Andrew Cormier's Blog, page 6

Ebooks and cheap books

It appears ebooks are a big thing now, as are people looking for cheap books and free books. Why is it people don’t want to pay for anything? As a writer, I work very hard to produce quality work. I have spent thousands of hours at my keyboard. I have spent countless days writing until 2-3am to finish a chapter, paragraph, or iron out an idea that needs work.

Writers have it rough. We work very hard and the vast majority of us do not see anything for all our efforts. And I have forgotten to mention all the time and effort that has gone into website design, marketing, promos, keyword research, pitching books to people who usually just aren’t interested and don’t really know what they’re bypassing; things like that.

Yet if you check google’s SEO analytics on Adwords, the most searched for terms and cheap books, free books, free ebooks, bargain books, free books to read, etc. So I ask: why would you expect anything free or cheap to really be all that good? Is it the influx of books and terrible writer’s that have flooded the market? I for one, am insulted by this. I spent years writing. Like all writers who have something to offer, and like any tradesman who is skilled at their craft, you pay for what you get.

I really believe that. It is also the reason I charge what I do for my books. I know they have value and they are good books to read and entertain yourself with. I know for $9.99, The Great Deceiver is one of the best books available on the market today. I know this because I have read every day since I was probably eight. I have a solid 25 years or constant reading experience. I can analyze just about any piece of literature and either rip it to shreds bases on its merits, or praise it equally for the same reasons.

This may look like a rant, but it really isn’t intended to sound that way. It is more meant as a reflection on the state of the book publishing and writing industry today, and on society’s values. I would stand up for anyone else who works at a craft and say “yes, they deserve to get paid for what they do.”  I don’t see why writing should be any different. I never google for “free plumbing and toilet installations.” Why expect free ebooks and free best seller books then?

That is all.

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Updated pricing and saving money

Good news! I have been able to alter a bit of the formatting on The Great Deceiver to save everyone money. It is now the same size, and the content is the same (as of the 2nd printing). However, I have changed the spacing in between from double spaced to 1.5 space. This condensed the book from 313 to 246 pages. It allows for cheaper printing costs and cheaper shipping. Due to these savings, I’m now listing the title at $9.99 and it may be available online for as low as $8.50 in some outlets. Shop around! You can’t say that I’m not at least passing the savings on to you, the readers. I am happy to provide this money saving adjustment.

I personally highly recommend that you buy it from Create Space or from Amazon if possible. By doing so I will earn more royalties, and you can post book reviews there as well for other buyers to see.

Go to my links page to find either store.

 

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New Facebook “Like” Button

Hi guys,

I now have an official button on my website so you can “like” me on Facebook.

I have a few other neat announcements. The first is that I have updated the front cover image. In case you noticed, it now has dark, scary clouds and lightning. It makes the cover look much cooler, in my opinion.

To go along with that, I have updated the back-cover description. It has a little more information now.

Also, the real catalyst for these changes is ultimately, you, the readers, and your feedback. I have gone through my novel again and am planning on a 2nd printing. If you already have a copy, you have a limited edition. Who knew?  As part of this second printing. I am correct the few typos I am finding, and improving sentence flow in some parts. Most of the corrections are grammar. I also split a number of chapters into two. This improves flow more, and gives you readers a break. Now you don’t have to stay up until 2:00am thinking you are being forced to finish a long, long chapter.

Thanks for your feedback, and keep it coming! In general I am very pleased to announce that The Great Deceiver is receiving a lot of amazing reviews. I have noticed some spring up on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. I have also heard in-person praise from a number of people. I’m very happy about this, and want to let you guys know it makes me feel good. I am glad some very hard, and often frustrating work is starting to pay off. I am glad to have written a novel that people are enjoying.

Andy

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Now available on Smashwords, new release

I just got my novel, The Great Deceiver, available in a ton of different eBook formats on Smashwords. This should distribute it to tons of different retailers and make it available in formats like RTF, PDF, and other weird, zany formats that I don’t even know about. If you have an eBook reader that is different than a Nook or a Kindle (maybe it’s made from bamboo for all I know), I suggest going to Smashwords and seeing if they have a format that is better for your reader. You can do so via this link:

Click here to buy The Great Deceiver from Smashwords

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Tips for contacting Literary Agents / Finding the Right Literary Agent for you

Trying to get into a big publishing house can be very difficult, daunting, and frustrating. Many will not consider unsolicited manuscripts. I have often been told “We are only accepting existing clients or referrals by existing clients.” It is near impossible to get accepted to a big publishing house on your own. That is why you need a literary agent.

The immediate downside to a literary agent, is most will get 15% of your books sales. That number will vary from agency to agency, but it is generally the benchmark. If an agent is asking 20-25% I would seriously consider another agency unless you are really desperate. However, you may be losing 15% of your sales, but keep in mind that if you do not have an agent and you self publish, the odds of you selling many books is significantly decreased. Plus, you will have to do your own marketing and all the other work that goes with it. 15% may sound like a lot, but remember, 15% of zero is still just zero. It’s better you make some money through an agent who can find you a big publisher and has connections than doing a ton of work for nothing.

With all that to ponder, here are some tips I have found successful. I often manage to at least get replies from literary agents, though the results aren’t always what I had hoped.

1. Follow their submission guidelines. The reason for this is simple: if you don’t, most literary agents will likely throw your manuscript right in the trash (or hit the email delete button) and never reply. You make it more work for them if you try to go your own way. And you aren’t that important at this stage in your career to pull that off.

2. Only contact one agent at a time from any agency. You don’t want to cause inner-office turmoil among them.

3. Be professional. They aren’t rejecting your manuscript for a personal reason. They are trying to do a job. Granted, it may feel like  some of them have no imagination, talent, or common sense (after all, how could they not see the merits of your wonderful ideas?). While this could be true in some cases, in general they are busy people and making a business decision. Don’t send them a nasty email in reply when you hear things like “this didn’t grab my attention,” or “we’re looking for something with robots in it right now.”

4. Taylor your submissions to agents that fit the genre of your book. Everyone has their own interests. Don’t just blast out emails to various random agents at every single agency. This may work, but you’re better off seeing what each agent likes and submit your work to them accordingly.

5. Make sure that whatever materials you send them, query letter included, are error free, and as close to pristine as possible. It is okay if you missed an apostrophe here or there. That won’t kill your work, necessarily, and it is why they have editors. However, you don’t want an agent stumbling over misspelled words or poor grammar. I advise running your query letter and submission materials by someone else first. This can not only help catch errors, but they can give you a good idea as to whether or not your technique is interesting.

6. Expect rejections. Expect lots of rejections. You’re going to get them fro literary agents. Don’t get discouraged. Just keep trying. Even best-selling authors have been through this. It feels horrible, but it is part of the struggle. If your work is worth printing, someone will pick up on it.

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How to become a better writer

Here are some tips for writers. I have found them to be useful.

1. Write everyday, even when you don’t want to. Force yourself to put pen to paper (or fingertips to keys) and at least come up with something.

2. Use  a thesaurus. I have an online thesaurus that I use. It is called RhymeZone. It also has a built in dictionary and other features, like finding antonyms, related words, and a consonant matcher. You don’t have to have an extensive vocabulary to write when there are excellent tools available to help you (though having a good grasp of the meaning and usage of many words does help).

3. Try to learn a new word everyday. If you write everyday, as mentioned in tip #1, this won’t be as difficult as it sounds. You’ll find that you are constantly searching for the perfect word to insert in any given sentence.

4. Carry a notepad. Have one at all times. I cannot count the number of good or interesting ideas I’ve forgotten when I have neglected to do this. Also, I advise keeping one at your bedside. I have often woken up in the middle of the night after a dream, or with some other weird thought that pops into my head, and I jot them down. Often, they are random and don’t prove useful, but there have been hidden gems I have used in my writing as well.

5. Take frequent breaks. If you are grinding away on a novel or story, it helps to come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. Don’t give yourself a headache for nothing. You’ll find it is less productive. If you hit a wall, go do something else for a while and come back. This is useful for remedying writer’s block. I have come back to stuff I have been stuck on for sometimes hours, days, or weeks, and the answer has just appeared.

6. Make an outline. I will likely devote an entire article to his tip later, but for now will be generic: an outline is critical for any lengthy work. You need to track what happens in each chapter, and why, and you need to see how the flow of the story is going to progress. The best way to do this is with a solid outline. It will save you hours of frustration later.

7. Have other people read your work as you move along. It is better to discover and work through any nasty flaws in your manuscript earlier rather than later, and sometimes an objective viewpoint is needed to do this. Often other people have provided invaluable suggestions that I simply had not thought of.

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Tips to sell more books

Look for ways to get noticed?

Here’s  a few ideas I’ve come up with:

1.  Figure out what your intended audience is: if people can’t find your book and you aren’t marketing it to the right intended audience, it isn’t going to sell. If you have a book on fishing it isn’t going to do much good if it’s only reaching people who are race car enthusiasts. Every category of book has a group of followers, whoever they may be. It is part of your job to find out who that group is, and what sort of things they are looking to read. Try networking with them.

2. Use good SEO tactics and SEO keywords. Check on Amazon and Google for what is trending. Find out what people are searching for. Use those keywords and phrases in your own book if you can find a way to make them work. People need to be able to search for you and find you, whether or not they are actually looking for you or not. You need to be relevant.

3. Have a blog. I have one here, and the only reason I made it is to drive traffic to this site to sell more books. If you have relevant posts in your blog that people want to read, you’ll do better. I recommend blogging about books in general, or you can tailor your blog toward the topic of your book or the genre you like to write about. Yes, it is time consuming, and you may feel it is a waste, but you need to have an online presence. That is where you will get noticed.

4. Network. Join book review groups and sites like Goodreads, and get networking with people. Find other authors and help promote each other.

5. Be persistent, and don’t give up. There is a massive amount of junk out on the internet and there is a lot of stuff that will get in the way to you getting noticed. It takes many authors years to have any degree of success, and it usually doesn’t happen with the first book. I hate to say it, but my first novel took five years to write.  I have spent over 12 years trying to succeed at a writing career. Like many entertainment industries, it is very, very difficult. Regardless of your level of skill, you are going to receive many rejection letters from publishers and literary agents. I have received over 40 and have a nice email rejection list saved up. It feels terrible, and it isn’t personal. Sometimes it is as much luck as it is anything. Perhaps the literary agent had a terrible day and your manuscript hit their desk that morning. Hang in there, kid.

6. Be realistic. When I started out writing, I was inspired to write a massive fantasy series. It started with a 900 page novel, and was planned as a series of four books. It was  hugely ambitious project. It was actually a little too ambitious. I tried promoting it to big publishers and in hindsight, I realized that I should’ve started small. The reason I say this is that I have been able to put myself in their shoes for a moment: of course they would be wary about taking on a new, unestablished author with such a momentous project, and slim chances of success. I recommend starting small, work your way up to a bigger project if that is what you want to do. Unless you have an incredible stroke of luck, don’t expect to be a best seller or win a Pulitzer Prize overnight.

7. Use the resources you have available. You may need to spend money on advertising. Newspapers can provide useful spots for new authors, and local libraries and smaller bookstores are usually happy to setup book signings, sometimes in correlation with other authors.

8. Get reviews, and get a lot of them. Then, get some more. I cannot stress this enough. When people search for books, they want to see if it’s good before they buy it. No one wants to waste money on crap. And there is a lot of crap out there (sorry to some fellow authors, but it’s true). You may need to use your networking at first to build up some reviews, but you want people to search and find you when you show up in “top rated.” Plus, this will improve your ranking within Amazon’s search engine.

9. Most importantly, be able to write. All the marketing and research and promotion is useless if you can’t write worth a damn. It pays to have an engaging plot and meaningful characters, but you have to make them come alive. Everyone thinks they should write a book about Grandma. I’m sorry, but no one cares about your grandma and how many sewing needles she has. It’s boring. Unless your grandma cured cancer or is secretly a cyborg, we don’t want to read about her. Your brothers, sisters, and cousins might buy the book, but I doubt many other people will. I recommend you give your reader something to talk about. There is a lot of skill involved in writing a novel, and it doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes years of practice to develop. If you find that people don’t find your writing engaging, try taking some classes in creative writing. You don’t need an English degree to be able to write. You need imagination and creativity. I’ve known many people who are much smarter than I am and who have much fancier degrees, but their writing is just plain BORING.

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