Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 221

5 Innovative Poets to Watch & Learn From

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As everyone knows, you can't make a living from writing and selling poetry.



Or can you?



Well, it IS next to impossible to make a living by only writing poems. Sometimes
I wonder if that's why poets seem to be the ones I see most often experimenting and
innovating. They know that large-scale publication and fat advance checks aren't in
their future (nor is bookstore placement), so they look for other ways to make their
work known.



Here are 5 poets who are doing remarkable things—all very different from one another,
all demonstrating that the only limit to what you can do is your imagination.





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Robert Brewer


Robert is editor of Writer's Market. That's
his day job. He also runs a successful professional blog, Poetic
Asides (which led to him winning Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere in 2010), and
he runs a personal blog called My Name
Is Not Bob.




Last year, Robert announced that he was publishing a chapbook, ENTER, that
would available in a limited signed edition—just 100 copies—for $10 each.



The chapbook is handcrafted and has a personalized note from Robert. He's working
the scarcity angle—providing something that only a few people can have, and personalizing
it to the max.




The strategy has worked: He took pre-orders up until the release on April 1, and is
almost sold out. (Click
here to read about the release and for instructions on how to order any copies that
are still left.)





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David Sanders


David's day job is teaching at Ohio University. You might also know him as the former
director of Ohio University Press and Swallow Press.




Late last year, David launched an e-newsletter, Poetry News in Review. It's
a digest of poetry news, new releases, and reviews (and many other informative things). Go
take a look at an issue.




David was already an influencer in the literary community before he started the newsletter.
Now he has a direct line to the people who have been following him all along, which
creates a community around the content he creates, and opens up more opportunities
for him in the long term.





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Guy Gonzalez


The former head of Digital Book World—and now a digital director at Library Journal—has
his roots in the NYC poetry slam scene. Just this month, Guy released a digital chapbook, Handmade
Memories , available for Kindle, Nook,
and Goodreads for
$2.99.



On his blog, Guy says:

There's been a lot of debate over poetry's viability
in e-book form, thanks to reflowable text corrupting line breaks and, in many cases,
skewing the reading of a poem. Some of my prosier poems run into this problem, especially
on the iPod Touch's small screen, but being able to flip to landscape mode addresses
most of those issues. I plan to write about this specifically in the near future,
but briefly, my take is that poets (and publishers) intent on forcing legacy
forms into e-books are missing the bigger opportunities digital offers, but that said,
the limitations of e-books are no reason to avoid them. The potential to reach
new readers is far too great to pass up.

Read
more of this post here.




Notice how Robert took the physical print book route, and Guy took the e-book route.
There is no one RIGHT way to issue a new book or project. You do what fits you, your
personality, and your audience. Given Guy's digital background, a digital chapbook
made a ton of sense since he has the skills and connections to execute it beautifully.





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Greg Pincus


Greg, a professional author and freelancer, has just launched an experiment that explores
how authors can make money without focusing on sales.




He came up with a Kickstarter project designed
to pay him so that he can offer schools free class visits (virtually or in person)
and introduce poetry to kids.




He's creating a situation where fans/supporters get stuff that they want from him,
and he, in turn, gets to do something that is both good for others AND good for his
career. If it works out—the campaign is still in progress!—it's a win-win-win situation. Go
check out the details of Greg's Kickstarter campaign here. You should also check
out his blog on social media.





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Dave Malone


Dave's day job involves teaching and freelancing, but his life focus is on writing—and
getting his poetry out there.



Tomorrow Dave launches his brand-new newsletter, If I Had a Nickel, focused
on poetry and the Ozark life. [Sign up here.]
He's also launching his newest collection of poetry as a four-part series, through
Smashwords, for free. (Hint to all: Series are always a wonderful marketing technique!)



Dave
used my advice about MailChimp to start his newsletter, and it's been exciting
to see his brand come together over the years. Because of his talent and expertise
at website building, film, and other areas of new media, he has almost too many opportunities
to chase down!



--



I hope these stories have inspired you to think about what avenues are available to
you for expanding your reach and building a solid writing career, no matter what genre
you're working in.




I do apologize that on this occasion, I've featured an all-male cast, but that's
how it worked out. I hope you'll comment with examples of female authors and poets
doing wonderful things!



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Helpful Insights for Self-Publishing Novelists

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I moderated a panel at SXSW called The
Self-Publishing Novelist, which included insights from 3 experienced experts:



John Sundman. Read an interview with John here, Building
an Enthusiastic Fan Base as a Self-Published Author.




Carolyn McCray. Read her helpful articles over at Digital Book World, including Best
Practices for Amazon E-Book Sales, How
to Increase Sales by Promoting Your Backlist Titles, and The
Anatomy of a Successful E-Book Giveaway




Nicole Galland. Check out the Mongoliad Project that
she's involved in.

SXSW has now made recordings of all sessions available! So
you can listen to The Self-Publishing Novelist right now, where I question these
3 experts on current trends and what it takes to be successful.

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My E-Book Production Process

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Over at Christina Katz's blog, I
offer an inside look at how I produced my e-book, The
Future of Publishing . Here's a snippet:

Writing an e-book that is high-enough quality
to charge money for is not an easy undertaking. You must have had some concerns at
the outset. Would you be willing to share some of them?

Yes, I had 3 primary concerns.



1. Even if by reading the entire work you had a better understanding of the issues
at play in the publishing industry, I was still writing humor. Humor is not something
people often pay for, no matter how high quality it is.



2. People will pay good money for information that benefits them. But they rarely
pay for speculation—at least in the publishing field! And since I was writing about
the future of publishing, what else could my e-book be called except pure speculation?



3. I knew the work would be quite short, especially given the fast turn-around time.
It ended up being 40 pages, and that's with images and a generous design. (Still,
though, it probably takes 20-30 minutes to read.)

If you're intrigued, go
read more! It includes an overview of my e-book production stages.


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Your Most Embarrassing Moment As a Writer (Part 2)

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If
you enjoyed my embarrassing story from last week, here's another one.



I was taking one of my very first trips to New York City, to meet with literary agents,
in my early years as an acquisitions editor at F+W Media.
One of the meetings involved dinner at an upscale Asian restaurant.



I'm a fairly punctual person, and in situations like these, I always plan to arrive
early to ensure that I arrive on time.




So I got to the restaurant about 10 minutes early. It was crowded with people, so
I sat down to wait for the agent to arrive.



Ten minutes passed. Still no agent. But no big deal. Another five minutes passed.
Then ten. Then fifteen. I started to feel very strange. It dawned on me that maybe
I missed her coming in, or that she had arrived before me.



Being from the Midwest, as well as rather young and provincial (and not yet a frequenter
of fine dining establishments!), I didn't realize it was customary to check with the
maitre d' to see if the other party had arrived, and/or to go ahead and be seated.



So you can probably guess: The agent was already seated and had been waiting for at
least 15 minutes when I did ask the maitre d'.



The agent clearly wasn't happy, but didn't say a word. She just showed up 15 minutes
late to our next dinner outing when I returned to New York the following season.



Why am I telling you ANOTHER embarrassing story?



Well, if you submitted your own embarrassing story to Writer's Digest last week, it
was lost in an e-mail crash. So I'm posting the call again this week to ask you to
kindly resubmit for consideration.



If you missed the call, here it is again:

Let's face it: We all make mistakes. But the best
writers learn from them, rise above them and even find ways to transform them into
happy accidents. What embarrassing moment have you overcome to become a better writer?
Whether your story is funny, humbling or an important lesson learned the hard way,
we want to hear from you.




Share your experience in 150 words or fewer and e-mail it—along with your name, city
and state—to writersdigest@fwmedia.com with "Lessons Learned" in the subject line.




Your story could appear in a future issue of Writer's Digest! (All submissions will
be considered for publication and may be edited for clarity or space.)

Photo credit: yamuhaton

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Best Tweets for Writers (week ending 4/8/11)

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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.





















Best of the Best

What Grabs Readers versus What Keeps
Them


@cerebralgrump



Thinking of self-e-publishing? 3 questions to ask first


@annerallen



Elements of a Successful Fiction Platform


@thewritermama

Getting Published + Agents/Editors

The signs of a good independent editor


@victoriamixon

Craft + Technique

Subtext: The Most Critical Tool in the
Storyteller's Box


@BubbleCow



Description 911: Overexpressed Emotions


@elizabethscraig



How
Does Your Protagonist Change?


@Bob_Mayer



Download Blake Snyder's Save the Cat beatsheet
& other tools here


@jeannevb




Plotbot Streamlines Scriptwriting


@elizabethscraig

Publishing News + Trends

Agents
and other publishing old-timers weigh up @amanda_hocking's book deal


@dirtywhitecandy



It's official: putting books in stores is a subsidiary
right


@jafurtado



"It will be hard to find a public library 15 years
from now." New post from @MikeShatzkin


@DigiBookWorld

Marketing + Promotion

10 Buzz-Building Secrets Every Writer
Should Know


@BDCWB




Potential tool for low-budget book trailer videos? Created this video on my iPad just
now in 12 minutes


@inkyelbows

Self-Publishing + E-Publishing

How to Double Your Entry-Level Self-Publishing
Learning Curve In About an Hour


@storyfix



Ebook Formatting with Ebookit, Book Baby, & Publish
Green (updated)

@selfpubreview



Print on Demand: CreateSpace or Lightning Source? Is
there a 3rd choice?


@JFbookman

Writing Life + Fun

How One Radio Reporter Ditched His
Equipment for an iPhone 4 [has lots of interesting ideas]

@draccah



The Periodic Table of Storytelling [very cool/fun]

@JaneFriedman

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: Pre-Publicity (Part 1)

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Today's guest post is by NO RULES regular Susan
Cushman, director of the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop. Pictured above:
Three participants at the Yoknapatawpha Summer Writers Workshop in Oxford last June.
L to R: Karen Rasberry, Gretchen Hargroder and Oxana Ribacova.




--



Last November I was one of three co-directors for the 2010
Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conference, along with Neil
White and Kathy Rhodes.




The conference drew about 100 participants, and was manned by a staff of three co-directors,
a dozen or so volunteers, and a faculty of fifteen, including speakers, workshop leaders,
and panelists.




I could never have put on an event of that magnitude by myself.




One of the co-directors, Neil White, is author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts,
and owner of Nautilus Publishing in Taylor, Mississippi, just south of Oxford. Neil
has lots of contacts in the writing and publishing world (and he's such a nice guy
that people just want to say "yes" to him), so he made most of the contacts with our
faculty and sponsors. And his wife teaches at the University of Mississippi, the location
for the conference, which was also helpful.




I'm saying all of this up front to set the stage for what it takes to organize a writers
workshop.



The difference in a conference and a workshop is that, while a conference may contain
workshops (as the CNF Conference did),
usually its main focus is on the presentations and panels, which are open to all participants.




A workshop, on the other hand, focuses primarily on manuscript critique, with presentations
and panels added to sweeten the pot. This 2-part series is about a WORKSHOP rather
than a CONFERENCE.




For this month's post, I'll focus on everything that must be done BEFORE publicizing
the workshop. (Come back next month for my post on how to publicize and promote a
writer's workshop.)



BUDGET


Yes, it has to be about the money, because you can't just offer an event like this
for free. I decided to limit the number of participants to 20, in order to give each
person's work 30 minutes of dedicated time during the manuscript critique sessions.

20 people @ 30 minutes/each =


10 hours of manuscript critique sessions

Next, I set the workshop fee at $350/person. So, if we have 20 participants,
our budget will be $7,000. Sounds like a lot of money, until you map out the workshop
expenses, which include faculty, venue, housing, meals, social events and marketing/advertising.
Here's how it breaks down.



FACULTY EXPENSES


You'll need 4-6 faculty for the workshop. One to two will be manuscript critique leaders,
so they'll be expected to read and critique 10 manuscripts (up to 10 pages each) prior
to the workshop, and then lead two 2½-hour critique sessions during the weekend.




This is a lot of work, and usually the faculty recruited for this part of the workshop
are folks who teach creative writing. So, in addition to their travel, housing, and
meals, you'll want to pay them an honorarium. The other faculty will be doing "craft
talks" (presentations) and/or serving on panels, so their honorarium is a bit lower,
but you should still pay them what you can.




VENUE


I was hoping to hold this workshop in downtown Memphis, on the Trolley Line, near
the (Mississippi) River and Beale Street, to take advantage of the atmosphere that
downtown has to offer. But the downtown hotels were just too expensive.




Thankfully, I discovered the Fogelman Center at
the University of Memphis, which was reasonable, and also located near the Cooper
Young District, home of Memphis'
oldest independent bookstore and some really cool restaurants.




If you're planning a workshop without the benefit of support from an organization
or grant, it's important to find a venue that doesn't require up front money. That
way, you're not at personal risk of losing money if the workshop doesn't fill.



HOUSING


Again, the downtown hotels in cities like Memphis can be the deal-breaker for a small
workshop. You're already asking participants to spend $350 for the workshop, plus
travel and some of their meals, so you want to offer a deal on housing, right? 




Check out your local university and see if they've got a hidden treasure like the
Fogelman Center, which is offering guest rooms for $85/night because of the meeting
space and meals we're procuring from them. (And these rooms have queen beds and free
wi-fi.)



MEALS


During a weekend workshop, meals can really add up. If you can roll some of those
meals into the workshop fee, it's all the more inviting. I was able to get a better
deal on the workshop meeting space by including two lunches and one breakfast into
the mix. An added value for workshop participants, too!



SOCIAL EVENTS


With Burke's Books nearby, I've scheduled a workshop faculty reading/signing event
on one of the evenings of the workshop, followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Both evenings, the hospitality suite will be open back at the Fogelman Center, where
I'll offer complimentary drinks and snacks, and time to wind down and network with
faculty and fellow participants.



In Part 2, I'll address marketing and advertising. [Thanks so much to Jane Friedman
for allowing this guest post, which is a big part of that marketing!]




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hope this inspires you to organize a writing workshop in your area. Feel
free to contact me if you have questions, and I'd love to hear your comments on
any writing workshops you've attended, or things you'd like to see included in workshops.
I'm all ears!



--



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

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What's Your Most Embarrassing Moment As a Writer?

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Let's face it: We all make mistakes. But the best writers learn from them, rise above
them and even find ways to transform them into happy accidents.




What embarrassing moment have you overcome to become a better writer?





Here's a story about MY most embarrassing moment!




Whether your story is funny, humbling or an important lesson learned the hard way,
Writer's Digest wants to hear from you. Share your experience in 150 words or fewer
and e-mail it—along with your name, city and state—to writersdigest@fwmedia.com with
"Lessons Learned" in the subject line.




Your story could appear in a future issue of Writer's Digest. (All submissions will
be considered for publication and may be edited for clarity or space.)

Photo
credit: JW Gustavson


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Get Started With Your Own Website or Blog

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If you're serious about your career as an author, you need a website. And the sooner
you get one going, the better.



Why?



The most important reason: There's a learning curve. You don't want to be scrambling
to put together a site when your book releases, or when you have an agent's interest,
or when someone asks why you don't have a site.




You also learn a tremendous amount about how the online world works, and what works
for YOU especially in finding your audience online. (I learn something new every week!)



This is a topic I'm passionate about, so you can find a range of past blog posts at
NO RULES covering multiple angles of site development and strategy. Here are some
of my favorites.

Should
You Hire Someone to Design Your Website?


A controversial post where I recommend that a writer in the early stages of their
online presence NOT invest in a designer.



5
Things That Make Me Stop Reading Websites/Blogs


The advice here is evergreen and will always apply.



How
Writers Can Start Blogging in a Meaningful Way


I offer 4 tips on approaches any writer can take.



What
Should Fiction Writers Blog About?


Often when I give blogging advice, the novelists all complain, "But that's great for
nonfiction writers. What about us?" This is my answer for them.



Managing
Multiple Identities Online—Avoid


Tackling another big question I get frequently, about pen names and/or managing different
audiences/relationships under the same site.

Probably the big question for any unpublished writer, with nothing to
market & promote: What are the must-haves for my site? What should I put on it?
What purpose does it serve? Here are 4 things to get you started:



About/bio page. Impress and charm people with your writing skills here. It's
an opportunity to show off.



Hub for ALL online activity. Wherever you're active online, whether it's Facebook,
Twitter, GoodReads, etc, your homepage should be the central hub where people can
see EVERYTHING you're active in, and connect with you wherever they want.

Newsletter sign-up. I've covered this here and here.

Content. This might take the form of a blog. Or it could be a podcast or video
blog or something else entirely. If you're not sure what your "content" looks like, check
this post for ideas.


Other questions I frequently hear:



How do you make sure your website looks professional to people in the publishing industry?



How do you know whether to gear it toward agents, publishers, or readers?

What are the best (or easiest!) tools to use?




Who should I hire to help me? Can I do it on my own?

If you read every post on the topic at NO RULES, you'll get a good idea what all the
answers are. Or, if you want a full, interactive course on the subject, then all these
questions and more will be answered in a live class I'm teaching tomorrow: "The
5 Essential Components of a Strong Author Website."




The webinar is happening at 1 p.m. EST, and lasts 75 minutes. Keep in mind that you
do not have to make the live webinar to get the event. You can see the recorded webinar
online and communicate questions to me afterward. Sign
up here!




What you'll learn




If you don't have a site: How to get started easily, efficiently, and for very little
cost

If you do have a site: What elements you need to evaluate and possibly revise on a
monthly, quarterly, biannual, and annual basis

When you should hire a professional designer or site developer, and how much you can
expect to spend

The secrets of a strong "about" (or bio) page

What kind of information to make available for your books—or what to say if you're
unpublished

How and when to integrate social media onto your site

How and when to include an e-mail newsletter sign up

How and when to integrate a blog onto your site

What website plug-ins or features are most effective and helpful

How to start using Google Analytics, a critical tool for helping you understand how
people find and use your site


Hope to see you there! More
info and sign up here.

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3 Barriers You Must Eliminate to Maximize E-Book Sales

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You have to be where the people are: That's the first lesson I learned from releasing
my e-book.



To be sure, it's something I already knew—but the friction of any purchase is made
VERY obvious when readers encounter the following barriers.



3 Barriers You Must Eliminate to Maximize E-Book Sales




An unfamiliar site or retailer. This is especially true for sites where readers
have to create a new account. Readers will abandon the process if they feel irritated,
even if they really want to buy your book. Test the purchase process as a new customer
to see how easy it is to buy.



An unfamiliar format. Especially for e-books, there are a LOT of different
formats, and readers are inevitably confused about what formats are available, what
a particular format can do, why a particular format is best, and if that format will
work on the platform they need it to. (E.g., many people may not realize that a PDF
can be viewed on a Kindle, and may not know how to load a PDF on a Kindle.) You must
offer straightforward and comprehensive explanations of your book's format availability—and
what each format is appropriate for—whenever marketing your book.



Loyalty to a particular retailer, device, or format. If someone is already
invested in buying books for their Nook or Kindle or Sony reader, it's extremely unlikely
they will buy an e-book for a different device or from a different store. As a Kindle
user, this is indeed a big factor for me. If an e-book isn't available for Kindle,
I'm probably not buying it. I do make an exception for PDF documents, since I can
read those on my mobile device/laptop—or I can print them out.

Right now, Amazon Kindle accounts for at least 50% of e-book sales in the United States,
sometimes as much as 70%+ depending on the genre/category. Nook's (Barnes & Noble's)
percentage of the market is increasing considerably, and the other players share the
rest of the pie (e.g., Sony, Kobo, Apple, Google eBookstore).



My recommendation? Try to distribute your work across every possible device and format,
if it makes sense for your work. Start with Kindle,
then possibly use a multi-channel distributor such as Smashwords, FastPencil,
or BookBaby to get your work on other platforms
efficiently.



Photo credit:
hmobius


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Future of Publishing Round Up

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Okay, this is the last dedicated round-up (at least for a while) on the future of
publishing!



My
interview with Writer Unboxed on the future of publishing




My
interview with The Writer Mama on the future of publishing




Virtual
Davis summarizes Web response to my thoughts on the future of publishing




My
free e-newsletter covering the top 3 sources on the future of publishing


My e-book imagines 14 different futures of publishing. You
can read variations #1 and #3 for free here.




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