Showing posts with label joanna penn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joanna penn. Show all posts

Monday, February 18

Joanna Penn's Tips For Writing Realisitic Fight Scenes


All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
- ERICA JONG

Tips For Writing Realistic Fight Scenes


Jarrah Loh is an international kickboxer and here are his tips for writing realistic fight scenes:
(1) Watch some fights, not just movies. Jarrah does recommend UFC as the closest to a street fight.

(2) Go get in a fight – but in a controlled environment, for example, a martial arts class. You will be shocked by how you feel. I mention that I went to a Krav Maga class (as Morgan Sierra, my protagonist, is ex-Israeli military). They kicked my ass and it took me days to recover!

(3) Don’t explain the fight too much, but describe the heat and fury and emotion of a fight rather than the exact physical movements. Keep the pace moving.

Gender differences in fighting. UFC are just introducing a women’s division and there are women fighters. Jarrah explains that the female fighters he knows have a lot of self confidence, for example, Bec ‘Rowdy’ Hyatt, has 2 children and went from overweight to a champion fighter who turned her life around with martial arts.
To read the rest of Jarrah's tips click here: On Violence And Writing Fight Scenes With Jarrah Loh

Other articles you might like:

- Story Craft: Five Important Questions
- Roleplaying Games, Writing, And The Creation Of Magical Systems
- How to record an audiobook at home

Photo credit: "Devotion" by Bert Kaufmann under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Tuesday, August 7

Ewan Morrison's Misconception

Ewan Morrison's Misconception

Ewan Morrison has made a number of incendiary remarks about the future of self publishing and social media. He believes that self publishing is a fad and that it's day will soon be over. Specifically, in his latest article, Why Social Media Isn't The Magic Bullet, he claims that writers who have published their work themselves will not be able to use social media as an effective means to grow a readership for their work.

My response: Time will tell. It seems to me a number of writers are doing just that, but if Mr. Morrison believes this is a bubble and it's about to burst, well, I guess we'll wait and see.

David Gaughran has a more active and literary response, one much more befitting an indie author. He writes:
This gets to the heart of Morrison’s misconception of how self-publishers use social media. It’s not about selling books, it’s about making connections. The only thing that has ever really sold books is word-of-mouth.

The difference today is that social media can act as an accelerant to the spreading of that “word.” If a reader discovers a book they enjoyed (whether self-published or not) they don’t have to wait until they meet somebody in person to recommend it to them. They can email their friends, blog about it, post it to Facebook, or tweet it (reaching all their friends in less time than it takes to meet one of them for coffee).

Note: I said “a reader” not the author. If you are friends with somebody, and trust their taste in books, you will place value in their recommendations. What happens with social media is that such recommendations can spread much more efficiently.

Authors – whether self-published or not – who attempt to mimic this organic process through relentless tweeting about their own work will soon find that such an approach is ineffective (and counterproductive).

That doesn’t mean that authors don’t do it. You only need to log on to Twitter and Facebook to see plenty of “buy my book” spam.

The problem for Morrison’s argument is that he (a) assumes that all self-publishers use social media in this way and (b) assumes that such marketing is integral to self-publishers’ sales/marketing strategies; neither claim bears any resemblance to reality. In fact, I would wager that there is an inverse relationship between a self-publisher’s sales and the amount of “buy my book” spam they emit.
Precisely! Growing a readership is about connecting with people, as Seth Godin says, it is all about building a tribe. And who wouldn't want to be part of a tribe? I'm part of many tribes/communities.

As David writes:
I don’t relentlessly tweet about my work. I announce a new release, or a special sale, and I might point my followers towards a nice review now and then – but that’s about it.

The rest of my time on Twitter or Facebook is spent connecting with people – hashing out the issues of the day, making friends, joking, sharing advice, seeking help, getting to know each other; you know, just like meeting people in real life.
David mentions that well-known self publisher Joanna Penn has a rule-of-thumb. 80% of the time don't say anything about what you're selling. Less than 20% of your social media time should be taken up with promoting your products.

That seems about right to me. By the way, if you haven't taken a look at Joanna's website, it is full of great articles. You can visit her here: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/

Further reading:
- The Harlequin Class Action Lawsuit Explained
- Helping Writers De-Stress: Meditation Apps
- Writer Beware: Outskirts Press

Photo credit: Alaskan Dude

Wednesday, August 10

Joanna Pen: How to Podcast


Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn has written two excellent articles on podcasting (see below), and who better to do so than a lady who has created over 100 podcasts. Here are her stats:
there are around 2500 downloads per month of new and old episodes. 60% of the listeners are in the US, with 15% in China and 14% in UK and the rest spread between Australia, Germany, Canada and some other countries.
Joanna's tips:
Just start, even if you don’t know what you are doing. My first interview was with 4 Ingredients author Rachael Bermingham who is HUGE in Australia, self, published and has sold millions of books now. I did it on the landline phone, I held a recorder next to it. I edited in Audacity and loaded the file to my very new and pretty ugly blog (which has since been redesigned). I didn’t know about mics, or Skype or Pamela/ecamm or hosting or anything. Things have changed and here’s how I do it now.

Fear and nerves will always be there. Just do it anyway. I am still nervous before phoning anyone. I have to force myself every time. My heart races, my mouth is dry and I go to the bathroom three times before starting. I also do public speaking and its the same thing with that. But we need to get our ‘breadcrumbs’ of content out there, so it has to be done.

I credit the podcast with the growing success of The Creative Penn because of my ability to network and offer something that many blogs don’t offer i.e. multi-media interviews. I get requests all the time and other people promote the blog because of it. All the people I interview link back to their show so the incoming links have helped my SEO ranking. I have connected with you as listeners – you have heard my voice and laugh and mannerisms and annoying tics for years now. I know some of you have bought my books for which I am very grateful. I am also personally fulfilled by being useful and I feel this is useful to people, so I love to do it. I love to get emails from people who have found the information helpful.

You can learn from everybody. Podcasting is a great way to learn about writing, publishing and book marketing. It’s also an amazing way to network. The people I have had on the podcast I have connected with and got to know more. There is a widening circle of mutual support. I also firmly believe in no snobbery – you can learn from everyone. It doesn’t matter what they have written or done, you can’t underestimate anyone’s experience. You also never know where they will end up.

Links:
The quotations in my blog post are from Joanna's article: What I Have Learned In The Last 2 Years: 100th Podcast Celebration
Joanna has written a not-to-be-missed article on podcasting, How To Create A Podcast, for anyone who has ever enterained the notion.
Joanaa's YouTube feed is here.
I can't remember where I got the link to Joanna Penn's article, but since they write so many great blog posts let me just give a plug to The Passive Voice blog and The Book Designer.