Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 216

The Comeback Fight

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Pictured above: Boxer Deirdre Gogarty




Darrelyn Saloom, a
monthly contributor here at No Rules, has written an
article for Boxing.com about a comeback fight for boxer Deirdre Gogarty.



As many of you know, Darrelyn has been working with Deirdre on her boxing memoir for
a number of years.



Go check out the article!


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Happy News About My Teaching Future

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As many of you are aware, for the past academic year, I've been serving as a full-time
visiting assistant professor of electronic media, at the University of Cincinnati.



When I signed up for the gig, I knew it was only for a year—but of course I hoped
that if it was a good fit, I could stay longer.



And so I'm honored and thrilled to announce that I've been officially appointed as
a full-time assistant professor. I'll continue teaching UC's
e-media majors a mix of writing, production, and media theory courses.



Not much changes as far as the work I do here at No Rules—or my contributions to Writer's
Digest—but I wanted to share my happy news with you all.



P.S. If you know students headed to college who are interested in multimedia storytelling,
the future of media/journalism, or media production work, then they
should check out the e-media major at UC!


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The "Self-Pub Is Crap" Debate

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I'm reaching an exhaustion level with the following two viewpoints:

Most self-published work is crap. Anyone can "publish"
their e-book and call themselves an author. None of these "books" are edited. It's
a huge pile of crap that's just getting harder and harder to sift through. (God save
us from the crap!)

And the retort from self-published authors:

Traditional publishing produces a lot of crap. Their
standards are declining, and they don't even know what readers want. They are "out
of touch" and unneeded gatekeepers.

First, it's stupid for self-published authors to justify their stance
by trying to argue that traditional publishers put out work that's just as bad. It's
disingenuous. A reader is more likely to find a quality book among traditionally published
titles than self-published ones … for now.




I'm not saying that traditional publishers don't put out bad books—and a lot of them—but
it's nowhere near the number of bad self-published titles.




There's a simple economic reason why: Traditional publishers couldn't survive if they
published work that's consistently as bad as what you find in the self-published arena.



Now, you might argue the situation is changing, and traditional publishers are on
the road to irrelevancy and bankruptcy, but it's not because of the quality of their
books. It's because of changing technology and distribution systems, and new methods
of retailing books that can make it more profitable for a successful author to do
the same thing as their publisher, on their own.



So that's why I'm also impatient with those who adamantly defend traditional publishing.



If an author is a known quantity, or has a platform, no one really cares how he or
she published. If you're a brand, people care that YOU wrote the book, not who published
it.



And given that it's becoming easier (but not easy) for authors to become known and
trusted to their readership without the help of a publisher, self-publishing
becomes a more viable option and more associated with quality work and quality names.



So I don't trust anyone 100% behind JUST traditional publishing, or anyone 100% behind
JUST self-publishing.




Things are changing far too quickly for any one route (or one type of book) to be
vilified or glorified. I'd like to see people stop picking arguments—or picking sides—on
this issue. There is no winning side to this game.





Photo
credit: tkamenick





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Should You Self-Publish After a Near-Miss?

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Writers often ask if it's wise or helpful to self-publish their work if they have
"near-misses" with agents or publishers.



There's no one answer that works for everyone. But I'll try to help you come to the
right conclusion.



YES: Go ahead and try self-publishing




You know how to reach your readers (online or offline). Expressed another way: You
have a platform that makes you visible to your intended audience.



You already have credibility with readers in your genre/category.

You have a marketing and promotion plan, with achievable goals. (Read
more from JA Konrath on achievable goals.)



You're comfortable being online and have already experimented with online marketing
and promotion; you have an online identity and have participated in online communities.

You have a current website and can update it yourself.



You have an entrepreneurial spirit.

You're in it for the long haul.






NO: Do not self-publish




You don't know how to find or reach your readers (online or offline).

You need physical bookstore distribution to be satisfied that you're successful (or
that you're reaching your readers).



You don't yet have your own website.



You don't have a marketing and promotion strategy, but hope that someone will notice
you.



You don't like spending time online and/or dislike social media.



It's your first manuscript and you don't want to see all that work go to waste. If
that's the case, wait until you've written book #2 or #3 or #4 before you decide to
release that first one. It'll still be there, trust me.

You're looking for quick success and an agent.






No. 1 myth to be aware of: Self-publishing does NOT kill your chances at a traditional
deal later. BUT: Do not spend any significant money on self-publishing—whether print
or digital—until you're certain of two things:



You're sure of your reach to your audience and your ability to market to them.

You're confident of the editorial quality of your work.



Do you have other questions? I'll try to answer in the comments.

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5 Key Research Sites You May Have Missed (Plus Cool Tricks)

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I'm as guilty as the next person: I use Google for everything and don't wander much
outside it. (In fact, I use iGoogle as my browser
homepage.)



But as any astute researcher knows, Google's search engine can rank poor-quality content
very highly just because the site has good SEO (search engine optimization). Recently,
Google adjusted their search algorithm to help control for this, but the problem's
still there.



So I wanted to share a few resources to increase your awareness that stuff besides
Google exists. However, you should also be aware of Google's specialized search &
data services, so those are also included.





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1. Blekko is a specialized search engine that
filters out a lot of the crap sites that have low-quality content but high search
ranking. When you're looking for quality content and want to avoid the content mills,
try Blekko.





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2 . Wolfram Alpha has
a scientific slant: It's called a "computational knowledge engine." There are a lot
of things it can do, which are hard to describe and summarize here, so the best advice
is to give it a whirl. For instance, here's
what Wolfram reveals if I type in my hometown of Oakland City, Ind.






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3. The Wayback Machine shows you what
any site looked like in the past. It's a fun diversion, but of course a valuable research
tool as well.







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4. Snopes keeps track of Internet scams,
hoaxes, urban legends, and misinformation. If you receive an e-mail, visit a site,
or see a Facebook status that seems fishy, try searching for it here.







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5. Quora is becoming a surprising resource
for me on a variety of topics. It's a Q&A site that many well-known experts participate
in, and it's easy to search. If your question isn't already answered by someone on
the site, you can easily add it. What really sells me on Quora (as opposed to some
other Q&A sites) is the clean and easy navigation plus excellent credentials of
those engaging with it.





A Few Google Tools


If you don't know already about these specialized Google search tools, check them
out:



Google Scholar: limit your search just to
academic/scholarly stuff



Google Books: limit your search to books



Google U.S. Government: limit your search
to U.S. government sites

Google CSE: create your own search engine
that pulls only from sites you know and trust

Google Insights for Search: search
for information about searches!

Google Public Data Explorer: a
great tool for playing with and visualizing large data sets—your own data as well
as public data





Also, if you're not already aware, here are a few simple ways to improve your basic
Google searches:



If you want to exclude sites with certain terms, use the minus sign in front of the
term (e.g., salsa -dancing)



If you want to match the word exactly as you typed it, use the plus sign (e.g., +potatoe)



You can use the wild card (*) to stand in for entire words.



Use the tilde (~) in front of any terms when you want Google to search for that term,
plus anything similar to that term (e.g., ~tutorial)



If you want to restrict search results to a specific URL, then add site: in
front of the URL. E.g., iraq site:nytimes.com would only turn up articles on
Iraq from the New York Times domain.



If you find a site and wonder if there are any other similar sites, use related: plus
the URL of the site (e.g., related:writersdigest.com).



To turn up results that are files only, use the search term plus filetype: and
the type of file you're looking for. For example, if you wanted to find PDFs on the
topic of publishing, you'd search for publishing filetype:pdf. You can search
for Word docs only (doc), music files only (mp3), etc.



What are your favorite search tricks or online research resources? Leave a comment!




Photo credit: Brain
Pop UK






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Is Email the New Blogging?

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The meme these days seems to be that e-mail newsletters (or content marketing through
e-mail) is the new blogging.



Actually, I lie.




It's a fairly old meme—I
can at least trace it back to this blog post by Jason Calacanis, a longtime respected
blogger, who decided to start a paid e-mail newsletter instead of continuing to blog
for free. (However, he's back to blogging now.)



What is content marketing? Here's
the broad definition according to Wikipedia:

An umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats
that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current
and potential consumer bases. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering
high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives
profitable consumer action. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader
attention and improving brand loyalty.

Or, to use an analogy that I'm stealing from Kevin
Smokler: content marketing is like giving out cheese cubes in the grocery.



Content marketing is a big deal for nonfiction authors, but can be a tougher thing
to wrap your head around if you write fiction. (More on that later.)



So what does content marketing have to do with e-mail?



E-mail is a great medium for content, and helps you directly reach the people who
most care about your content (or personality or brand). For anyone with an active
newsletter list, I'm willing to bet that's where you get the most return on your effort
when promoting something specific (as opposed to, say, Twitter or Facebook).



People who subscribe to your e-mail newsletter are the ones who want to know when
you have something new to offer. For example, out of the dozens of links I included
in my last newsletter—mostly to resources completely
unrelated to me—the top 3 click-thrus were on the following links:



My
recent guest post at Writer Unboxed




My new splash page at About.me




A handout as PDF download, available only to newsletter subscribers





And, within the top 10 clicks: a
link to my class on e-mail newsletters.




So, this makes a ton of sense when you have information and advice to share, but how
about novelists or memoirists? Here are a few ideas, but this is only limited by your
imagination. The only rule is to do something you care about, and that complements
your strengths.



Video. See what John Green does. What
makes this work is that his personality is suited for video.



Extras. You know how DVDs do it. You might not buy the DVD for the extras,
but they're fun. Offer some added insight that fans are looking for.



Curate / Help Discoveries Happen. Maybe there's a topic you know more about
than anyone; hopefully it ties into your work, but it doesn't have to. Curate resources,
links, news, etc. related to this topic to introduce people to helpful or inspirational
stuff. (Maybe one day I'll do a bourbon newsletter. It would probably get more subscribers than
the writing one.)



If you're unconvinced by the power of e-mail, I highly recommend this blog post: How
to Build a Six-Figure Blog Without Anyone Knowing. While it's advanced & sophisticated
advice, it shows you what's possible.



Want more in-depth instruction on using e-mail as part of your career? Sign
up for my online class on Thursday.




P.S. This blog post is a form of content marketing for my online class.



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Best Tweets for Writers (week ending 5/6/11)

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I watch Twitter, so you don't have to. Visit each Sunday for the week's best Tweets.
If I missed a great Tweet, leave it in the comments.



Also: Check out these upcoming online classes from Writer's Digest:



I'll be presenting How
to Start a Successful E-mail Newsletter on May 12.



















Best of Best

What Works: Promo for Ebooks > More inspirational
advice from Joe Konrath


@nickdaws



3 Edgy Little Tips to Make Your Story More Compelling


@elizabethscraig



Reasons Behind Self-Published Book Sale Spikes and How
I Was Wrong


@selfpubreview

Getting Published + Agents/Editors

The 3 stages of querying


@elizabethscraig



Great post from @literaticat on what should--and
shouldn't--be in an author-agent agreement


@victoriastrauss

Craft + Technique

5 ways to ruin a good story


@jammer0501



The secrets and revelations of a powerful middle act


@justinemusk



Writing advice by @iamsusannah: Befriend interesting
people, don't write stupid stuff, create something beautiful.


@dbschlosser



Narrative conflict vs narrative tension


@elizabethscraig

Publishing News + Trends

How many imprints does Amazon run?


@toc

Marketing + Self-Promotion

Writers share 10 ways to self-promote
your book


@GalleyCat



On the Internet, no one knows you're a backlist
book


@victoriastrauss

Social Media

Social Media for Authors: Forever in Search
of Buzz (Poets and Writers)

@elizabethscraig

Self-Publishing + E-Publishing

How Self-Published Authors Found Success
by Staying Local


@galleycat

Writing Life + Fun

Fascinating discussion on the 7 mental/cognitive
costs of trying to do something. What are you going to get done today?

@dbschlosser



Watch the legendary novelist, critic, and teacher John
Gardner discuss writing


@OpenRoadMedia



Beginning writers: Do a huge volume of work. Set deadlines.
Be patient w/yourself.


@inkyelbows

Looking for more?




Subscribe to my newsletter, 3 Happy Things.




Want to know about the best stuff I read each week?


Click here to subscribe
to my shared items.




Get Best Tweets for
Writers — Daily!

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Organizing a Writers Workshop: Marketing (Part 2)

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Today's guest post is by NO RULES regular Susan
Cushman, director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop.




Last month, I
wrote about how to plan the budget, faculty, venue, housing, meals, and social events
for a writing workshop—specifically for the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop.
Today's post is about what comes next: scheduling, marketing and promotion.



SCHEDULE


Setting the schedule is a bit like putting together a puzzle—you have to find just
the right shape and space for each piece, and the picture isn't complete until all
the pieces are included.




Deciding how much time is needed for each event—craft talks, manuscript critique sessions,
panels, meals—is something you learn from experience. And it's helpful to always remember
that things take longer than you think they will.




But arranging the lunches on site (in a room next to the workshop room) saves valuable
minutes, and overlapping where you can (pulling participants out of the workshop for
10-15 minutes each for their pitch session with a literary agent) also gives you the
most value for the allotted time.




In the end, our schedule ended up with 10 hours of manuscript critique sessions, 7
hours of craft talks/presentations, 1½ hours of panel discussion, and up to 5 hours
of pitch sessions, depending upon how many people sign up for those.




You can see the complete
schedule here.






MARKETING & PROMOTION


With a large conference, you can count on some extra money for advertising, but with
a small workshop the budget is tight. If you spend more than you take in, you put
yourself at personal risk.




After considering the options available for paid advertising, I chose to only place
one ad, in an online creative nonfiction newsletter that reaches 9,000 active subscribers
each month and has an average click-through rate of  28%. The ad cost $75 and
will run in May, four months before the workshop.




The rest of the promotion only cost some time and thoughtful "product placement."

Social Networks. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter are great places to
promote events. I have a personal
blog, and I post monthly here at No Rules and also at the Southern Authors' blog, A
Good Blog is Hard to Find.




You can create an event page on Facebook, and link back and forth between all of these
avenues each time you post more information. Keep your readers interested by posting
new information at least once a week on the workshop site. This can be in the form
of promoting faculty readings at bookstores, linking to interesting posts about various
aspects of creative nonfiction (or whatever your workshop's genre) to start a discussion,
and even citing good resources for emerging writers to tap into before the workshop.




And don't forget the oldest social network—e-mail. If you have access to e-mail lists
from neighboring workshops and conferences, send out a group e-mail announcing the
workshop to those participants.

Local Media. Press releases are free. So are event
listings in community and arts calendars in many city and neighborhood newspapers.
Send this information out as many months in advance as the papers will allow, and
then follow up with a reminder—just a couple of sentences—a month before the workshop.




How far should you reach? Since this is a small workshop and not a conference, I'm
limiting my reach to Memphis, and about 5 surrounding states.

Bookstores and Coffee Shops. Create posters and fliers
and take them (or mail them if you can't get to all of them) to area bookstores and
coffee shops, where lots of emerging writers hang out. If you can coordinate your
effort with an event—like a book signing by one of your faculty members—all the better.




When I learned that one of our speakers was coming to a bookstore in Memphis in March,
I called and asked if I could hand out fliers for the workshop at his signing. Look
for ways like this to connect the dots in your marketing and promotional efforts.




A note about libraries: our public library won't allow notifications to be posted
unless the event is free, which is too bad, since I'm not going to make any money
off the event. Be sure and check to see if you might be allowed to post information
in the libraries near you.

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there you have it. I'm having a great time planning this workshop. If you'd like to
organize a writing workshop in your area and have any questions, feel free to contact
me. I'd love to hear from you.




And, if you have organized a writing workshop and have more tips and suggestions to
share, please leave a comment. Check back in September or October to find out how
successful the workshop was!





--



You can read Susan's
blog here, and follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

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Midlist Nonfiction Books: Too Much Effort for Too Little Return?

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Pictured above: A slide from Margaret
Atwood's marvelous presentation at TOC on the future for authors






When it comes to non-narrative nonfiction books, I don't think of the authors of these
books as authors. I think of them as experts, entrepreneurs or business professionals
who are interested in authoring a book because of the credibility it lends them. Maybe
it makes it easier for them to get other paying gigs, or speaking invites, or to gather
more audience for other products and services.



In other words, the book is a critical aspect of their platform. Maybe for some authors
it's a money-maker, but most mid-list authors cannot quit their day job based on royalties.



I'm starting to wonder if a traditional print book has become a glorified platform
builder (and an ego booster) that doesn't deserve as much weight as we all still give
it. It offers precious little ROI given the time-sink of writing and promoting something
that's 80,000 words or more.




I speak from the author's point of view here, but certainly publishers must be asking
this question too. (I've seen what a typical nonfiction book sells. It's not much.)



Here are 2 key reasons why I would rethink pursuing authorship of a nonfiction book
(of the non-narrative kind).




1. For ideas/information, a book is becoming less and less of
an ideal medium. Consider all the ways one might convey the same ideas,
with even more power and impact, with either the same time commitment or less, and
for more money/value (plus it's content that's not tied up with a publisher!):

E-mail newsletters

Blog series

Self-study curriculum

Digital downloads (packages of content)

Slideshares

Online/community forum

Live online seminars or calls

Multimedia presentation (video/audio)

Mobile apps

2. For anyone who has the requisite platform to interest a publisher, there's probably
more money to be made in marketing and selling their own content, in whatever form/medium
they most enjoy (or their audience enjoys). As more and more readers transition
to digital reading devices, and physical bookstore distribution/visibility becomes
less relevant to success, a publisher will have to add value in some way that the
author cannot.




Will it be through editing? Probably not. The author can get that himself if he has
a good network. (And if he has a good platform, he has a good network.)




Will it be through direct-to-consumer relationships that the publisher has that the
author doesn't? Maybe, but the Internet levels the playing field, and most savvy authors
I know are developing their direct-to-reader reach—and would be more interested in
partnering with an Amazon or a Levenger—or some entity that has the attention of an
audience that the author has yet to capture or be exposed to.




A further note on the future


The book format is still being used too often, and in sloppy ways, to fill a holes
in publishers' schedules.



I love
how Kevin Kelly defines books:

A book is a self-contained story, argument, or body
of knowledge that takes more than an hour to read.

The majority of nonfiction books published today don't meet this
criteria honestly. Instead, they feel like a series of blog posts. The ideas are padded
to make a book. Often they they don't teach me anything I couldn't have found or learned
online; they regurgitate well-known knowledge in a sexy package. Sometimes even the
package isn't that great. For this reason alone, I think the book format loses credibility,
validity, and importance in our culture.



There is an alternative for everyone (aside from what I've described in points 1 and
2). As more reading and book buying moves into the digital realm, and publishers (and
authors) don't have to meet a certain length requirement or page count to be marketable
in print or through bookstores, quality ought to improve. Seth
Godin's Domino project is an example of how this is happening. Also take a look
at Atavist.



But these aren't really books by Kelly's definition—just an alternative and better
medium for delivering certain ideas. Perhaps this medium is one of the new business
cards or platform builders for tomorrow's nonfiction "authors." Not unlike traditional
publishing, you're getting the rubber stamp of a brand or an authority who believes
your work or your ideas merit their time and attention.



(Is it bad that I'm starting to use author in quotation marks? It already feels like
an anachronism in a world of collaboration, sharing, and electronic media.)



In any case: given that a formal book (whether print or digital) isn't going to be
the best way to deliver most information/advice/teachings in the future, I think Kevin
Kelly's definition will start to become the gold standard by which anyone (either
author or publisher) considers investing in this legacy form. But there are few authors
and few ideas out there that really deserve it.

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How to Start a Successful Newsletter

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Next week, I'm
teaching an online class on how to start a successful e-mail newsletter. This
is a topic I've covered here at No Rules before, but this class will allow me to show
you in-depth how to get started, discuss strategies, and go behind the scenes with
free services so you see how they work.



For some of my previous advice on this blog:



How
to Start a Professional Newsletter for Free


Authors:
Build Your E-mail List—Now!




Some of the best advice elsewhere:



E-mail Marketing 101 (Copyblogger)

5 Reasons Why No One
Is Reading Your E-mail Newsletter (Copyblogger)

The 3 Key Elements of Irresistible
E-mail Subject Lines (Copyblogger)



Here's
what you'll learn in my session. The best part is that there's opportunity for
Q&A, and any questions not answered during the session get answered afterward
via e-mail.



How and why to start building an e-mail list today even if you think you have nothing
to say

How to start sending an e-mail newsletter for free, at no cost to you

What the major e-mail contact services are, and how to start using them

3 different types of content strategies for your e-mail newsletter

Biggest do's and don'ts for newsletters that get opened, read and shared

What kind of frequency you ought to maintain

What is perceived as "spammy" or annoying—and how to avoid any practices that would
categorize your e-mails as spam

How to gauge the success of your newsletters; how to test and improve them over time

For
more information & to register, sign up here.


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