Sharon Joss's Blog, page 10

So You Want to Be a Best-Selling Author?

Sharon Joss Writes

Best-selling Author Spoiler Alert:

If you’re tired of my continuing saga about winning Writers of the Future, don’t bother reading any further. I get it. And I understand.

I’ve been yammering and blogging and Facebook-ing and Tweeting about it for weeks now.  Enough already, right?  Hey, I’m a little sick of it, too.

BUT….

Along with all the rest of the Writers of the Future winners, I am trying to promote the anthology. As a published author, that’s what you do.  And this year, the winning class of 2015 decided to try something that’s never been done before–make the WOTF volume 31 anthology a best-seller.

And well, we’re on our way. Because the Writers of the Future anthology, volume 31, has reached the first peak of best seller-dom. The website will be updated in the next day or so, but as of today, June 15, 2015:

The L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future vol. 31 is officially the #10 title overall on the Barnes and Noble best-seller list (squee!).
We are also the #1 trade paperback at B&N overall. And in a whole bunch of other sub-categories.

For those of you who are curious, the release day for the anthology was May 4th,  with an initial print run of 10,000 copies.  More than 6,000 copies have been sold in the last 7 days (not all to Barnes & Noble, but B&N sales were substantial).  A second print run is already being ordered.

The publisher, Galaxy Press, has pulled out all the stops for us, arranging for radio and television interviews, and book signings (including a monster book signing by David Farland in Florida last weekend).  They’ve scheduled ‘book bombs’ (where books are bought online at a specific hour of the day from a specific online vendor), and pitched hard on our behalf to booksellers and at book seller’s conventions.  As winners, we’ve all pitched in and encouraged (begged) our families and friends to purchase the anthology. It’s been a terrific crash course in learning how sales get tallied up.  Some sales definitely count more than others (family and friends always count!).

One of the really terrific parts of the whole process has been how open the folks at Galaxy Press have been with us.  Sharing the numbers (sometimes hourly!), as we’ve crept closer to our goal.  We have a conference call every week. Everyone has the opportunity to offer suggestions and ask questions.  Based on my conversations with traditionally published writers, this is something that would never happen.

Self-promotion doesn’t come naturally to me. But this is what writers do. To be honest, when we started down this path, I didn’t really believe that all the social media blitz and promotion we were doing would accomplish much more than fill people’s spam folders. I figured the anthology would sell about what had sold in the past– maybe a little more, because, hey, it’s us, right?

But I was wrong.  Promotion does work.  And our stories and the illustrations in this year’s anthology are phenomenal (if I do say so).  And the cover is outstanding. As is the interior design.  And so are the blurbs.  And we got people to read advance copies and write honest reviews, and because the writing was so good and the illustrations were so good, so were the reviews. We’ve got the whole package.

Yes, it’s a lot of work. Far more than I ever bargained for when I first entered the contest. Or became a finalist. Or became a winner.  But it’s worth it.

I can now say I’m a best-selling author. Sounds good.

Thank you.

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Building Your World With Biomes

Sharon Joss Writes

Several people have asked me about the world-building in my Writers of the Future award-winning story, “Stars That Make Dark Heaven Light”.  It’s about a human colony living on the planet Hesperidee, a rocky, arid planet with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, twin suns, and three moons. The planet’s surface is pockmarked with impact craters, and lichens are the predominant life form. Predators are nocturnal, and include large twin-tailed stone scorpions and centipedes. The potable water lies beneath the surface, but there are sulphur pools on the surface.

Admittedly, Hesperidee It doesn’t sound like much, but everything I’ve described plays a role in the plot in some way and is part to the planet’s biome. Biomes  are defined as climactically and geographically contiguous areas with similar conditions, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil conditions. On earth  we have several different kinds of biomes, such as tundra, savanna, desert, xeric scrubland, mangroves, glacier, etc. The very nature of these environments is a critical element in building a fictional world as well.

I’ve researched biomes in various science fiction worlds as well (even Minecraft!). For example, look at the differences between the worlds of Arrakis and Pandora, expressed only by the biomes:

Arrakis (Dune) 

Third planet orbiting a star, with two moons
A desert planet with no precipitation, but open canals are used to carry water across the surface. Water is collected in underground reservoirs for future terraforming
The depletion of the oceans on the planet (presumed) caused by a comet near-miss, which allowed most of the water and oxygen to escape the atmosphere, leaving massive salt flats behind.
Life forms have been largely introduced and have become unique to the planet: a few hardy desert plants, kit foxes, desert hawks, kangaroo mouse, sandplankton, sandtrout (which encysts the available water), and of course the sand worms, which produce the spice Melange (this element plays a major role in the plot conflict)
Peopled by the Muadru and the Fremen

Pandora (Avatar) 

5th moon of a gas giant Polyphemus , which orbits Alpha Cetauri Mass = 0.72 of Earth, Gravity = 0.8 of Earth (20% less), Atmospheric density 1.2 of Earth
The lower gravity and denser air make it less likely that a Na’vi will die in a fall, however humans feel as if they’re trying to run against the wind, and their boots have no grip on smooth surfaces.  The Na’vi compensate for this by curling their long toes into the ground
The sun is 170 times brighter than Earth and reflected light from nearby moons fades to dusk (not true night) for half the year
Atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, xenon, methane, and hydrogen sulfide.  The high density of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide makes the atmosphere toxic to humans, rendering them unconscious in about 20 seconds.
Several different biomes on the planet, including floating land masses, rainforest, savanna, and oceans.
Like Earth, Pandora supports a wide diversity of flora and fauna, including large animals like the direhorse, hexapede, fan lizard, mountain banshee, stingbat, viperwolves, thanators, and sturmbeasts. Much of the flora and fauna have bioluminescent qualities
Rich in minerals, including Unobtanium (this element plays a major role in the plot conflict)
Peopled by the Na’vi

So when it comes to world-building, don’t forget the biome.  Incorporate it into an element of your plot and you’ve added another layer of depth to your story.  Add it to your conflict, and your world comes alive.

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Having Written Feels Better Than Anything

Sharon Joss Writes

Dorothy Parker once said, “I hate writing, I love having written.”

I don’t hate writing, but this week has certainly proven to me that having written feels better than (almost) anything.

I completed the arguably final revisions to my thriller novel. I say arguably, because it feels done (to me), and until an editor says differently, this where I’m standing pat. The writing of the first draft went exactly as planned, but the revisions took longer than I expected; largely because of all the recent (and wonderful) distractions over “Stars That Make Dark Heaven Light”. I’ve never tried to write a thriller before, and this project had stretched me and forced me to try some things I hadn’t ever attempted before. I’m actually feeling excited about the querying process. And now that it’s written, it feels good.

I also signed a sales contract for a short story to professional publication this week.  I won’t say to whom until I have a release date, but it was for a story I wrote at a writers workshop last month. I wrote four short stories at that workshop, the most I’ve ever written in a single week.  I am still on a high from having written four (count ‘em–one, two, three, four!) short stories in that one week.  And to sell one of them to a publication I’ve never sold to before (and so quickly) feels fantastic.

I also celebrated the publication of one of my short stories this week in Fiction River, edited by Kerrie Hughes. The Alchemy & Steam edition has my short story, “The Order of the Golden Grapefruit”, along with a lot of other wonderful short fiction by some really talented writers. I wrote this short story as a historical fantasy back in January, 2014. I love this story about a chocolate shop window display competition in Brussels, and had a lot of fun writing it.  Every time I reread it, I relive the pleasure of of that experience.  And now that it’s published, it feels good.

Yeah, having written is WAY better than…well, just about anything. But selling and publication are pretty sweet, too.

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Some Things Are Better in a Crowd

Sharon Joss Writes

photo by Elizabeth Beechwood 5/23/15

Some things are better in a crowd. Book signings, for example.

I had my first solo at a book signing today. The event was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore a few miles from me.

I was excited to do it. First of all, it was my first ‘solo’ signing for the anthology, and, it’s the Saturday of a big holiday weekend and (best of all) the weather is overcast and chilly! Perfect ‘browsing at the bookstore’ weather!

I loaded up the car last night with my big beautiful trophy, the framed art from my story, a whole buncha swag sent to me by the good people at Galaxy Press and Author Services, Inc, and (just in case), an extra box of books (I wanted to be prepared in case the store ran out of books). I’d put up fliers a few days earlier, and gotten feedback from almost a dozen people (people I didn’t even know!) who said they were planning to come. I even bought a brand new shirt to wear that matched the color of the cover!

I needn’t have worried. The B&N people had 6 cases of books on hand. They didn’t have any posters or a place for the signing set up, but they quickly moved some furniture around in the gift area, and brought in a table and chairs for me. Maybe not the best location to attract sci-fi and fantasy readers, but it was out of the way and not far from the front door.

So I set up shop and waited for the crowds.

And waited.

I sold the first book pretty quick, and right after that, my friend Liz came in and took that swell picture of me (above). At that point I was still pretty optimistic.  But an hour later, not so much.  The store manager moved aside some of the furniture and helpfully suggested I stand  at the entrance and introduce myself to people as they came in the door.  I thought that was a bit aggressive, but I did make several passes through the Science Fiction and Fantasy sections, introduced myself to the the people in those sections, and told them I was signing books on the other side of the store.

And waited (sigh).

I did speak to a very nice lady who was there to buy a card for her veterinarian, and spent almost twenty minutes chatting with a four-year-old girl about the dragons that live at her house.  She told me the babies can’t fly yet, and that the grown-up dragons are “quite ornery”.  When her mom came to fetch her, I told her her daughter was going to be a writer when she grew up.

I don’t know what I did wrong.  All my friends have sold a lot of books at their signings.  I had such high expectations.

But I didn’t sell very many books.

 

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Writing Advice For Winners: Eat Your Lima Beans!

Sharon Joss Writes

Aaand we’re right back into the swim of it.

Rejections from three different editors on three different stories in the last 24 hours.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; rejections don’t bother me. I’ve long since stopped taking them personally. I’m a writer. It goes with the territory–like a kid being told he can’t have dessert until he eats his veggies first. To a writer, rejections are like a big ol’, never-ending plate of of lima beans with an ice cream brownie fudge sundae on the other side. You don’t have to like lima beans, but you’ve got to eat a lot of them before you get a bite of sundae.

Editors have their own plate of lima beans, and it’s called slush. They’re looking for something delectable to publish. If I give it to them, they’ll pay me to publish it. If I don’t, well, then this wasn’t the editor I was looking for (eat a lima bean and move along).

But wait a minute. The thing of it is, I just won this big contest, see? I’m a real writer now, see?

Tell it to the lima beans. Makes no difference whatsoever (although one editor did congratulate me on my recent win).

At the writers workshop last month, Eric Flint spoke to us about what we can expect for the future, now that we’re winners. He was a WOTF winner in 1992 and and sold his first novel three years later.  He’s since gone on to publish publish 48 novels (including 6 NY Times best-sellers). He gave us this excellent advice:

You are all now on the threshold of several frustrating years, facing even more rejection.
 Good writing is really not all that common, but editors hate going to the slush pile to find stories. There is a saying that editors choose 1 of every 400 stories.
If you write well, they’ll know it. But it doesn’t mean they’ll buy your story. Your story may not fit. The length may be wrong
The rejections will continue, but keep writing.
Don’t give up.

And based on what I’ve seen so far, he was right.  Well alrighty then.

And then today, on the heels of yet another ‘not right for us, but please send more‘, Chuck Wendig wrote THIS lovely bit of brownie sundae advice which in one sense reinforces what Eric said and which I also found reassuring (often just the word ‘fuck’ used in a sentence makes me feel better, and when Chuck does it I usually laugh).

So that’s it. That’s all I got. Your milage may vary.

I gotta go put my stories back in the mail and eat some more lima beans.

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Release Day #WOTF31

Sharon Joss Writes

Here it is, the big day. L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future volume 31 in now available in paperback or as an e-book from all your favorite retailers (brick-and-mortar bookstores, too).

I’m proud of my winning story, “Stars that Make Dark Heaven Light”, but I’m prouder still to be standing amid such great company: Steve Pantazis, Daniel J. Davis, Auston Habershaw, Tim Napper, Krystal Claxton, Martin L. Shoemaker, Samantha Murray, Scott R. Parkin, Amy M. Hughes, Michael T. Banker, Kary English, and Zack Chapman.

Not to mention some pretty great stories by Larry Niven, Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, and short essays by  Orson Scott Card, Bob Eggleton, and of course, L. Ron Hubbard.

All wonderful stories here, seriously.  And like the sign says, these are the future bestselling writers of our genre (and beyond).  All you have to do is click on the #WOTF31 link and buy it.  Read it.  Write an honest review about it.

Go ahead.  You know you want to.

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WOTF31 ROCKS!!!

Sharon Joss Writes

UNREFINED by Martin L. Shoemaker
Art by Tung Chi Lee

One of the fantastic aspects (the very best part, IMO) of the whole Writers of the Future experience is the discovery and founding of your tribe. It doesn’t happen on the first day, or even the second, but as the big names arrive for the gala, all us neopros get our geek on and realize we’ve become a unit.

For the WOTF31 tribe, I think the irrevocable bond solidified as we were called upon to sign 300 copies of the galleys. A daunting task, but not for us. We lined ourselves up in publication order and signed our stories, then opened the book to the next story in the book, and handed it to the person sitting next to us. We got a real rhythm going, and (with Brandon, Deirdre, Vanessa, and some of the other spouses helping), we were done in little over an hour.

By then, we were family.

And then, someone (was it my dear siblings Amy & Brandon?) suggested sending out sample ARCS. And my dear brother Scott R. Parkin narrated wonderful introductory audio blurbs for the stories. And my sweet, sweet, brilliant and clever brother Martin Shoemaker set up UTUBE video channels and yesterday, a new home base for our tribe.

It’s called WOTF31 ROCKS!. Bless you, Martin. It’s our very own scrapbook, and it’s all here.

We are the class of 31. And we always will be.

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Marketing 101 – Getting the Word Out

Sharon Joss Writes

I’m back in the land of the living again, after 8 days in Hollywood for the Writers of the Future gala, home for three days, then back out to Lincoln City for an 8-day long craft workshop, I’m catching up on mail, and getting used to a new ‘normal’.

During ‘gala week’, I posted on this blog about what it was like to experience the WOTF writers workshop and gala event. Well, part of that workshop involved a tremendous presentation from cool dude and marketing expert Peter Wacks about how to market your work. And Peter challenged us (all 24 winning writers and illustrators) to help ourselves gain discoverability of our work.  And even as he acknowledged that we would likely find these efforts a bit uncomfortable (at first), he reminded us that if we wanted to make a living at our craft (and we assured him we did), no one would know about our wonderful, award-winning talents unless we learned to market ourselves.

He spoke to us about VELOCITY versus SALES.  Velocity being the speed of sales, as opposed to the number of sales.  And while we all knew that the number of sales is what we need to make a living, it’s the velocity that makes you hot.

And we all want to be hot.

In this case, we were discussing the Writers of the Future #31 anthology, but the principle applies to any work.  Once you have completed your work (be it art or writing), you need a marketing plan–a way to inform people that you have new work available.

For example, if you are indie published, the temptation may be to make your novel available as soon as possible (a few days after you get your cover designed). But the number of potential readers you’ll reach with a Publishers Weekly review can generate sales far beyond anything you could possibly do on your own.  And a Publisher’s Weekly review requires an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) to be submitted at least four months prior to publication. Okay, so you decide to submit your ARC to PW and wait four months.

Available for pre-order now!

But wait! Those four months would be wasted if you didn’t also work on setting up your novel for pre-order, sending out more ARCs to critics and friends for honest reviews, lining up book signings with your local brick-and-mortar bookstore, filing press releases, arranging blog tours, and maybe a Twitter or Facebook giveaway or two. There’s more, but as   Peter told us, this activity (before the book launch) builds up demand, such that when the book is released, there is already a handful (or more) of honest reviews about your work, which can attract new readers, and (even on a small scale) raise your visibility, drive more word-of-mouth, which can build into velocity. And and velocity drives momentum–and sales, far beyond selling your greatest masterpiece to just your sister.

Something to think about.  Writers of the Future Volume 31

 

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Epilog – Writers of the Future

Sharon Joss Writes

The pictures are still coming; I thought I’d share some of my favorites, along with some final thoughts about the experience. ‘Amazing’ hardly captures it, but it probably comes closest to summarizing the week.

We arrived as a nervous and skittery group of writers, most of whom barely knew each other except through the Forum, and by the end of the week, we had all learned to ignore the cameras (just like the pros), written a story in 24 hours (just like the pros), survived two book signings (just like the pros) and forged lifelong bonds of friendship with our peeps. The ‘Class of 31′ has graduated into the ranks of the neo-pros.  We still have a lot to learn, but we’re on our way.

Along with the main event, the lessons we learned from the greats in our field has been life-changing, and the 24-hour story taught me that there is no reason whatsoever for me to ever say ‘I don’t have time to write’.

This week has been the biggest single event of my writing career (and probably my life, for that matter), but I know there are many more milestones ahead.  Like all the other winners, I’ve earned the formal validation I’ve so yearned for from the masters of my craft. But this is not the time to rest on the laurels of this one success; I’ve got other dreams and goals off in the horizon. Along with the rest of my class, I’ve earned a new first name, “Award-Winning Author”, but I cannot allow myself to become complacent.  I’ve got more craft classes and workshops lined up for later this year; in this business, there is no end to the learning.

I’m still paying my dues, but now it’s time to start earning a living…

 

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The Final Act: A New Beginning – WOTF

Sharon Joss Writes

Wowie Zowie, it’s me.

I won. The 31st Writers of the Future Golden Pen Award.

For me, it’s a validation that I wrote a good story that people liked; and a confirmation that as a writer, I am on my true path.

Winning this award is not the end of the road, but a milepost along the way. With great teachers and mentors to help me develop the tools I need to build my craft, and a tribe of cherished fellow writers to help me find my way, I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

Read a lot.

Write a lot.

Submit a lot.

Aaand repeat (your milage may vary)

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