in Waiting for Spring. Why do you think that is, and though you didn’t put it there with the intention of riling up readers, is some small part of you pleased that it does?

R.J. KELLER: I’d like to say that there’s sexism involved. Probably there is, a little. But most of the pushback has come from women who appear to be around my age, which still surprises me. Didn’t we all grow up reading Judy Blume, then Jean M. Auel, then finally graduate to Erica Jong? No? Was it just me?

What’s funny about it is that the sex scenes in Waiting for Spring aren’t particularly explicit, in an “insert A into B/tongue goes there/mount and thrust” way. They’re emotionally explicit. For Tess, it’s about trying to connect, trying to feel something, to reach out for something, about almost getting there, but not quite making it. Maybe that’s what makes some people uncomfortable and, in a way, yes, I’m pleased that it does. It should make people uncomfortable. That’s the point.

In an episode of Inside the Writers’ Studio (incidentally, the only one in which the F-word is used), the two *characters dramatically lament the pressure of writing a second novel after the first one has been well-received. It was presented as a joke, but I think a lot of writers worry about the second book. Have you felt any of that second-novel pressure? If not, what has been the greatest challenge in writing a follow-up? *Disclosure: R.J. Keller and I are the characters in the episode and the co-creators of Inside the Writers’ Studio.

I’ve been told that a writer’s second novel is the most difficult to get through. I’ll let you know if that’s true when I’ve begun writing my fourth. But I do know that there is an incredible amount of pressure.

I wrote my first novel without any idea of showing it to anyone. I suppose that’s not entirely true. I’d had vague dreams of becoming a Best Selling Novelist with Legions of Devoted Fans since I was about fourteen years old, but I never envisioned specific human beings reading the actual words that I was typing out as I was typing them out. Suddenly there were emails from readers who had been inspired by my book and social media posts quoting it and reporters wanting to know about my motivation for writing it. I was, and still am, incredibly grateful and surprised and scared and excited by the reaction, but now I have something that I didn’t have before: an expectation to live up to. It can be quite daunting.

You’ve said you think about Australian poet and author Luke Davies, whose writing you called “beautifully brutal,” when you notice yourself “being cowardly about opening up.” What aside from Davies helps you get it on the page, and what advice would you give an intro to creative writing class about how (and why) to overcome the fear of writing things that make them uncomfortable?

Oddly enough, having a pen name helps. Kelly is the woman who goes to work and hangs out with friends and raises a family and shares her life with her husband and putters in the garden. R.J. Keller is the writer who sifts through the joys and struggles and other messy emotions from Kelly’s everyday life and turns those things into gritty fiction. I’m sure it sounds a little psychotic, but it works for us. (I’m only half kidding here.)

I wouldn’t necessarily advise young writers to create an alternate personality, but I would–and do–say that honesty is absolutely vital if you want to write stuff that affects others. Ask your friends to recommend books that moved them, or that made them uncomfortable, and read those books. Read everything you can get your hands on. Discover what moves you or what makes you feel uncomfortable or angry or horny or happy, then write from that place. Because that’s where the good stuff comes from.

I can’t be the only one who, when excited about a new story idea, will feel rushed to get it done just in case someone else has a similar idea. I think it’s one of the top writers’ nightmare scenarios to spend six months to a year writing something only to learn the latest release mirrors a lot of what you’re currently still pulling out your hair over. You were unfortunate enough to have had that happen to you in real life. Will you talk about that?

I was in my fifth year of writing my second novel. The story was kicking the shit out of me. The protagonist was an alcoholic deadbeat father who is preparing to kill the drug dealer who murdered his addict daughter. The story was told in alternating points of view: his, in the present day, and his late wife’s, through her journal entries, dated some fourteen years earlier.

The novel was difficult to write in every possible way. First, I had trouble nailing down the protagonist’s voice. It was a challenge to write from a male point of view. Do guys not feel things as strongly as women, or is the pressure to suppress their feelings just that intense? Do they really think mostly about sex, or have I been watching too many Super Bowl commercials? And why the hell do their shirts button from the wrong side? Second, this guy was kind of a douchebag. He cheated on his dying wife, then abandoned his kids the moment he could. How could I make him relatable without making excuses for his horrendous behavior? Finally, I needed to make sure the late wife’s journal entries were relevant to the action of the story without being too conveniently on point.

I finally got to the point where I thought I’d nailed it and showed the (I think) sixth draft to a trusted friend who isn’t a writer. I wanted a reader’s reaction before letting another writer have a go. Her initial response was, “Hey! The synopsis sounds just like Gone Girl!” Then, after she read it: “Oh, shit. This reads a lot like Gone Girl.”

The truth is, I’d never read Gone Girl. Now I probably never will. But after my friend’s reaction I did some digging and discovered that, although the story line is completely different from my novel, the narrative feel is similar. And similar is just too close. Regardless of how good or bad my book is, or how much better or worse than the other book, it would always be considered a knock-off of that book, which is something I can’t live with.

So, now I’m working on reworking the book. I’ve got a new narrator: a repurposed version of the protagonist’s girlfriend. I like her. She tougher and smarter than her parallel-universe self, which is nice. I’ve even managed to fit the journal into the new version in a way that doesn’t feel forced. It’s possible that this version will be better. But I do struggle with the ghost of the other book. I miss getting to crawl inside Rick’s head. It’s still frustrating.

What part of writing do you most enjoy, and what part fills you with angst and dread?

I love everything about creating characters. Figuring out where they come from, what they look like, what they want and fear and hate. I love putting words in their mouths and making them desire or despise the other characters I’ve created. Some writers think they discover, rather than create, their characters, but I’m too much of a control freak to believe that.

What do I hate? Filling in brackets. My manuscripts are filled with things like “[make up a reason she goes downstairs, because she has to get into an argument with her neighbor]” and “[this is the part where she remembers that thing her father did].” The sad thing is, usually I end up with something as simple as “I ran down the stairs.”

5 on Publishing

To promote Waiting for Spring, you used to write a regular blog–new material three times a week–and were active on the Kindle Boards. Given how much emphasis is put on building and maintaining an online presence, how easy or difficult has it been to keep that going–and have you kept it going?

There is probably still a very strong emphasis being put on building and maintaining an online presence, but I haven’t been thinking about it lately. Most of my energy has been focused on writing. I am in awe of writers who can do both of those things at once, but I can only do one or the other. Once my second book is completed and in need of marketing, I’ll be more active and, I know, will enjoy doing it.

What revisions, if any, do you see yourself making to your initial marketing strategy when it’s time to release the next novel? Are there things you wish you’d done differently, or sooner, or more frequently, or are there avenues you didn’t take that you wish you had, or avenues you thought would be successful but were just time-consuming, etc.?

The fact that I’ll have a marketing strategy the next time around will be a revision. I self-published my book before it was picked up by AmazonEncore (now Lake Union Press), and I knew nothing about marketing. I was throwing spaghetti at every wall I could find and hoping some of it would stick. Miraculously, a lot of it did. Then, once Amazon took over the marketing, I figured my work with that was done. I figured wrong. They were on top of everything. They hired a publicist, were able to get my book reviewed in publications that never would have looked at it otherwise, organized book signing events, and much more. Now I wish I had piggy-backed off of that exposure and put myself out there more.

Next time I’ll be much more active, even proactive. I can’t say exactly what I’ll do, since the publishing world changes so quickly, but I know I’ll do my research and think deliberately about branding and publicity and all the rest.

In 2011 you were asked how you would respond to being approached by an agent. You said:

It would depend on … well, it would depend on a lot of things. I’m not anti-agent, in spite of the rejections I got. Although I’ve made a point of educating myself about the business end of the publishing industry, I’m fully aware of my own limitations, and the industry is still in flux. Things are changing very dramatically very quickly. Who knows where we’ll be this time next year? Still, I’d want to make sure that anyone representing my interests was savvy about those changes, that they were open to new ways of doing things, and not married to the old publishing world.

Five years later, how would you now feel about being approached by an agent? And what new ways of doing things would you want an agent to be open to specifically before you would agree to sign with one?

These days, most agents are more savvy about the changes in the publishing industry, and I’m a great deal more savvy about the business end of publishing. At this point, my practical side would be the one making that decision, rather than my artistic side, which would probably shock and dismay five-years-ago me.

Having experienced both worlds—traditional and self-publishing—would you be quick to turn to self-publishing again in the unlikely event that Amazon didn’t accept your next novel, or would you first try shopping it around to agents and publishers?

I think I would give myself a specific amount of time to find an agent–six months sounds good–then self-publish it. This time around I have no chip on my shoulder (sometimes I cringe when I read my old blog posts about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing) and nothing to prove, so it would just be a matter of getting my book out into the world in a way that will be best for it and for me.


Agents who rejected Waiting for Spring told you it was good, but that there was no market for it. Amazon picked it up and it sold well. What is your take on what the market is, who decides what it is, and this idea of selling to the market vs. putting out a good book (which is not to say a good book can’t also sell to the market)?

I think there is no such thing as nailing the market anymore, because it changes so constantly and so quickly. It’s a cliché to say that the market can change overnight, but it literally changes overnight, and those forces of change are too unpredictable to foretell. Social media, world events, other books and movies and music—all of those things can and do influence people instantly, and people make up the market. All any of us can do is create the best, truest thing we can and hope for the best.

Thank you, R.J.

What’s Your Genre? A High-Level Overview for Writers

by Paulo Slachevsky | via Flickr

Note from Jane: Today’s post is an excerpt from Green-Light Your Book: How Writers Can Succeed in the New Era of Publishing by Brooke Warner (@brooke_warner).

Before you can be successful in your genre, you have to understand the role genre plays in the industry and how it drives a successful marketing and publicity plan, which in turn drives sales.

Knowing about the genre you’re writing in starts with reading in your genre. Though it’s not a prerequisite that you be fully educated about the genre you’re entering, reading the best-selling authors who’ve come before you and brushing up on the craft specific to your genre will give you a leg up. I’m astounded by the number of authors who come to me for coaching who admit that they don’t read the genre they’re writing in. Sometimes, especially with memoir writers, they even express disdain for their chosen genre. This stems from judgments people tend to heap onto memoir writing in general, that it’s self-indulgent and, as Mary Karr calls it, a “ghetto-ass genre.” (I’ll get into this a bit more below.)

Are You The Dissenter?

Almost every time I teach a class, hold a webinar, or sit on a panel, I encounter what I call the “dissenter.” The dissenter is the person who believes that nothing I say applies to them because they’re an outside genre, whatever they deem that genre to be. Sometimes that outside genre, per the dissenter’s perception, is something as broad as all fiction. Other times, more reasonably, it’s a legitimately specialized genre, like sci-fi/romance, or children’s. The dissenter is generally well intentioned, and they attend webinars or conferences wanting to gain information. They believe in their book just as much as the next writer. And oftentimes they’re justified in their dissent because there is so much variation among the genres when it comes to marketing and selling successfully. It’s not a problem to be a dissenter; the problem is in defaulting to this position—because you’ve already made up your mind that certain courses of action or efforts aren’t going to work for you.

Sometimes dissenters are super specific and work to call out ways in which their genre differs from industry standards. For example, in 2015 I wrote 3 Reasons to Keep Your Word Count Shorter Than 80,000 Words. A writer of science fiction commented on the post that sci-fi and fantasy books are often longer, commonly 100,000 words, because it takes longer to world-build and because there’s precedent for longer books in this genre in the marketplace. This was a great example of someone understanding their genre and what works in it and not being swayed by a generalization that was not necessarily true for what they were doing.

The genre you’re writing in is like a club you’re joining. You want to know the other members in that club, to learn from them at first, and maybe eventually to teach and mentor them. There are outside parties that cater to your club of choice, and you want to pay attention, when the time comes, to working with people who know something about your club and its rules, values, and tested ways of doing things. You will eventually be building relationships with these outside parties to create a team to support you.

Fiction: Commercial and Literary

We’ll start with fiction because it’s by far the most competitive of the genres.

Commercial fiction is fiction that’s high-concept, meaning easy to explain. It’s the kind of fiction that makes summer reading lists. Commercial fiction includes chick lit, a lot of women’s fiction, and most books that hit the bestseller list. Examples of commercial fiction are books like Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette; Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl; and Nicholas Sparks’s See Me (as well as everything else Sparks has ever written).

Literary fiction is basically a novel that’s extremely well written. The language is elevated. It’s not a beach read. It’s the kind of novel you have to read slowly to make sure you’re capturing the richness of the language. When you think of the masterpieces of fiction you’ve read, they’re usually literary novels.

“Literary” often alludes to the notion that a piece of writing has achieved an elevated status, something beyond just “good writing.” So it’s a compliment to a writer to be called literary, yet literary work is notoriously difficult to sell. Sadly, I suppose, it’s a commentary on our culture that publishers don’t believe that there’s enough of a readership to put out very many literary works, so they’re loath to take risks on these kind of books, though of course they still do—occasionally. And so oftentimes the most talented authors are left with rejections full of high praise and wondering where they’re going to go next. Literary novels include Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child (as well as everything else Morrison has ever written).

Genre Fiction

Genre fiction includes but is not limited to science fiction, fantasy, romance, urban fiction, crime, thriller, horror, and erotica. The reason this is a genre on its own, separate from fiction, is again because the rules for genre fiction are different from commercial and literary fiction. Here—more so than any genre we’ve touched on so far—writers will benefit tremendously from immersing themselves fully and wholeheartedly in the writer communities that support these genres.

Memoir: Commercial and Literary

As with fiction, a commercial memoir is one that’s high-concept, that a person can wrap their mind around instantly. Consider Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, a memoir that’s as formulaic as it gets. Her concept is in her title: eating in Italy, praying in India, and loving in Indonesia. And the names of all the countries she visited start with an I. This was a highly commercial and highly acclaimed memoir, and its easy summarization is part of what defines it as commercial. Other examples of commercial memoirs include Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Issa Rae’s The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, and Sarah Hepola’s Blackout.

Literary memoirs are like literary novels—they’re often gorgeously but densely written. They don’t have that easy-to- pin-down description, even if they’re highly thematic. Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt, is a literary memoir; so are all three of Mary Karr’s memoirs—The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit—and Helen Macdonald’s literary masterpiece, H Is for Hawk. What makes these memoirs literary is the level of the writing. The phrasing and craft are sophisticated. The authors may experiment with tense, sentence structure, and style. Just as with fiction, literary memoirists experience a lot of rejection, often from apologetic editors who love the work but can’t acquire it.

Nonfiction: Commercial and Noncommercial

People often ask me how memoir is different from nonfiction, and my response is this: all memoir is nonfiction, but not all nonfiction is memoir. So I’m distinguishing nonfiction here as its own category, separate from memoir, but this is not to suggest that memoir is not nonfiction, because it is; it’s just such a big genre, with its own specific rules, that it merits exploration on its own.

Here, I’ll call out two strains of nonfiction: commercial and noncommercial. This is because nonfiction is one of the few genres where specifically noncommercial books are desirable to readers, and therefore to the publishing industry.

Well-known commercial nonfiction writers include Malcolm Gladwell, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jon Krakauer, and Mary Roach. These are authors who’ve executed multiple nonfiction books on topics that transcend a given niche. Commercial nonfiction often makes best-seller lists, because, it seems, the whole country is reading the book, or at least knows about it. Sometimes a book that’s not particularly commercial, like Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, rises above the fray because it’s so important and because even though it’s hyper-niche and might have been less commercial at another point in history, it’s published at the right time, hitting a particular nerve and coinciding with a specific zeitgeist, movement, or cause.

Noncommercial nonfiction books are generally published by university presses or small, mission-driven presses. These are books that are important in some particular way even though their audience is known to be small. Sometimes they’re art books or cookbooks that are geared toward readers at a particular level of expertise, so they’re priced in such a way as to make them noncommercial. Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, a five-volume hardcover set, is priced at a cool $625, for example. But these kinds of books find their way because there’s a readership willing to pay that kind of money to have them. Modernist Cuisine is an example of true artisan publishing, too, and many independently published authors are doing this kind of book on their own because they can’t find a partner in the industry willing to support their projects financially.

Nonfiction: Self-Help/How-To

This differs from memoir and other nonfiction in its specific, prescriptive orientation. The dictionary definition of prescriptive is “giving exact rules, directions, or instructions about how you should do something,” which is precisely what self-help and how-to aims to do. Many prescriptive books have list titles, like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen. There is such a thing as a prescriptive memoir, but a book like that would still be a memoir if the story drives the book. If the story parts are supplemental, as is often the case in self-help books, where the author is using personal examples to illustrate a point, the book should be categorized as self-help.

There are many variations of the self-help book—from spiritual to business/leadership to crafting to writing. In this popular genre of book, experts share advice and knowledge with their readership, both for the purpose of educating, but also building their own expertise. Today, given the popularity of self-publishing, self-help and how-to books are exploding onto the marketplace. Most of the indie authors entering this genre are authors who have businesses and who want to publish a book as a calling card, or to attract more business.

Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult

These genres are all about the age of the readership. Middle Grade (MG) is for readers 8 to 12; young adult (YA) for readers 13 to 17; and new adult (NA) for readers 18 to 24. This is one of the fastest-growing markets, due to the success of series like Twilight, Divergent, Ender’s Game, and Hunger Games.

As is the case with genre fiction, MG/YA/NA writers will do themselves a huge favor to get cozy with their fellow writers in this genre, and research the genre they’re entering into. Content and voice are critical in this genre, and the wrong storyline or language can land you with a finished book that’s not really appropriate for the target readership you think you’re writing for. I’ve seen writers veer outside of what’s deemed “appropriate” on both sides of the continuum, writing unsophisticated YA that felt like it would have been much more appropriate for a sixth-grader; and writing far too sophisticated YA, with sexual content and cuss words that seemed a bit too advanced for a thirteen-year-old, even if their seventeen-year-old counterpart might seek out a book like this.

If you have an idea for a MG/YA/NA book, read about the genres, and then read in your genre. If you’re entering this genre blind, read at least ten books in your specific age range before you even get started. I’d recommend this for all genres, actually, but what’s at stake here is greater because you might end up with a book that turns out not to be a fit for your intended audience.

Children’s: Picture Book

This is one of the most difficult genres to break into, which is ironic in some ways because people often have a perception that writing a children’s book is easy. It’s not. A children’s book, after all, is as much about the story as it is about the artwork. Children’s books are also expensive to produce, both because of the layout and the four-color printing. Though every genre has its share of self-published success stories, you seldom hear about them where children’s books are concerned because the best ones really do rise to the top. They’re easier to judge and be judged because they’re short, fast reads, and because readers determine quickly whether the art passes muster or not.

Outliers

A book is an outlier if it doesn’t fit the industry’s understanding of how a book should be categorized. Authors of outliers are in a tricky situation because the very nature of being an outlier means your book will be more difficult to sell. Agents and editors, as well as readers, want to put you into a mental category. Readers are looking for a certain type of book based on what they like to read, and so if your book resists being “typed,” it’s less likely to be discovered.

Some authors may not realize that they have an outlier until they start to think about publishing options for their book. If you have a book that no one knows what to do with, it might be because it’s an outlier, or it might be because it’s trying to straddle two genres. For instance, a “fictionalized memoir” is not an outlier. It’s just a novel. You may find that a simple tweaking of your language, or a willingness to conform, can make the difference here.

For more from Brooke Warner, check out Green-Light Your Book or visit BrookeWarner.com and She Writes Press.

How to Finish Your Book in Three Drafts

Note from Jane: Today’s post is adapted from Finish Your Book in Three Drafts by Stuart Horwitz (@book_arch).

Have you ever asked yourself while writing, “How many drafts is this going to take?” That may seem like a question that can’t have an answer, but I would like to propose that it does. And that answer is three. Three drafts, provided that each draft is approached in the right spirit and we take the time we need between drafts.

Some writers assume that the difference between a first draft and a final draft is a few revisions and a solid copy edit. What I am talking about here is a process that requires more patience.

It probably already makes intuitive sense to you that you can’t work on more than one draft at a time. But here is the mantra for the process as a whole:

Know what draft you’re in.

Each draft plays by different rules, and knowing what draft you’re in can help you avoid writer’s block.

There is a literary myth that Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in one draft—one Benzedrine- and marijuana-fueled draft—over a twenty-one-day period. It is true that he created a 120-foot roll of paper so that he wouldn’t have to stop to feed more paper into his typewriter, and wrote one of his drafts that way. But it turns out that he was working from a draft he already had in his journals. Also, if you look at that typewriter scroll closely, you can see all kinds of corrections; those corrections are, in effect, his third draft.

Three drafts, not one. Also: three drafts, not forty-nine. You may have heard this cute story about Oscar Wilde: His host asked him how his writing was going, and he said, “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning and took out a comma.” “And in the afternoon?” “In the afternoon—well, I put it back in again.” That doesn’t count as a draft. What you are trying to do is tackle your book, not tinker with it. Because—are you ready?—the point is not to go through life writing the same book the whole time.

We’ll call the first draft the messy draft, which is all about getting it down. We’ll call the second draft the method draft, which is all about making sense. And we’ll call the third draft the polished draft, which is all about making it good. We could also call the third draft the design draft if you are publishing independently or the agent draft if you are seeking traditional publication.

The Messy Draft

You may have heard that there is this debate about who has a better way to write between pantsers and outliners. A pantser is someone who, as the name suggests, writes by the seat of his or her pants. An outliner, on the other hand, is someone who meticulously crafts every writing session.

This isn’t a real debate, by the way, because we are all both of these at different times. Even the most ardent pantsers are bound to somehow keep track of where they are going next and what they have already accomplished, while even the most rigorous outliners get surprised when they sit at their desks and discover something about their books that they didn’t already know. There’s an interplay between outlining and pantsing, and while every writer is different, I suggest that you create the messy draft by pantsing.

I have heard that writers need permission to “pants,” probably from the outliner side of them, which likes to make plans but can’t bring itself to start. It also helps if you trust that there will be a method for sifting out the repetitions and for strengthening the foundations between the first draft and the second draft. That is what the method draft is all about.

A perfect first draft covers the ground. A perfect first draft tries material out. A perfect first draft makes a start in a lot of places. A perfect first draft familiarizes you with your material—or, at least, the portion of it that is available to your conscious mind. Successive drafts will fill that reservoir further, deepen your understanding of what you are doing, and enable you to tighten connections and layer in nuances.

In sum, disorganization is an excellent sign. It means that you haven’t picked a subject that is too easy and that your conclusions aren’t too pat. You are allowing the drafting process to accomplish something big and organic. Keep writing the first draft, and keep being okay when it feels like a mess.

The Method Draft

The method draft is to outlining as the messy draft was to pantsing. I have heard some pantsers refer to outlining as their Kryptonite. That’s a pretty strong statement, but I think I understand where that nervous apprehension comes from. For pantsers, it is writing from scratch that brings the purest joy. After that, they may recognize the efficacy of getting—and staying—organized, but that is paired with the instinctual fear that their favorite part of the process is behind them.

By outline, here I am referring to any class of graphs, lists, or diagrams—or, if you are familiar with my work, grids, targets, and arcs. You can think of outlining, at this point, as creating a map of a territory you are just discovering; just because you know the soundings of where you can land a boat, that doesn’t mean you know the interior geography of the country. When something is mapped out completely, it may lose its mystique, but I don’t think you run the risk of that just between a first draft and a second draft.

There are many types of exercises you can complete during the method draft (and I recommend many in my book). What matters is that you harness the right method-draft attitudes, beginning with taking the word rewriting out of your vocabulary. That is not what you are doing; you are revising, re-visioning your work as you complete a second draft.

Just as you got permission to write a draft that was messy, and just as you got permission to stop writing, give yourself permission to write a method draft knowing that you are going to get some of it wrong. You are also going to get some of it startlingly right.

The Polished Draft

When the time comes to create the third and final draft of your work, the polished draft, it is time to find other people you can trust and ask them for their input—regardless of whether you go in the directions they suggest.

For now you don’t want just any feedback—you want constructive, motivating, eye-opening feedback to help you prepare for your third and final draft, the polished draft. Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to work, anyway. This is where you call on beta readers—individuals who read your work before it is finished and offer you feedback.

Throughout the three-draft process, you have had questions. Some of those questions have since resolved themselves; some of them didn’t turn out to be questions at all. And some of those questions you still have.

The beta-reader questionnaire is a vehicle for you to ask those remaining questions. You need to phrase these questions carefully to receive the greatest benefit from your beta readers.

For content questions, you can ask my favorite:

What scenes do you remember the best?

Or any of these variations:

Did any character strike you as particularly memorable?
Were any of the characters too over the top (i.e., memorable in a bad way)?
Did you particularly identify with any one character’s opinions? Which one, and how?

Most content questions, thus, are really “more or less” questions:

Less violence?
More sex?
Did you have any questions that weren’t answered adequately by the current manuscript?

You can also ask questions that address the issues of pace and structure. These questions are a great way to get ideas about your manuscript, as well as ideas for your manuscript.

Did any sections of the manuscript feel underdeveloped?
Which parts did you want to skip?
Where did you feel there was an emotional payoff?
Did the answers to your questions come later than you were looking for them?

When I gather feedback from all beta readers, I compile the responses that resonate and start putting together a punch list for my final draft.

I try to make this list as comprehensive as possible. No sense mailing it in. If an idea is legitimately a good one, I have every intention of weaving it in. If an idea is legitimately a bad one, I try to remember that polished-draft mantra:

Make decisions.

When the time comes to write the polished draft, I recommend hopping around the manuscript. The first draft you did in whatever order it came to you. The second draft you definitely want to write straight through, as you use your series to change stuff around. But in the third draft you can go anywhere the day is calling.

For more from Stuart Horwitz, check out Finish Your Book in Three Drafts.

An Alternative to ACX for Audiobook Production and Distribution

Audiobooks are experiencing some of the best growth in the book publishing industry; sales were up by more than 24 percent in 2015 according to the Audiobook Publishers Association.

Along with that growth has come increased interest from both traditional and independently published authors in getting their backlist books available in digital audio form. But the costs can be prohibitive—usually in the low four figures if not more.

ACX (owned by Amazon) has long been the go-to solution because it allows authors to find the voice and production talent they need on a royalty-share basis, rather than having to pay upfront, and it works hand-in-hand with Audible distribution—by far the largest retailer of digital audio in the United States.

But working with ACX can have drawbacks, including a 7-year-contract term and a high penalty on the royalty rate if you choose not to be exclusive to Audible. One author wrote a guest post for me a couple years ago describing how much work he did to avoid the ACX path, with mixed results.

Another option is now available to authors: ListenUp Audiobooks. In addition to working with traditional publishers, they work with small publishers and authors on a fee basis, and can also handle distribution to Audible—and beyond—if you choose. I asked David Markowitz at ListenUp about the details of their service and how it compares with ACX.

Jane Friedman: One of the reasons ACX works for so many authors is that it offers an option to do a royalty share, rather than pay upfront for audio production. I know cost is often the No. 1 consideration for authors, so let’s get that out of the way first. Can you give us a sense of the upfront costs involved if authors choose ListenUp to produce their audiobook?

David Markowitz: The royalty share option has certainly helped a lot of people create audiobooks and it’s great that ACX offers it. But it has its drawbacks—it can be a lot of work for an author and the final product isn’t always of the highest quality.

ListenUp is approaching the problem differently. We’re a full-service audiobook solution. We give every author and small publisher the same service we give to our big clients. That means a dedicated casting director, choice of narrators, professional studio recording with a trained engineer, a full edit and final mastering according to Audible standards. Authors have the option to use us for distribution or do it themselves. And we’re creating new marketing solutions.

And with us, you can call up and talk to us about what you want. There are a lot of different ways to go about creating and distributing audio and we’re open to exploring all of them.

Our standard rate is $450 per finished hour of audio. That’s for a book with one narrator. To estimate how much a book will cost, figure a narrator reads about 10,000 words an hour. So a 70,000 word book will be approximately 7 hours long, or $3,150.

What is the advantage to authors if they want to use you for distribution instead of ACX? What percentage do you take as distributor?

We take 25% of cash received on each sale. We want to make it as attractive as possible for authors to distribute with us. Because the more titles we’re sending to the different outlets, the better terms we can negotiate, and the more money we can give back to authors.

The biggest advantage is reach. We distribute everywhere audiobooks are found and beyond. Naturally we distribute to the big digital retailers like Audible and Audiobooks.com, and all of the major library outlets, as well as on our own site. We also work with Findaway (which provides audiobooks for Scribd, Nook and TuneIn), and a lot of smaller sites doing really interesting things—sites like Libro.fm, which is working directly with independent bookstores to host their audiobook catalogue and give them a stronger digital presence.

While the retail outlets still make up the bulk of the profits, libraries now offer significant earnings, too. Currently it’s about 70% retail, 30% library. Our goal is to keep growing the distribution pie to give consumers more options and make listening to an audiobook as easy as picking up a print book.

Authors can choose to distribute a title themselves or use us just for certain outlets.

If authors enter into a distribution agreement with you, can they leave at any time?

Absolutely. We keep it simple. Once an author contacts us in writing, it takes about 60 days to ensure the audiobook is down from all of the various sites.

One of the key concerns I hear from independent authors about audiobooks is that it takes forever to earn out on the investment. What advice do you have on promoting audiobooks to help that investment earn out more quickly?

Audiobook sales are still dependent on the success of a book in its print or digital format. It’s helpful for authors to think of the audiobook as another edition of their book, extending its presence and reach. So when a reader goes to buy it, every option is available to them. At the same time, when an author promotes a book, there will likely be a spike in sales of all editions. Running an advertisement for a discount on an ebook through a service like BookBub has been shown to increase audio as well as ebook sales.

Much like promoting an ebook or print book, authors should offer review copies to bloggers, reviewers, and social media influencers who have significant reach. For the audiobook, authors should focus on reviewers who regularly review audiobooks and can touch on both the story and the narration.

Beyond that, ListenUp is actively working on partnering with various book promotion sites as well as building out our own marketing services. More to come soon!

Do you think indie-produced audiobooks are at a disadvantage visibility-wise when being sold through Audible or other retail environments? I’ve heard this anecdotally from some indie authors. If so, how can this disadvantage be overcome?

As we all know, discovery is always a big challenge. While the total number of audiobooks is much smaller than ebooks or print, it’s now up to a few hundred thousand titles. And sites like Audible are long-tail markets which will always favor more popular titles.

Which is why we’re seeing the value of going wide, of being everywhere, and finding specific promotion opportunities for each platform. Audio creates the possibility of different marketing strategies than digital or print, and we’re exploring it all. A couple examples:

What does the explosion of podcasting mean for audiobooks and how can we use it to enhance discovery? Sites like TuneIn or Bandcamp, which have traditionally been music focused, are now offering audiobooks. Are there some titles that will work better in those environments than others?
How can we use the “local” factor to promote authors through library and independent bookstore sites?

Is there a certain type of author who you believe should absolutely be doing audiobooks right now, and investing in the upfront cost?

Certain genres definitely do better in audio. Fiction, especially adult fiction, generally sells better than nonfiction. Literary fiction, science fiction & fantasy, mystery & thriller, and romance & erotica are the most popular genres and tend to work well in audio. Which isn’t to say that nonfiction books can’t be successful, too. Self-help, history, memoir & biography, and business also do well in audio.

As with ebooks, a series is always a good bet, especially romance, fantasy and mystery. If an author has a number of titles published in a series and is starting to grow a significant following, recording the first few books are a great way to get new audiences involved.

Investing in an audiobook always involves some risk, but the potential for return is far greater today than just a few years ago. Mobile has changed everything. Demand continues to grow and new distribution outlets appear monthly. Amazon, Google and Apple all have (or are developing) audio driven ecosystems. You can already listen to audiobooks on the Amazon Echo. Any author who wants total control over how their audiobook sounds and where it’s distributed should invest.

Note from Jane: As a special offer to my readers, ListenUp is offering a discount of 10% off its hourly rate. Head to www.ListenUpIndie.Pub/get-started, and use the code JANE in the Promo Code box to receive your discount.

The Myth About Print Coming Back and Bookstores on the Rise

I belong to a wide range of Facebook groups and follow a lot of media news, and few things are more frustrating than people who celebrate the apparent “resurgence” of print and the comeback of independent bookstores as some kind of “win” over ebooks and digital media. Most of it is wishful thinking rather than an understanding of what’s actually happening out there. With my colleague Porter Anderson, I try to offer perspective on current developments and put all the stats into their proper context. (Check out The Hot Sheet.)

Here are three recent data points you should know about.

1. The ebook sales decline in the United States is related to traditional publishing and possibly its high pricing.

As you can tell from Nielsen’s graph above (which tracks sales of titles with ISBNs), the flattening of ebook sales started happening back in 2013. Some of the ebook decline we’re seeing may be attributable to higher ebook prices from traditional publishers, as well as rapidly falling Nook sales.

Adult ebook sales have been relatively stable; the big decline is in children’s/YA ebook sales due to the lack of a big franchise hit in 2015. (I hope it gives you pause to learn that the absence of a Harry Potter book or a new YA series can directly affect how well the industry does in a given year.)

Two other unanswered questions:

whether book readers are transitioning from ebook purchases to audiobook purchases; that’s where most of the sales gains are happening for traditional publishers.
whether the most avid ebook readers have switched to ebook subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited or Scribd.

2. Recent print sales gains can be accounted for by coloring books.

Nielsen reports that about 12 million coloring books were sold in 2015. Compare that to just 1 million in 2014. The increase is so dramatic that coloring books alone can account for the increase in print sales in 2015. Once interest cools off, what do you expect will happen to print sales?

3. Market share is drifting away from the Big Five publishers to small presses and self-publishers.

Again, Nielsen’s latest report is very instructive. In this chart, we see how the share of Big Five publishers has declined by 12% over the last three years; small publishers and self-published authors have gained 23% market share combined. What’s even more astonishing is that Nielsen’s figures primarily give us a look at very traditional types of publishing, or books with ISBNs. There’s a whole universe of independent publishing that remains untracked because the titles don’t carry ISBNs—and most of those titles are not getting carried in your average bricks-and-mortar bookstore. They sell predominantly through Amazon.

Carry a big dose of skepticism, and look at possible underlying agendas, when you hear celebrations about print’s comeback. While I’m not at all proclaiming the death of print or traditional publishers, few media outlets have an understanding of the big picture.

If you’re interested in ongoing analysis and information about publishing industry, start a free 30-day trial to The Hot Sheet.

12 Tips for Improving Your Description

As part of my query and synopsis critique services, I sometimes look at the first five pages of a writer’s manuscript, looking for red flags and other problems that may result in a quick rejection. Invariably, I find problems with the level of description—the balance is off, and usually there’s too much time spent trying to evoke the setting in flowery terms or describe the protagonist’s physical features.

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, novelist Abby Geni offers 12 tips to help achieve the right balance and write good description in your work. She says:

Think in terms of “telling details”: details that let the reader see your characters while also revealing something about their minds. In this way, your descriptions can do double duty: giving the reader a physical picture while also showing an inner, mental trait.

She also recommends that you avoid a description of a character’s hair and eye color, as well as height and weight. Read the full post.

Also in this month’s Glimmer Train:

On Revising by Cary Groner

Advice from Antonya Nelson for young writers

The Question I Hate the Most

Over the spring, I began physical therapy to correct some hip pain that was preventing me from practicing yoga, and my single, overbearing thought was: What are my chances of a full recovery through therapy alone?

Each week, my physical therapist focused on having me do hip-strengthening exercises and increasing the level of difficulty. Although unfailingly cheerful and positive, she didn’t give any kind of qualitative or quantitative reassurance, e.g., “I see people like you recover fully all the time!” or “More than 75% of people with this condition will improve within six months of therapy.”

Eventually, by the third or fourth week of therapy, I couldn’t help myself, and I asked the question that I knew was unfair, even if I did preface it with an “out” for the therapist: “I know every person is different,” I began, “but how likely is it that I can make a full recovery without surgery?”

Basically, I wanted to be ranked on scale. Tell me, Ms. Therapist, based on the many hundreds or thousands of patients you’ve seen, where do I fall on the spectrum? Give it to me straight, I want access to your years of experience and I know you can grade me.

But she can’t—not honestly—without making a string of assumptions about me. I know it from working with writers, who ask me to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 all the time—in terms of their idea or writing quality, the likelihood of publication, and even talent. It’s the question I dislike the most and that I try to avoid answering. It lays a terrible burden on me because what’s being asked is: Tell me my worth. Tell me if I should continue. Is my situation hopeless?

If I say you’re a 1, you’ll be discouraged and maybe give up. Such a ranking may lead you to completely disregard your own agency—your own attitudes, responsibility and discipline—as important factors, all qualities that can turn you into a 10 over time. Maybe the project you’re working on now is hopeless, but the next one is destined for greatness.

If I say you’re a 10, you may feel good about yourself and encouraged to redouble your efforts—and then later on, if you aren’t really a 10, you’ll likely encounter frustration, rejection, and other problems that may lead you to feel bitter or resentful when you’re not treated in the way you expect.

I don’t know how to rank most writers because I can’t say how well prepared you are to overcome the difficulties in the writing life. Your motivation or purpose for writing matters, as well as whatever distractions or obligations are pressing down on you. Plus everyone has potential to improve, to have moments of epiphany, to transform from a writer who’s going nowhere to a writer who is inspired or lucky or both.

My therapist had the smallest of windows into my life. She didn’t know the history of my body and what I’ve put it through (or might put it through in the future), and how hard I might work at healing myself. Maybe I will fully recover, and maybe I won’t—a lot of the story was written before I ever arrived in her office—and my outlook largely remains in my hands, not hers.

But I still understand the impulse, the emotional need behind the ranking question. At times we’re desperate to know: what’s my status in this game? How good do I look? It’s just that no matter what answer we’re given, it is unlikely to satisfy or last longer than the next moment of doubt or failure on the horizon.

5 On: Massimo Marino

In this 5 On interview, author Massimo Marino discusses what it’s like to read science fiction as a scientist, his experience with the Booktrope publishing collective, the mission of BookGarage, and more.

Booktrope Publishing LCC publishes Massimo Marino‘s works. He’s a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and a scientist envisioning science fiction.

He contributed to the experiments at CERN and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, then accepted leading positions at Apple, Inc. and at the World Economic Forum. He is also co-founder of Squares on Blue, a big data analytics service company, and of BookGarage, a publishing services brokerage firm.

5 on Writing

CHRIS JANE: As a physicist, is it ever difficult for you to read science fiction by writers who don’t have a science background? I imagine it could sometimes be like a person in the military watching a movie about war and “Nope, wrong”-ing the uniforms and patches, or rolling their eyes at the ever-present helicopters flying over an Army post.

MASSIMO MARINO: True, unfortunately the suspension of disbelief goes bananas. I find it difficult to keep it in place (the suspension) even with the movie Interstellar. At times you wonder what the scriptwriters smoked or whether they ever bothered attending science classes.

It is perfectly fine to extrapolate current knowledge to invent new technologies and new science, but not when they clash with proven laws, confirmed over and over again in all possible situations. Why should an author or a scriptwriter believe that they can be violated in their novels or in their movies?

Why do you write what you write?

I grew up with authors who are considered today to be pillars and geniuses in science fiction—leaders and path openers. Today, we are confronted a lot with novels that veer too often into fantasy, technobabble, and magic rather than science. The scientific element, also, is not an integral part of these stories, which could well be located in the now and without any need of a futuristic environment.

Science fiction has as many definitions as there are people who want to define it. Robert Heinlein said that SF was “Realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.”

Besides, current fringe theories and experiments go beyond what any wild fantasy from people not accustomed to science could lead to. Science really flirts with wild amazement today.

What is the most important lesson you learned as a reader that helped or instructed your writing, and what writer or book taught you that lesson?

That economy in writing is gold. If I can summon a vision with twenty words, I’ll strive to summon that same vision in fifteen—in ten, even. There’s a power in being terse that is lost with too many words. Flowery prose, pedantic descriptions, passive voices that were part of the accepted narrative styles of even half a century ago are today seen as the mark of the debutante. “Cull all unnecessary words,” said Strunk and White. I say more about this in my blog.

You’ve written about the novice sci-fi writer’s tendency to offer too many details by way of explanation when writing about future technology, which “amounts to having a contemporary fiction writer who feels compelled to describe what happens when a character gets in a car and leaves.” What is another common writing mistake unique to sci-fi?

Assuming your readers will be speechless with invented new words and invented new technology that have no basis nor any roots in real science, or that are in direct contradiction with the laws that make our universe what it is.

Readers will be speechless while tossing away your book.

This is how you once described your dream job: “Being able to earn enough royalties from my books every month to pay for all I and family need.” What if achieving that goal meant having to devote all of your work time to writing, putting your work in physics completely aside?

Well, as a matter of fact, I left active research in 2005, but the above remains my definition of a dream job. While writing my novels, I’ve researched scientists’ work in neuroscience, physics, and biology. I’ve had lengthy discussions with oncologists and psychologists. Pure fun.

5 on Publishing

You’re the COO of BookGarage, which you’ve described as “a community of like-minded people.… [T]he one-stop shop for everything related to professional self-publishing.” Services provided by freelancers registered with the site go well beyond editing and proofreading and include blurbs and synopsis writing, author website design and management, etc.

Freelance editor Jessica West in a June 2015 interview with BookGarage compares BookGarage to “an AI search engine focused on publishing industry professionals.” We learn in that interview that authors will “enjoy a supportive technology that creates connections, opens opportunities, and reduces the time spent in finding professional services from reputable freelancers, and reduces the risks that can come with that.”

What kinds of connections are created beyond connections with project-appropriate freelancers, if any? What kinds of opportunities are opened?

BookGarage is first a community. Authors, freelancers, and readers can engage in discussion threads; authors can ask editors for tips; personal connections—and we hope also friendship—can arise from being in BookGarage. We didn’t want just another place to find freelancers and pay for services; we wanted to start from the community, then branch into the marketplace.

BookGarage is still in its infancy, and we have in mind other connections fostered by the BookGarage community—those that could lead readers, for example, to “adopt” writers and support their writing.

BookGarage doesn’t accept all submissions. What is the vetting process?

We ask potential members to provide us with as much as possible about their writing journey, or their expertise in publishing. We go online and verify information, dig for more. For authors, we look at what they have published, their online presence, readers’ perception of their books. We use the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon to read pages and see whether the author cares for her readership.

It’s a similar process for freelancers, their portfolio: how they do present themselves on their website, if they have one; verify official credentials if they share them with us; references; and again go and see books they have collaborated with in any capacity.

If anything in that process doesn’t convince us, or contradicts the application, we deny entry into our community. And it does not stop there. Once in, we expect that the personal and professional qualities are confirmed. Some of our freelancers come from traditional publishing houses and have many years under their belts (and bestsellers, too).

There are several more authors and freelancers listed at BookGarage than there are readers. How important are readers to BookGarage’s mission, how do you attract them, and what should potentially interested readers know about what will be expected of them?

The situation has improved, recently. Nevertheless, we believe readers to be an important pillar for our vision. Internally, we say we’d love to attract discerning readers: those who are supportive of committed authors, who would like to be in a more proactive stance and contribute to the writing process, either with beta-reading or finally being in an environment where silly reviews and reviewers have no place, where they could sponsor writing projects, and leave behind flame wars, sock-puppeting, and all those dubious shameful self-promotion activities that litter other places.

Readers in BookGarage should find only serious writers who believe that quality is the most important thing to attract readers, and not whether they have the highest number of “likes,” whether their books are in the largest number of “listopias,” or whether they have the highest rating. Reviews in BookGarage, for example, don’t earn stars for the book, but a rainbow of appreciations in multiple areas, and “Unputdownable, highly recommended, 5-star” don’t have a place.

Let’s face it, Amazon has become the place where the “slush pile” is published, and readers, when willing to explore what the independent publishing arena produces, wade through mud and a wasteland before finding the rough diamond. In BookGarage, readers will have a much higher chance to find not only rough diamonds, but polished ones as well.

In addition to that, we also believe BookGarage to be a community of like-minded people. Some of them write and read, some help others write, still others read and like to engage with everybody else and discover writers who don’t believe in quick publishing and quick bucks.

You initially self-published, later receiving two offers from small houses. You said of those offers, “The current standard of contracts is laughable. I said thanks but no thanks in both cases.” You’ve since published with hybrid publisher Booktrope.

What did you like about their contract and/or system, and if you were approached now by a traditional press, would you be interested in publishing with them? If yes, why now? And if not, what would have to be in the contract in order for it to appeal to you?

My two initial offers had me wonder: I was asked for my budget to market “their” books if I accepted to have my stories published with them (then the book was “theirs”). At the time, the advance they offered me (out of 10 percent of royalties) was much less than what I was making as an independent writer in a few months. Needless to say, I would have had to sell well over 20,000 copies to get anything more than that advance. Rip-off? You bet.

What I liked with Booktrope was the clear and transparent contract: everything based on royalties (no advance), but no losses for the author, either, and the possibility to work with the editorial team in the same way I was used to with the freelancer I had hired for my independently published books.

If I were to be approached by a more traditional press, I would be flattered, but I would also like to have a partner interested in my career and progression as an author, not just a mere percentage gain on sales which should be mirabolant only because the press has a big name. More than an advance, I’d love if publishing houses acted more as publicists and agents for their authors and not just as print shops trying to get as much as possible from the first edition or two only to drop the lemon to the floor when someone decided it had delivered the last drop.

Booktrope’s website says the only submissions they want at this point are those they solicit. (Note: As of the writing of this question, Booktrope had not announced their closing.) What was your introductory experience to Booktrope?

By now, the news must have reached the publishing world. Unfortunately, Booktrope is closing down. Having my stories accepted in a formal, traditional way gave me that recognition that many independent writers look for. Even Rachel Abbott feels the sting of being a self-published author; see how much the publishing world still needs to evolve?!

I met with a literary agent at a writers’ conference. We hit it off, and she asked to read my self-published books. She loved them and mentioned Booktrope as a new and innovative publisher who might be interested right away instead of having to wait for months and years, maybe. She introduced me to them and I submitted my first book. Then Booktrope asked to see the other two in the trilogy and decided to publish them all. My fourth novel, The Law, should have been published before the summer with Booktrope, but I guess it will find readers through another path, now.

Thank you, Massimo.

How to Customize Your Email Newsletter Sign-Up Forms to Increase Reader Engagement

Today’s guest post is the second in a series about growing an email list, by author Kirsten Oliphant (@kikimojo). You can go back and read the first installment on how and why to start an email list.

The connection with your email newsletter subscribers starts much sooner than you think. Connection begins somewhere unexpected, in a place that many gloss over or ignore altogether: your signup forms.

Confession: I hate forms. Paperwork of any kind and digital forms make me crazy. Spreadsheets make me twitch. But the signup forms for email lists are so vastly important that I make an exception and dive down deep. You should too.

Why Customizing Your Forms Matters

Why do these forms matter?

I want you to think for just a moment: Are any of the signup forms you have filled out memorable? When I think of forms, two images come to mind.

The first is from Paul Jarvis and Jason Zook of the Invisible Office Hours Podcast (among other places). When you click your email to confirm that you do, in fact, want to receive emails from them, you get this lovely digital high-five. It put a smile on my face. It was unforgettable and silly. But important (and I’ll get to why in just a moment).

Digital high-five from Paul Jarvis and Jason Zook of the Invisible Office Hours Podcast

The second is from Ed Cyzewski (a writer who has penned several pieces here on publishing). It is a picture of his rabbit. I’m not a rabbit person. But getting this seemingly random picture of a rabbit in the midst of email signups made Ed memorable to me. The next time I got an email from him, I thought of the rabbit. Again, I don’t like rabbits. It’s not about rabbits. This is about becoming a real person to your email subscribers. It’s about the unexpected and the personal.

Ed Cyzewski’s rabbit from his email subscription response form

Your forms can accomplish several key things that will help determine the open rate and engagement of your emails. If you customize and optimize your forms well, you can:

Become memorable to your readers
Establish a more personal connection right away
Create several points of connection
Repel your non-ideal readers

When your email subscribers remember you, they are more likely to open your email. When your email subscribers have more of a personal connection, they are more likely to read and engage with your content.

When your subscribers connect with you in other places, they are more likely to stay connected, so along the signup process, you can leave links to your Facebook group or page or your Pinterest profile or Twitter—whenever you want them to connect further. You could also leave links to your books, but I would personally recommend sticking to non-paid connections at the start.

When you are more personal or unique, you will turn some people off. We tend to hate unsubscribes. But unsubscribes are a good indication that you lost someone who wasn’t a true fan anyway. Sharing your Star Wars obsession may send Trekkies off in another direction. But it’s better to turn them off at the beginning by letting your flag fly than to have people be dead weight on your list, deleting emails without opening because they don’t really like you.

Rather than just thinking of all the forms in the signup process as a necessary evil, consider each form an opportunity to form a lasting relationship with readers. These forms set the tone for the rest of that reader’s relationship with you. Take the time to maximize these opportunities.

Creating Your Persona

Before we dive into the specifics of customizing your forms, you need to take a step back and ask if you know your writer’s persona. You want to think about the way you want to come across to your readers and the vibe you want to present. Consider what things you will share and what things you’ll hold close to the chest.

You may not want the fun vibe that Jason and Paul are going for with their high-fives. But that is very representative of who they are and the way they interact. It helps people connect or else realize that they don’t want to hear from guys who take a picture of a digital high-five. When it comes to lists, you want people who are drawn to you and your content, so the more personal you can be, the better.

Customizing Your Forms

Depending on your email service provider (ESP), this process will look different. Some ESPs give you the option for a single-click opt-in; I would not recommend this. Single opt-ins are like using your head in volleyball (as I learned in high school gym class): legal, though not preferred. Dust off your dashboard and get into the forms section of your ESP.

Pre-Work: Research

You don’t want to overcrowd your inbox, but sign up for lists in a similar niche. See what you like and don’t like about the process. Take screenshots of things you like (or don’t like). This will help give you ideas.

Step 1: Do a Cursory Check of Your Signup Process

Head into your ESP dashboard and look for the signup forms. Typically there will be:

a signup form (sometimes you may use a third party that connects—like Hello Bar or SumoMe—so look at that)
a confirmation message or page that pops up after the form
an email to confirm
a pop up message or page after someone clicks confirm
a welcome email

You may have more or less, but those are the basics and the most important forms. Some will be forms, some will be emails, and some will be pages on the internet that either your ESP hosts or that you can have redirect to your site or another place.

Step 2: Sign Up for Your Own List

Before you make changes, experience it for yourself. Sign up and go through the process. Make a note about each page. What do you like or not like? What could be better? Where is there space for improvement?

Step 3: Change the Wording Everywhere

One of the smallest and best changes you can make is taking out all of the standard wording. No one wants to “Sign up for our newsletter.” But they might want to join your community of awesome. Or they might not want to miss out on exclusive free content. Whatever the case, change the wording. Even the “Subscribe” button can be better. Try “Join me now” or “I dare you—click the red button!” Anything that represents your persona and makes you stand out from the other 500 signup forms that person sees every day is a good thing.

Step 4: Add Bells and Whistles

Branding is a whole subject unto itself, but the creation of your persona is a part of your brand as a writer. Visually, your brand also comes through very clearly, so pick some colors that work well that are also preferably on your blog. Utilize those colors in your forms and in your buttons. Any time you can, choose your colors for buttons or for headings or backgrounds. (But avoid changing the full background color where the text goes. Generally speaking, people are less drawn toward white text on a dark background.)

Consider where you might add images and what images would best represent your writer persona. Think about links to include so that people can connect even more.

A warning about links: Do not use links on the pages where people have to click to confirm or enter your email address. You want to make sure people do that one important action of signing up for your list, so don’t add in a bunch of social media links or blog posts links. Save that for the welcome email, or make a unique page for your subscribers where they are redirected when they confirm, and include the links there. Clickable items belong only in places where there is no other necessary action to take.

Step 5: Sign Up for Your List Again

Now that you’ve gone through your forms, it’s time to sign up again. (You can either unsubscribe or use your other email address.) See how it looks now that you’ve customized. Check that the links are working and that things don’t look wonky. Try it on mobile. Have your mom try it. (No, really. If you may have someone older than you sign up, be sure that the process is accessible for someone older.)

Your ultimate goal is to have the process both streamlined, so that people can easily sign up, and memorable, to establish a deeper connection, form connections in other places, and turn off those readers who aren’t your ideal in the first place.

If you want to get a visual for going through the signup process, this is a MailChimp-specific workshop I did that goes deep into customizing forms. (It was recorded live, so there may be a few now-irrelevant references, but the customizing is still relevant.) I hit on the importance of email again and also how you can utilize and customize forms. Even if you aren’t in MailChimp, this may give you some ideas.

The great thing about customizing forms is that so many people do not take the time—or don’t realize that they can. This will make you will stand out from the start. You will already be memorable because you used different wording on your button to sign up. You might even get more signups because people notice that your signup form is just their brand of humor. We get sidebar blindness, and that extends to forms with the standard wording that comes straight out of the box with MailChimp or Mad Mimi or AWeber.

When your readers see your name in the inbox, they will now have a whole host of (hopefully great) memories either in the front or back of their mind. They will see that digital high five or your rabbit or remember that great blog post you linked to in the welcome email.

These tiny details can have a big impact and make your list more engaged and more filled with the right readers for your work. You will have a lot more work to do in terms of establishing connection through your content, but the signup process sets the tone. Start establishing your connection early and make use of the opportunities your ESP provides by way of otherwise annoying forms.

Go back and read the first installment on how and why to start an email list.

Using Video for Author Marketing: What Beginners Need to Know

In my latest post over at Writer Unboxed, I discuss what writers need to know if they’re considering video as part of their marketing and promotion strategy.

In brief, here’s what writers should avoid:

Don’t do book trailers.
Don’t talk at length in a static shot.
Don’t post unedited video longer than a minute or so.

I also discuss how writers can start to wisely experiment. Read the full post: Everyone’s Getting Into Video. Should You?