Jacqui Murray's Blog, page 158
November 10, 2013
11 Tips on Writing Thrillers
I write thrillers, so I should be good at this entry in my Genre Tips. But, I’m not sure. None of my novels have been published (one has been close for over a year–does that count?). Lee Child hasn’t asked for advice on his next Jack Reacher novel, nor has Ben Coes of Dewey Andreas fame (love this character), so I decided to reach out to a man who has been published and is oft-quoted for his brilliant understanding of this topic: James Frey.
In How to Write a D*** Good Thriller (St. Martin’s Press 2010), Frey differentiates ‘thrillers’ from other types of writing. For example, plotting (characters always in danger; one ends and another pops out of the scenery), characters (moral, bigger-than-life but flawed), crises (each gets the main character into worse trouble) and pace (constant, never take a breath). Compare those to literary fiction, where characters get time to smell the roses while they introspectively muse over life. If my WIP’s characters consider the quirkiness of their existence, it better be while they’re fleeing for their life.
Here’s another factoid I didn’t know: Mysteries and thrillers are often confused, but consider this:
In a mystery, the hero has a mission to find a killer.
In a thriller, the hero has a mission to foil evil–and it must be an impossible mission.
That’s a big difference.
There’s also big difference in audience–people who choose thrillers rather than mysteries, literary fiction, biographies, etc. Thriller readers like their main characters to be heroes. They set out to save the world and succeed. Doing their best won’t work in a thriller. Main characters should also be moral, patriotic, believing in the goodness of mankind and tolerant of mistakes. That might sound like a stereotype, but your artistry as a writer will keep it fresh. Consider country-western music. It’s always about dogs, trucks, mama and prison, but there are tens of thousands of songs beloved by millions of fans. How’s that for artistry.
Frey covers the varieties of thrillers, from political to the little-known comic. He tells the importance of a villain in thrillers–so important, the author should consider them a new best friend. Know as much about the villain as you do the hero so both are believable, and when the reader is asked to accept that the villain might stop the hero, it’s a real concern. Frey discusses voice–I didn’t know that 99% of thrillers are written either in first person past tense or third person past tense.
Here are eleven more tips that will change your approach to writing thrillers:
Commit yourself to creating strong conflicts in every line of every scene
Have fresh, snappy dialogue and not a single line of conversation
Write quickly when drafting.
Have production quotas of at least a thousand words every day. three-four thousand is better
Have no bland, colorless characters
Trick your readers
Dump your characters into terrible trouble from page one
Have powerful story questions at all times
Have a hook at the end of each chapter
Be fresh in your writing
Keep the clock ticking and the excitement mounting
Do you have any to add?
More on thrillers:
5 Great Websites for Thriller Writers
Like Military Thrillers? You’ll Like Jeff Edwards
10 Basic Ingredients (Plus 8 More) of a Successful Thriller
Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email box
Questions you want answered? Leave a comment and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: Genre tips, thrillers, writers tips, writing Tagged: thrillers, writers tips
November 7, 2013
Book Review: Google Apps Meets Common Core
Google Apps Meets Common Core
by Michael J. Graham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Written as part of my Vine Voice reviews
Michael Graham’s Google Apps Meets Common Core (Corwin 2013) is exactly what I hoped it would be. As a teacher, there couldn’t be two bigger topics than ‘Google Apps for Education’ and ‘Common Core’. Juxtaposing the two instantly caught my attention. My only question was whether Graham would be up to the task.
He is.
Graham does a great job of going through all the parts of Google Apps, showing steps with lots of pictures, so I can almost walk through them in the book without trundling over to my computer. He starts with a pithy summary of Common Core and then goes through each tool–Docs, Spreadsheet, Presentations, and more.. He also provides quick, educational uses of each piece–sometimes a full lesson plan. Then there are the nuggets that make it worth reading even if nothing else catches your attention. Like learning how to embed Google Docs into a website, blog, wiki (page 34). I used that the first day I got the book.
Graham has a good writing voice. It’s clear, able to simplify what could be technical geekie points that I want and need to know as a teacher. By the time I finished the book, I felt a lot better about aligning to Common Core and using Google Apps.The only part I was a bit disappointed in was the ‘companion website’–not at all up to what the book delivered. Hopefully, he’ll work on that over the coming months.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, s he is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Filed under: book reviews Tagged: book review, computers, education, technology
November 6, 2013
Check Out My Today’s Author Post
I invite you to drop by my article over at Today’s Author, 5 Reasons I Love Researching. If you can’t make it, no worries. I’ll post here soon.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a weekly columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, s he is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: Guest bloggers Tagged: guest post, writing
November 5, 2013
#IWSG–The World is Changing–Can I keep up
This post is for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers Support Group (click the link for details on what that means and how to join. You will also find a list of bloggers signed up to the challenge that are worth checking out like Kate and Rebecca who inspired me to begin). The first Wednesday of every month, we all post our thoughts, fears or words of encouragement for fellow writers.
This month’s insecurity: I don’t know if I can keep up with the changes going on around me.
By this time in my life, I had hoped to be thinking of retiring from a life-long job I enjoyed and found satisfaction from (vested in their retirement plan). I’d have a close group of friends who understood me, allowed me to be me no matter what the question. We’d bounce ideas around, each respecting the thoughts and conclusions of the others if not agreeing with them. I’d be wondering what to do with my retirement years.
None of that happened. I’m nowhere near settled enough to retire–and if I did, I have no corporate retirement plan. I’ve spent so much time working 2-3 jobs, I never found time to cultivate a nurturing group of friends who keep my head straight (thank God for my husband). The world is radically moving from the self-reliant, help-thy-neighbor community I have always respected and relished. There seems to be too much ‘let the government take care of things, not me’. My natural bias for action is losing to a need to rest a little bit rather than take on another Big Job. My children are grown and happy in their lives–doing a good job being adults. I love them dearly, but they have a bigger world now than mom and dad and the dog. The state of the economy has pretty much put the last nail in my retirement coffin–stock market collapse, housing market collapse, Social Security going bankrupt, Medicare in tatters (depending upon who you listen to), Obama’s Affordable Care Act anything but (well, that’s the rumor. Time will tell…).
What I do have is my brain. My momma promised that was the one thing no one could take from me–my knowledge–and again she appears to be right. It’s still chugging along, rolling through these problems, searching for solutions. This is a process I can’t stop–never have been able to my entire life. I’m a problem solver whether I like it or not. When friends ask a casual question, “How can I do…”, I always come up with an answer. I’ll let you know what I work out this time.
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Jacqui Murray
is the author of the popular
Building a Midshipman
, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an
Amazon Vine Voice
book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, s
he is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education.
Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer.
Filed under: decision making, problem-solving Tagged: insecure writers group, over 60, writers
November 3, 2013
NaNoWriMo — Oh No
National Novel Writing Month–affectionately nicknamed NaNoWriMo–started in November 1999 as a fun way for twenty-one friends to encourage each other’s novel writing by publicly committing to write 50,000 words in thirty day.
And then NanoWrMo grew up. November 2011 logged 256, 618 participants and 36,843 winners (defined below in the rules), penning 363,082,739 words. As in 363 million! The tagline–thirty days and nights of literary abandon–couldn’t be more true. Novels are to creative writing what road trips are to driving. In any month but November, they take from one to ten years to complete, exhaust the writer and infuriate those close to them who don’t understand how fictitious people can be so gal-darn fascinating. Writers–and some estimates say 80% of us believe we have a book inside our brains trying to get out–who commit put everything else in their lives on hold as they go full bore to see how many words they can pen. An online ezine I write for has excused all NaNoWriMo writers from submitting articles during the month of November.
Some make it, many don’t, but everyone comes out believing the challenge helped their writing. At least, judging by the glowing reviews on blogs like this.
Here’s what you do to join the fun (from NaNoWriMo’s website):
Sign up for the event by clicking the “Start Here” button at NaNoWriMo.org
Follow the instructions on the following screen to create an account.
Check your email for the account validation email and click on the link included.
Log into your account, where you’ll be prompted to finish the sign-up process.
Start filling out information about yourself and your novel in My NaNoWriMo.
Begin procrastinating by reading through all the great advice and funny stories in the forums. Post some stories and questions of your own. Get excited. Get nervous. Try to rope someone else into doing this with you. Eat lots of chocolate and stockpile noveling rewards.
On November 1, begin writing your novel. Your goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, local time, on November 30th. You write on your own computer, using whatever software you prefer.
This is not as scary as it sounds.
Starting November 1, you can update your word count in that box at the top of the site, and post excerpts of your work for others to read. Watch your word-count accumulate and story take shape. Feel a little giddy.
Write with other NaNoWriMo participants in your area. Write by yourself. Write. Write. Write.
If you write 50,000 words of fiction by midnight, local time, November 30th, you can upload your novel for official verification, and be added to our hallowed Winner’s Page and receive a handsome winner’s certificate and web badge. We’ll post step-by-step instructions on how to scramble and upload your novel starting in mid-November.
Reward yourself copiously for embarking on this outrageously creative adventure.
Win or lose, you rock for even trying.
Testimonials like this one are pretty common:
It’s pretty much the weirdest, craziest, and most nerve wracking thing you can do. Dedicate a whole month to writing a novel. For fun. And yet thousands across the world have been doing it for more than ten years. That means sitting down at a computer and pounding out almost 2,000 words every single day, for thirty days straight. The result? Maniacal laughter. Frustration and repeatedly asking yourself why you ever signed up to do this in the first place.
There are a lot of websites offering advice on how to succeed during NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Humor (last year, lots of Debbie Ohi), but I can tell you from reading dozens of them that it boils down to one common sense suggestion: Stay away from social media. Don’t go on Twitter, FB, LI, blogs (except this one). When you feel like socializing, pet your dog.
Over one hundred published novels have resulted from this program, most notably Sara Gruen’s bestselling “Water for Elephants.”
I have never participated, toyed with doing so this year and suddenly it was November 3rd. Anyone taking part?
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: writers, writing Tagged: nanowrimo, novel writing, writers
November 1, 2013
Book Review: Let Me Go
Let Me Go
by Chelsea Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was excited to read Chelsea Cain’s latest thriller, “Let Me Go”. Cain has a great reputation as a skillful writer in the thriller genre and has already published five Archie Sheridan novels. This could be a tremendous find for me (I read approximately two books a week so it takes a lot to keep me supplied). The first line was perfect–
“Archie Sheridan had a paper birthday hat on his head and six bullets in his front pocket.”
What’s not to like about a story that begins that way?
In a nutshell, this is about a detective named Archie Sheridan, a murderer named Gretchen Lowell, and an undercover operation that is starting to go bad. It’s become difficult for our hero, Archie, and his fellow police to tell if who they think are good guys are really good and if the bad guys are as bad as they seem. All very confusing because people are dying and others in the crosshairs are Archie’s friends. What makes it more intriguing is that Gretchen, who Archie put away after she captured and sliced him up, has escaped and is headed Archie’s way. She has a ‘thing’ for him. Sure, she might torture him to within inches of death, but she won’t kill him. Which in the end is what saves his life (I don’t think that gives anything away–you probably don’t think the hero of the series gets killed off).
In my experience, there aren’t a lot of series with such unique main characters. Archie is a detective and Gretchen is a brilliant, bombshell beautiful serial killer. Have you ever read a series like that before?
If that doesn’t get your attention, how about romance? Steamy romance, a lot of it for a thriller. To me, it was almost gratuitous, irrelevant to the plot, there to up the ratings and get readers to buy the book. You know that old saying about action stories–if the plot slows down, throw in a fight? Chelsea Cain throws in a lusty scene. If you like Danielle Steele, you’ll like this approach.
Distractions aside, the story is well plotted, characters well-developed, and the ending is macabre. That’s what earned the 4 stars.
More book reviews:
Book Review: Origin of Humankind
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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: book reviews Tagged: book review, thriller
October 30, 2013
Demographics of a Trekkie
David Gerrold (remember the 10 tips from him I posted Monday?) got me thinking about Star Trek and that got me missing those crazy futuristic guys. I ended up pulling the last two Trekkie movies out of the back of my cupboard and watched them with my addicted son. They were as good as I remember.
which got me analyzing why readers/viewers love Star Trek so much (we won’t get into that whole Star Trek vs. Star Wars, peaceful war vs. warring for peace thing). If you have a character in your book who loves Star Trek, you have to understand enough about the cult to make him authentic. No Star Trek afficionado is the average Ford-driving, hamburger-eating, wife-two-point-two-children sort of guy. If you don’t give this fella the right accouterments, he won’t be believable.
I came up with a few hints for you. Here’s what you need to know:
Your character is part of a huge cultural movement. Over thirty million fans watch “Star Trek” programming around the world every week.
He is probably an enthusiastic member of one of the hundreds of thousands of fan-club registered “Star Trek” fans.
He probably looks forward to the next “Star Trek” convention. He may even travel distances to go to one. They’re held every weekend of every year, in at least three different cities, attracting a million fans.
He definitely has a library of Star Trek books. More than 63 million “Star Trek” books are in print and have been translated into more than 15 languages including Chinese, Norwegian, Hungarian, and Hebrew.
He probably grabs each new Star Trek book as it comes out. He’ll watch the publication schedule and be at B&N the day it arrives. Since July 1986, every new classic “Star Trek” novel published by Pocket Books has been a New York Times paperback best-seller, making it the best-selling series in publishing history.
It’s not just books he buys–merchandise, too. Hats, mugs, mouse pads. The average “Star Trek” fan spends $400 per year on “Star Trek” merchandise. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” has made over $500,000,000 in syndication and merchandising. “Star Trek” products have elicited over a billion dollars in retail sales in the last five years.
If you’re talking about an older character, he may be one of 400,000 who requested that the first U.S. Space Shuttle, the “Enterprise,” be given its name
He is aware of the most famous Star Trek fan, Jordan LaForge, for whom Geordi LaForge is named. Jordan LaForge died from muscular dystrophy in 1975.
Here’s some trivia your character probably knows. If you look closely at the Enterprise during the fly-by in the opening credits, you can see someone walking past the windows. According to Mike Okuda in the “Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine” (#60), this is Captain Picard.
Here’s another bit of trivia that says a lot about Star Trek fans: The shuttle Onizuka, which Data used in “Ensigns of Command”, was named in tribute to one of the Space Shuttle “Challenger” astronauts.
Your character will know about Star Trek in society, for example, the original Wright Brothers plane was named…..BIRD OF PREY!
There are Star Trek fans in every walk of life. For example, Nichelle Nichols was going to quit Classic Trek half way through, but Dr. Martin Luther King talked her back into staying on the show.
Star Trek is not only forward thinking in science, but culture. The first inter-racial kiss on TV was on Star Trek between Kirk and Uhura.
There you have it. Now get that character written!
More posts about Star Trek:
What I Learned About Life From Star Trek
It’s Not Just StarTrek That Gives Us a Blueprint For the Future
How Star Trek Changed the World
10 Uses for Metamaterials. Beyond Star Trek. Way Beyond Harry Potter
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: characters, writers resources, writing Tagged: sci-fi, star trek, star trek fans, trekkies
October 28, 2013
Writers Tip #60: It’s Fiction. Make Stuff Up.
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Today’s tip come from Keith Cronin, writer/musician, who shares his tongue-in-cheek advice for fellow writers:
10. Never say verdant.
9. Just because it’s true doesn’t make it compelling – or even interesting.
8. Adverbs are just words. They don’t damage sentences; writers do.
7. Three words: Strunk and White.
6. Don’t fall in love with your words. It makes it hard to kill them.
5. It’s hard to grow if you only write what you know. Crap, that rhymes. It wasn’t meant to.
4. When writing sex scenes, leave out the thing with the turkey baster. Trust me on this.
3. Stop bitching. You have cut-and-paste, and the Undo key. Most literary greats did not.
2. You’re not wrong: Clive Cussler really does suck.
1. It’s fiction. Make stuff up.
That last one is spot on (not that the rest aren’t). Writers must allow readers to willingly suspend their disbelief, enter a world of make-believe that they can believe. That might be the hardest part of writing.
To have these tips delivered to your email, click here.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: writers resources, writers tips, writing Tagged: top ten, writers tips, writing
October 25, 2013
Book Review: The Back Road
The Back Road
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved Rachel Abbot’s thriller, The Back Road (Thomas & Mercer 2013). It’s the story of two girls (Ellie and Leo) thrown together as siblings of a polygamist father. When Leo’s mom dies, Ellie’s mom is forced to raise both girls which she does in Leo’s case with hate and anger, an attitude that gets even worse when the Dad disappears. Leo leaves as soon as she can manage it, returning to the house only after her step mother’s death. Both sisters attempt to move on, but are haunted by a miasma of memories. Life refuses to be easy for them. By Chapter One, we know Ellie is being stalked by a man who thinks she loves him, His unwanted attentions begin to unravel the carefully constructed worlds both girls have created to protect themselves from their past.
The story has lots of damaged good people, intrigue, the de rigeur damaged ex-cop and woman-who-swears-off-men-who-falls-for-handsome-ex-cop. It has enough sub-plots to keep even the most distractable reader entertained.
But it took me a while to get to ‘love it’. It starts powerfully, but depressing, with two unnamed girls hiding in a closet while their mum takes care of business in the bedroom. When one sister starts choking, the other decides it’s better they are discovered than one of them dies. The next scene is with Ellie, paralyzed with fear over her stalker. Do you see what I mean? Depressing, all of it. But, Rachel Abbot is a powerful writer, deft with words and a master at unpeeling the plot little by little. I kept reading. Soon, around page 100, despite my natural misgivings about change and new authors, I’d reached that literary tipping point where you either love a book or toss it. I was hooked and remained so for the balance of the 470 pages.
Not to say Rachel Abbot was perfect in her delivery. The setting is Britain, but too often the character’s voices are decidedly American. I just finished Val McDermid’s Tony Hill series and fell in love with Brit speak and their colloquialisms. Rachel Abbot has enough to tell the story, but not enough to keep me in the setting. And one other nit-pick: Abbot spends a bit too much time summarizing past plot points. She’s afraid we readers will forget something important, but we won’t, at least not enough to justify the constant retelling. That’s what earned it 4 instead of 5 stars. The reviews noticeably slowed the plot down, something that isn’t good in a thriller.
That’s it, though. Believe me, I’ll be reading the rest of her books. You should too.
More thriller reviews:
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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a weekly columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, s he is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: book reviews Tagged: book review, thriller
October 23, 2013
38 Tips from Digital Publishing Conference
On October 12-13, I attended the Digital Author and Self-Publishing Conference, hosted by the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (GLAWS). I immersed myself in everything to do with digital publishing, digital authorship, social media, digital books–all that writing stuff that isn’t Main Stream Agents and Publishers. I learned so much, I can’t possibly organize it all–yet–so I’m just going to throw it all up here in a bullet list. I wish I could create categories and themes, but truly, my brain is still a muddle.
Here we go:
If you’re a Trekkie, the highlight had to be David Gerrold, the writer who penned Startrek’s Trouble with Tribbles (from the original series). He had lots of tips, all delivered with a sense of humor and a bit of an edge. More on that on the tips post
Lots of presenters pushing CreateSpace. I don’t get that. Yes, there are good things about using a company like CreateSpace, but there are serious downsides. I never did get to pursue that with any of the presenters.
Book cover size is 1600×2400. Since I end up creating my own book covers more often than I want to admit, that’s good to know.
I also didn’t know that all NASA images were in the public domain. I have a book in need of a NASA-like photo for its cover
There’s a Twitter stream called @tweetyourbooks. Send a direct message to them about your book and they’ll tweet it. Sure, I knew about groups like that, figured they were a waste of time. Apparently they aren’t. I’m on it immediately.
iPhone ear buds are also mics. Who knew.
Lots of details on using Word to format mss. Usually, writers are encouraged to avoid Word. It seems publishers have given up. Using Word by the majority of writers has become decided science.
Spread the news about your writing with ‘word of mouse’ (thank you, Alex Mendoza)
Jason Matthews, author-writer-blogger, has his entire presentation on his G stream–go grab it! I won’t even try to list all the tips and tricks he shared.
Kindle tops out at $9.99 if the writer wants 70%. Since most of my ebooks sell for more than that, I won’t worry any more about formatting them for Kindle
Brian at BookBaby gave a stellar summary of creating videos to promote books. He swears most of the information is on his website–haven’t checked. I just emailed him for the slideshow.
Another tip Brian gave us–sound matters more than you think. In my case, I bet that’s true.
Great writers brand themselves. Don’t think you shouldn’t.
Every blank page is a threat–from David Gerrold. Interesting concept, innit?
No flashbacks in Chapter 1 (darn)
Ezine.com–send them articles; they forward them to publications in your field. Of course, you aren’t paid.
Paper.li is for Twitter tweets. I didn’t know that.
Sign up on ‘networkedblogs.com’ on FB
Booktrakr.com tracks ebook sales across multiple fields
I bought Beth Barany’s wonderful book, Twitter for Authors. I’ll review that later.
Allura.com self-publishing was all around the conference. I don’t know anything about them.
WaveCloud had a booth. I chatted with them, haven’t gotten any further. They say they do everything. I need a little bit of everything.
Good Twitter targets include @indiauthornews, @twitterbooks, @author alliance
Good FB groups include Online Book Publicity Group, Aspiring Authors, Writers Helping Writers
Tweet 5-10 times a day (that hasn’t changed, but it has gotten easier to do)
Use popular# hashtags and targeted tweets often
Update your Twitter bio page every month (really? How have I changed?)
Create a group page if you’re an expert or leader
Engage in LinkedIn discussions
Update your LinkedIn profile monthly–including how to buy your books
Put video of you working on your book onto YT
Have audio and podcasts on iTunes
Update your Amazon.com author page constantly (oops)
Add links to Amazon author page to your website, YT, other places you have an online presence
Update your Goodreads page constantly
Pin your cover onto Pinterest
Create and update an email list
Make sure all links on social media are active, relevant
That’s enough for now. I see a few hands saying they have to go. We’ll talk more in the comments.
More books about digital publishing:
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, and a monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is editor of a K-8 technology curriculum and technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: business, digital books Tagged: digital publishing, self-publishing
