Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 192

3 Websites to Stretch Your Thinking

I've always believed in sharing the resources I use to stay current and fresh in my thinking about writing and publishing—no matter how advanced or niche those sources are. With that in mind, I recommend the following 3 sites.

Lean Back 2.0. This is a fairly new blog by The Economist. If you're not familiar with the term "Lean Back" in relation to media consumption, then view this first (essential!).

Twitter: @LeanBack2_0
Sample post: The Rise of the Mass Intelligent 



Brian O'Leary at Magellan Media. This one's been around for a while and deserves more attention for its big-picture analysis of the industry, in a blessedly concise manner.

Twitter: @BrianOLeary
Sample post: Scarcity sells



Laura Hazard Owen at paidContent . Laura used to work at Publishing Trends (another site worth following, but the real goods there cost money). She now reports on the publishing industry for paidContent and has facts and analysis you can trust.

Twitter: @LauraHazardOwen
Sample post: Google: No More E-Books for for Indie Booksellers

If you're a totally new writer, I recommend subscribing to these sites:

My Name Is Not Bob. Some of the best writing advice anywhere, by the editor of Writer's Market.
The 99 Percent. Creativity, inspiration, motivation. And entrepreneurship—essential for today's author.
The Book Designer. For all kinds of 101 related to self-publishing and e-publishing (and more) by Joel Friedlander.

Looking for more?

Check out Best Blogs for Writers to Read in 2012 from Robert Brewer
Check out the most critical articles I recommend, over at Google Plus (mixed in with Alain de Botton tweets)
Subscribe to my Facebook page, where I share my own posts, plus articles of interest (1-2 posts per day, max)

What do you consider YOUR essential reads—especially to push you in your thinking and understanding of publishing?

My New Job at the Virginia Quarterly Review

It's hard to a remember a happier day than when I was offered a position at the University of Cincinnati as an assistant professor. I was looking forward to many years (decades, I thought) focused on teaching.

After spending two years at UC, I can say the job is everything I had hoped for—and more. I spend my days in a beautiful building (a music conservatory, in fact) teaching subjects I'm passionate about, and helping students launch their careers. I have supportive and friendly colleagues, and the freedom to pursue my own creative projects.

So it's with some surprise—even to myself—that at the end of UC's academic year, I'm stepping away from this dream to pursue a new opportunity and challenge at the Virginia Quarterly Review.

At VQR, I'll be serving as Web Editor, responsible for managing the VQR website and securing exclusive online content, as well as developing and overseeing social media and online marketing efforts. I'll also be involved to a lesser extent in the selection and editing of VQR's print content.

VQR is a publication I've admired for a long time. Based in Charlottesville, VQR has been published continuously out of the University of Virginia since 1925. It has a long history of featuring some of the most notable authors in history and has won a range of awards, including two National Magazine Awards (the magazine world's equivalent of the Pulitzer). And just yesterday it was announced that VQR is a finalist for THREE awards this year!

When I was approached by the publisher about the opportunity, it was hard to say no. Here was a person I trusted and admired (Jon Parrish Peede), considering me for a gig with a first-rate journal—with a mission and values I believe in—where I could help build online content and community among a tightly knit staff in a not-for-profit, university setting. (I have no desire to return to corporate media!)

With VQR I have a never-before-realized opportunity to combine two things I consider part of my identity: literary culture and digital culture. But it does mean leaving the place I've called home for 14 years: Cincinnati.

It will be a tough relocation, but I'm looking forward to the adventure ahead.

5 Principles for Using Facebook

It's difficult to give advice about Facebook because it keeps changing—in structure, functionality, and effectiveness.

For instance, I used to think accepting all friend requests for my personal profile was a workable policy, as long as I kept everyone organized in lists. But now that Facebook has a subscribe-to-profile feature, it doesn't make sense to friend everyone. And so I've started the painful process of defriending people I don't know. (This isn't without reservation. Read my thoughts here.)

Facebook demands consideration from nearly everyone, because choosing to stay off it means stepping away from the social sharing and conversation of 800+ million people. Yet choosing to play the game as an author or marketer—and use Facebook as a means to an end—can spell immediate failure if your friends and followers feel used.

No one likes to be marketed to on Facebook, at least not in that overtly obvious "Buy my stuff" manner. And yet to approach it with no strategy at all could mean missed opportunities or wasted time.

No easy answers.

But here are five principles that I use and mention when people ask me about Facebook.

1. Like attracts like.

If you post helpful, interesting, or valuable stuff on Facebook, targeted to a particular sensibility, you will attract an audience who matches what you post—and will reward you for it through likes/shares. If you like to talk politics, or be argumentative, or complain, you'll attract the same.

This is a critical principle for just about all online activity, but particularly important on Facebook because people tend to treat the site like their living room. They're comfortable saying or doing anything.

If you don't like the activity or conversation surrounding you—or you're not getting the results you think you should—look at what you're putting out. Don't assume you need to increase your fan/friend count.

2. Fan pages take work to be meaningful.

One of the biggest questions I get is: Should I start a fan page separate from my personal profile?

I like to respond by asking: Are you prepared to develop a content strategy for it? Are you prepared to spend time on it? Otherwise, there's no point.

Here are a few other questions to ask:

Would it make sense to allow people to subscribe to your personal profile instead? You can make any of your personal profile posts public, and your subscribers will see those posts in their news feed without being your friend.
Is there a huge divide between your personal friends and your target audience? If it's problematic to make public posts on your personal profile (maybe for some reason you don't want your friends to automatically see your public posts), then a fan page eliminates that problem. Think it through carefully, though. If your first step in developing your fan page is to blast your Facebook friends with, "Go LIKE my page!", that tells me there's no real divide (yet!) between your personal friends and target audience. (That's not a bad thing—your friends are often your first circle of supporters who love to know what you're doing and want to be supportive.)
Do you need the functionality of a fan page? One of the biggest reasons to start a fan page is to have app functionality and/or analytics/insights into your fans. You need to be rather advanced in your platform building and author career to benefit from the added features of a fan page (vs. using the personal profile subscribe function). As developed as my own platform is, even I don't see the need for it in my own career.
Would you prefer to shut down your personal profile but still have a Facebook presence? I see this happening more and more. You may be "done" with Facebook but realize the importance of having a presence for marketing purposes. A fan page is the solution.

3. Target your posts appropriately.

For Facebook personal profiles, I've always advocated the use of lists, back when it was a hidden feature, and long before Facebook created automated lists.

It's still a good idea to create unique lists, going beyond the automated list feature. While it takes time, having people tagged by how you know them, where you met them, or what your connection is becomes invaluable when you decide who should see each Facebook post.

Why should you care? See No. 4 below.

4. Reduce the noise.

A recent study asked Facebook users what they liked least about fan pages. One of the biggest annoyances: people or companies that post too often.

We've all done it: instead of defriending or unliking someone or something, we mute them instead. The end result is the same, though. That person or thing disappears from our news feed.

I'm a strong advocate of the "less is more" philosophy when it comes to content and social sharing. We all have too much to read anyway, so why bother sharing anything except the absolute best and most essential stuff?

What does this mean in practice? A few things:

Avoid automated posting, e.g., feeding in every last one of your tweets. While I've seen some people do this successfully (and some aren't active on Facebook anyway, and don't care!), it's one of the fastest ways to get muted. Plus, you're missing an opportunity to say something geared toward the audience you have on Facebook, such as asking a compelling question to spark a discussion.
There is no one "right" frequency for posting, but posting every hour, or multiple times per hour, will turn people off. (For some people, this is their shtick, and if you want to ride that personality wave, go ahead. Just accept its limitations in terms of reach.)
A little hand-holding goes a long way when you share links or content. Explain why you're posting it, or share a compelling quote from it, or otherwise introduce the content so people understand why it deserves their time. Be a thoughtful curator, not a blaster.
Don't practice the hard sell except during special campaigns. Facebook is a great soft-sales tool (building awareness and visibility). It is a lousy direct sales tool. Don't try to turn it into one, though of course you should mention important events like book signings, conferences, product launches, special promotions, sales achievements, successes, etc.

5. Always take a personal approach.

I hate blasts regardless of platform, though I especially hate them on Facebook since I spend more time there and see them more often.

Do not blast impersonal messages or invites for any reason. This includes:

Inviting everyone to a fake event
Inviting everyone to an event you know only a small circle can actually attend, due to geographic limitations.  There is even less excuse to invite everyone when Facebook provides an automated list to every user based on geographic location
Sending a promotional Facebook message to huge groups of people
Adding people to groups you've created

Yes, please reach out to people on Facebook. But do it on an individual level, and be respectful of people's time.

What do you think? What principles do you live by when using Facebook? And what do you wish people would START doing or STOP doing? Leave your thoughts in the comments. (And, if you like, subscribe to my public posts on Facebook!)

For more on this topic:

3 Principles for Facebook Fan Pages
Too Many Facebook Friends: Blessing or Curse?
Using Facebook to Amplify Your Reach and Not Annoy People

Writers Should Struggle Against Style

Photo by Margit Studio

I often hear writers say they're struggling to find their voice or their style. So it was unexpected to read this piece from Brad Beauregard about avoiding the adoption of a style. Here's a brief excerpt:

Sometimes writers talk about style as something you can pick up when you buy groceries, something you might stumble upon in the dollar-or-less bin at the thrift store. But style isn't an outfit we don and toss in the laundry at night's end. Style is a body roadmapped with scars and tattoos, the sediment of time spent struggling, failing, and starting over. Style is the house you accidentally build while you're tearing walls down and throwing them in the burn pile. But most important, style is the thing writers struggle against, not toward. I say writers struggle against style, not because they always do, but because I believe they should.

What follows is an unconventional perspective, but a worthwhile one. At the very least, it should reduce your anxiety about solidifying or identifying your style. Click here to read the full piece—or click here to read the rest of Glimmer Train's monthly bulletin with wonderful advice and insight for writers.

The Future of Publishing: 14 Variations (Now Free!)

Last year, on April 1, I released an e-book, The Future of Publishing: Enigma Variations. It was mostly an April Fool's Joke—a joke that cost you $1.99. (Read a full description here, plus reviews.)

In this 39-page PDF, I offer 14 possible scenarios for the future of publishing … exaggerated scenarios. But in the final variation, I do get serious for a few pages.

Now that a year has passed since its release, I've decided to make it available for free.

Click here to view or download all 39 fabulous pages.

My Latest Thoughts on Literary + Tech

 

In the past couple weeks, I've been interviewed as part of a couple pieces from others in the literary community:

Chicago Publishes Podcast : These folks caught me at AWP 2012 after my panel on The Tech-Empowered Writer. Other interviewees include Dennis Johnson, Jotham Burello, and Michael Downs. Click here to listen. 
"Recording on Two Tracks" at The Nervous Breakdown. This article by Erin Hoover asks a provocative and important question: Who do writers want in charge of literary curation? Click here to read.

If the Book Is Dead, Then Why Buy a Zombie?

Detroit Book Repository by TunnelBug / Flickr

Today's guest post is from Jason Braun, who produces hip-hop sonnets from the Midwest.

A year has passed since Jane Friedman's 2011 AWP panel, "The Future of Authorship and Publishing in a Transmedia World," and I'm still sorting through the fallout.

I went to the panel with my friend Jamey Bradbury, a fine fiction writer, who happened to be John Irving's research assistant. Jamey wanted to learn more about e-books. I wanted to see how music might fit into the future of literature. We were immediately thrust into a much larger dialogue.

It was science fiction writer William Gibson who said, "The Future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." But it is Jane Friedman who is trying to help us all with distribution. Just five minutes into the show, the panelists were tossing questions like Molotov cocktails:

Why dream of being on Oprah's Book Club? Why not be Oprah?
If people ask you at your literary magazine what you publish and you say, "Great stuff," how long do you expect to be around in an age of diminishing funding for the arts?
Free is not a sustainable business model. Do you know how they sell fancy cheese?

In the twelve months since that panel, I have pushed my way into publishing, app design, and promotion. Only now, I have more questions:

Besides the new approaches to marketing that are available to writers, editors, and publishers using app or e-book formats, what is anyone doing to enhance, expand, explode or recreate the experience a "reader" could have?
If we momentarily entertain the notion that the book is dead, even for 15 minutes, what shapes, forms, containers, and distribution streams might we invent?
What are writers, editors, and publishers doing now besides hawking a zombified version of the book?
Frequently the e-book or book-as-app is a less pleasurable experience than that of ink on wood pulp. Our "readers" have a smartphone, a tablet, or computer at their warm fingertips, and as Hacker Historian George Dyson recently said in an interview with Wired, "Computers are idle 99 percent of the time, just waiting for the next instruction." Why create as if this wasn't part of the equation?

The future of the book is limited only by our definition. We could pour narratives, poems, memoirs, how-tos, and manifestos into innumerable forms:

Mix tapes
Audio tours
Tagging online photos with links to audio, wikis, and narrative maps
GPS-enabled apps that start the campfire songs for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts as they reach the Ozark mountain peak corresponding to longitude and latitude pre-programmed by the scout master.
An e-book in which the "author" has allowed readers not just to choose their own adventures, but to write the work's last chapter and/or change it daily according to the number of click votes it receives on the book's webpage. That would beat the hell out of book club.

Looking for more on this topic? Try these posts next:

The Tech-Empowered Writer
Thinking Beyond the Book: What's Your Demand Curve?
12 Must-Read Articles From 2011
3 Free Books to Open Your Eyes to the Future of Authorship

What Is a Literary Novel?

Today's guest post is by Dr. Sanjida O'Connell, a literary author based in the UK. Her latest book is out in paperback, Sugar Island.

The Literary Novel. We all know one when we see it, although deciphering what it is or telling someone else how to spot one is problematic.

In a tautological definition, literary works are often defined as those that win literary awards, such as the Booker Prize for Fiction. Which would rule out any novels written before 1969 being classed as literary. Another definition is that this type of fiction is "writerly"—clearly nonsense since every book is, by definition, writerly—someone wrote it, after all!

Recently a number of critics, publishers and publicists have suggested that literary fiction is simply a genre, like crime or chick lit and should be marketed as such (to ever decreasing readers, according to April Line in her guest post here, Why Isn't Literary Fiction Getting More Attention.

I am defined and marketed as a literary author, although I have never won the Booker. I didn't set out to be in this genre, but now 15 years since the first of my four novels was published, I've been wondering exactly what it is that makes a book literary.

First, for me, is that it should be Intellectual. A literary novel is about ideas. It has an overarching theme distinct from the narrative and a leitmotif running through it. The theme of my first novel, Theory of Mind (perhaps too densely cluttered with ideas), was on the nature of empathy viewed through the prism of a young boy with Asperger's syndrome, a sociopathic boyfriend, a robotics expert and the emotional life of a bunch of chimpanzees.

A.S. Byatt, who famously won the Booker for Possession and who "wept and wept" when her publishers asked her to remove chunks of Victorian prose and poetry, said that she had accepted her novel would only be read by academics and that she imagined she would certainly "fall into the intellectually challenging box."

Linked to their intellectual side, I think literary works have Depth. Of course, novels with great plots usually have sub-plots too, but I'm talking about the interweaving of ideas, themes, plot, and sub-plots. My third novel, The Naked Name of Love, took me ten years from concept to publication and that, plus the Big Ideas (God, evolution and love), helped give it depth. My fourth, Sugar Island (out in paperback this March), was written much more quickly and I believe it has less depth. It wasn't just the time it took to write but also the themes. Sugar Island deals with slavery, with freedom and free will, and because as a society we find slavery abhorrent, there is perhaps less to explore since the issues are so much more black and white for us than they were at the start of the American Civil War.

Critics often say that literary novels are about Character and commercial "mainstream" fiction is about plot. This seems a bit of a simplification. I do think literary novels should have fantastic characters, but the best books all have fantastic plots too. For me, in a literary work, the plot stems from the characters. The main character behaves in a particular way because that is who he or she is and it is their key character traits that drive the plot. Thrillers, for instance, can often have a plot that is external to the character. I'm exaggerating, but in this genre almost anyone could be the "hero" and go through the same process. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is a classic example of a pulse-quickening, page-turner, but would seeing into Robert Langdon's soul help move the plot along?

And last but not least is Style. I think we all expect a classic novel to be written in such beautiful prose it makes you want to weep, pause and stare at the sky or feel the words rolling through your mind like pebbles smoothed by the sea. Again, this is not to say that novels in other genres do not need to think about style but the prose can be more workman-like if plot is the driver. Take Stephanie Myers' Twilight Saga. Supremely popular, these books do not fit into the literary fiction category. They do have interesting characters, they contain ideas (about the nature of vampires and vampire-human hybrids), they reference literature (Tennyson, Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet), but they are predominantly plot-driven, the prose is on the workman-like side, the characters are not deep and the books lack depth. They're still a great read.

So what I'm saying is literary books are not better than any other type of book and elements of what makes literary fiction literary are found in most novels. But if literary fiction is what rocks your world, then go for Wuthering Heights.

How do you define literary fiction?

My Views on Publishing Today

I was flattered when Paper.li reached out to me for a Q&A as part of their community interview series. They've titled the interview How to Get Published, and it covers a wide range of trends related to publishing, authorship, and technology.

A few highlights are below; click here to read the full interview. My thanks to Liz Wilson for a great set of questions.

My lifestyle

Once I'm up, I'm online all day, except when I'm teaching class. Even then, I'm often in front of a computer and streaming online information. Because I have no obligations other than being a professor of e-media at the University of Cincinnati, I'm free to focus all my energy and attention on online media. It's my work and my play.

About success in e-publishing

What determines success in e-publishing, aside from a quality book, is online reach to a target audience, and an ability to market and promote effectively. Once you make the e-book available, no one will know it exists unless you tell them.

About what sites writers need to be active on

I'm fond of saying none. That's because if a writer hates using whatever I suggest is mandatory, then there's little point in pursuing it. People can tell when you aren't enjoying yourself, and it's impossible to stick with something (for as long as you really need to) if you actively dislike it.

To see my answers on how to get published, whether it's vital to blog, top sources to follow on Twitter, and what makes me joyous/despairing about publishing right now … click here!

For more

Read my full Q&A with Liz Wilson at Paper.li 
Read Best Tweets for Writers Daily
Read The Jane Friedman Daily

Bestselling Women Authors Discuss Women Writing

Here's a lovely way to start your Sunday. With a nod to Women's History Month, Open Road Media has created a 2-minute video featuring bestselling female mystery writers Ruth Rendell, Susan Isaacs, Jane Langton, Mary Burton and more, sharing their thoughts on women and writing.

A couple great quotes from the video:

"Being as old as I am doesn't stop me from starting something, or carrying on with a difficult job."

—Jane Langton

"To be accepted allows you room to flower, to breathe. You have a great gratitude toward those who accept you."

—Anne Perry

Click here to watch over at YouTube.