Bookcovers: When Bad Things Happen to Good Authors

Which of these covers looks more professional? Any idea which cover was supplied the publisher and which was commissioned by the author after her rights reverted?

According to Passive Guy, if you guessed that the grainy first picture was from the publisher then you'd be right. The second picture, which I think looks pretty awesome, was commissioned by the author, Grace Draven, when her rights for the book reverted to her. She has since published it for the Kindle.

PG writes:

This cover [the first one, above] is from her publisher and the fuzziness in this clip-art paste-up by somebody who just learned Photoshop is obvious in the original – click here to go to Amazon, then move your mouse to the cover to bring up Look Inside and choose the front cover view. You’ll note how the sophisticated professionals at the publisher got the cover proportions all wrong on Amazon as well.

Here is Grace’s reaction to her first cover: “Fuzzy, pixelated picture with day-glo blue outline on a font design that looked like I was advertising for Dippin Dots Ice Cream.”

The kindle version of Master of Crows looks amazing and I wish Grace Draven every success with her, much better looking, book.

Tips For Writing Well

Looking back at my blogs and tweets over the last couple of days, I realize I've been focused on the subject of good writing. Here are a few tips I've come across:

Blogging Tips from Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger:

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

Read the rest of the article here: Ten Tips for writing a blog post


General Writing Tips

1. Have something to say and say it.
2. Use the active voice.
3. Avoid overusing adverbs and adjectives. Eliminate unnecessary qualifiers such as very, a little, mostly, etc. If removing a word from a sentence doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, then lose the word.
4. Edit ruthlessly. In On Writing Stephen King says that, as a rule of thumb, your second draft should be 10% shorter than the first. (3) and (4) are really the same point, only said different ways.
5. The most important tip of all: Have fun! Don't get so hung up on the rules of good writing that you can't type a darn thing. That's happened to me a few times!

Read more here: 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing

Cheers!

iPad Apps for Writers

I felt it was time for another post about iPad apps. Or, in this case, a post about posts about iPad apps!

1) Debbie Ohi, iPadGirl, has written the most compressive listing of iPad apps for writers I've seen. She breaks her post into sections such as, Writing & Project Management Apps I Use The Most Right Now, and Notetaking Apps For Writers Who Prefer Writing By Hand, to name only two of the seven categories she discusses. She talk about 30+ apps. Well worth the read. Apps discussed: SimpleNote, iAWriter, Notebooks, Pages, Evernote, Appigo's To Do, Elements, Manuscript for iPad, to name only a few.

 Read Debbie's post here: iPad Apps For Writers

2) Although only two iPad Apps are compared, iA Writer and PlainText, I think I would be hard pressed to come up with a better comparison and analysis. As a result of reading this blog post I installed PlainText. It's a great little app and, hey, it's free!

Read Alex Layne's post here: iPad Writing Apps: PlainText vs. Writer

Alex's conclusion?

Honestly, I think both apps are great. PlainText has better organization and Dropbox integration, but Writer has a more focused environment and better typography.

 

Writer Offered Six-Figure Deal After Self-Publishing

I'm a big fan of Dean Wesley Smith's excellent series, Killing The Sacred Cows of Publishing, in which he sets out certain widely held beliefs that many people, especially writers, have but that happen to be false.

One of myths that I've heard over and over again is that only writers who are already traditionally published can make money self-publishing. Another is that if an author self-publishes then no traditional publisher would even think of publishing them. Well, here is one instance where both are shown to be false.

The London Evening Standard reports that:

A struggling writer landed a book deal with a major publisher after putting her novel online for 96p a copy and promoting it by using social networking.

Louise Voss, 42, shot to the top of the Kindle charts after publishing the book in digital form herself after being rejected by literary agents.

It attracted the attention of publishers HarperFiction, which offered her a six-figure, four-book deal.

As a result, her ebook Catch Your Death will also be printed and stocked in bookshops in the traditional way.

Read the rest of the article here: Writer puts novel on Kindle for 96p and wins a six-figure deal

The New Author Platform

Lately I have been obsessing over how to build that most mysterious of things: a platform. It, apparently, involves blogging and tweeting regularly. But it feels as though I should be doing something more. But what?

Alan Rinzler writes that:

It’s still about visibility, but today’s approach has changed. The New Author Platform requires a focus on developing an unobstructed back and forth between authors and their readers, with the authors — not the publishers — controlling the flow. Now it’s the author, not a publicist, who inspires readers to buy the book. The New Author Platform allows not only well-established authors, but unknown, first-time beginners to do an end run around the conservative gate-keepers and reach readers directly.

Here are Alan Rinzler's tips:

Personality

Successful authors today are designing websites filled with their work-in-progress, writing frequently updated blogs, tweeting, and shooting home-style, brief videos to post on their sites and on YouTube. They’re offering original content in samples and chunks, with invitations for feedback, and taking every opportunity to comment and join forums and other online venues on topics that relate to their own work.

In this way, they’re creating a public face that represents who they are and what they want to say.

Authenticity

Readers like to know and trust an author before buying their book. An artificial, smiley-face false front won’t do the trick. Instead, authors need to extend their literary skills to create a genuine bona-fide online persona that has human quirks, dimension, and nuance. You can be funny, cranky, indignant, nostalgic, didactic.

As long as you’re honest and persuasive, you have a better chance of getting potential readers interested to the point where they make the final commitment and put their money down.

Expertise

Authors don’t need to be full professors at Harvard to contribute useful comments and information online. Post brief sections from your book, and take social networking seriously by commenting and tweeting to build your reputation and visibility. This is true whether your subject is science and technology, history and biography, food and cooking, parenting and relationships, really any subject in any genre, and whether you’re a fiction or non-fiction writer.

Consider yourself a public service resource in the field you’re writing about. Your reputation and expertise will flourish in proportion to the value of the content you offer.

Subtlety

A cardinal rule of the new author platform is never to actually ask people to buy your book. Rather promulgate your work by making an enduring connection. Establish an authentic online personality, offer valuable information, analysis, opinion, and inspiring entertainment.

These are the elements of the New Author Platform that will ultimately sell your book.

What I found especially useful were the examples at the end of Mr. Rinzler's article where he gives examples of authors who have built sites that exhibit the characteristics he discusses.

Here is a link to the article: The "New Author Platform" -- What you need to knnow

Thanks to The Book Designer for the link.

The Changing Face of Technology

I read an article today about how in the future we could be using the iPhone 8 as a gaming console. I can imagine that easily today but if someone had suggested it to me even a year ago I would have looked at them like they were a few fries short of a happy meal.

Technology is changing fast. In 2007 Amazon came out with the Kindle reader and then, in 2009, the Kindle 2. Not surprisingly 2009 is also the year self-publishing started to take off.

What will the future hold in store for writers? I look forward to finding out.

Seth Godin: How To Change Your Luck

Seth Godin writes, "One of the biggest distinctions between old publishing and new is the nature of luck." Giving your book to a traditional publisher was often like spinning a roulette wheel and hoping your book would get lucky and be the next surprise bestseller.

Independent publishing doesn't rely as much on luck, or perhaps relies on a different kind of luck, one more tied to people and to building a culture, a tribe. (For more on this, watch Seth Godin's TED talk, Seth Godin on the tribes we lead.)

Building a tribe is not a matter of a miracle, instead, it’s about converting tiny groups of people at a time, leading them, connecting them, building an audience. When a self-published author does this, she has a new job. Not the author part, the publisher part. She’s not putting a book into the universe and hoping it will be found. She’s not even putting a book in a journalist’s hands and hoping it will be hyped. No, she is engaging in a years-long journey to build a platform. It might take a decade to become an overnight success, but if you keep it up, if you keep building, the odds keep getting better and better.

That’s why it’s silly to compare the two ways of making a book happen. If you can get a great deal from a publisher and you’re into the spin, go spin! If you want to control the building of the platform, get your hands dirty and avoid the whims of fate, then the other path makes a lot more sense, no?

Read the rest of the article here: Are you feeling lucky?

Thanks to Passive Voice Blog for the link.

James Patterson: "Sentences shouldn't get in the way of a good story"

The Independent reports that James Patterson earned 45 million pounds last year, unseating JK Rowling as the highest paid author in the world. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Patterson is a contentious victor. The American is no stranger to criticism and has admitted that he doesn't even write his own books. Although his name is splashed on the covers of the eight titles, which include thrillers and children's and young adults' books, that he churns out each year, he relies on a team of five to help him bash out the plots. Not that this minor detail has dented his popularity. Forbes said one in every 17 books bought in the US is written – or co-written – by Patterson, a former advertising chief executive who outsold even Stephenie Meyer of the teen vampire series sensation, Twilight. Meyer's £26m placed her second in the best-selling literary hall of fame.
....
Patterson himself has something of a contradictory approach to his own work. He defended his short and to-the-point style of writing, saying sentences "shouldn't get in the way of a good story", but once warned fans off one of his books, Season of the Machete, calling it an "absolutely horrifying book" that fans "probably shouldn't read".
....
Patterson has earned his publisher, Hachette, £322m over the past two years, and Meyer, King, Koontz and Steel will face an uphill struggle to knock him off top spot. He signed a 17-book deal with Hachette in September, worth a reported £96.5m, and last year 14 million of his books sold across the world, in 38 languages. Not bad for the man who sold just 10,000 copies of his debut novel in 1976, and who doesn't even own a computer – he writes his ideas down in longhand, before giving them to his assistant to type. "Thousands of people don't like what I do," he told The New York Times in January. "Fortunately, millions do."

My take away:

• Anyone who can say that 1 out of every 17 hardcover novels sold in the US has their name on it knows a thing or two about writing and—perhaps most of all—about selling. Love him or hate him Patterson has tapped a market.
• If you don't already, give writing longhand a shot. I started writing my drafts in longhand and, although it does take longer for me to writing something out than it does to type it, I find that, overall, I get work done. It's strange, but there's something about the process of setting pen to paper, of writing across the page, something almost sensuous, that helps my ideas flow (* knock on wood!*). If you haven't tried keeping a writing journal, give it a whirl. 

Other articles you might like:

The Phenomenon of James Patterson’s Book Sales
How James Patterson Works With His Co-Authors
My Analysis of 16 books: Stephen King is correct, the adverb is not your friend.

Barnes & Nobel Hosts PubIt! Review Day

From Barnes & Noble's Facebook page:

We're trying something new this Friday: a review day. You're invited to pitch your work to a selection of book bloggers who have provided a description of the type of book they enjoy reviewing. Here's how it works:

1. On Friday from 9am EST-8pmEST, stop by the PubIt! Facebook page. We'll post as status updates the blogger's call for submissions.
2. Under each blogger that's a good fit for your work, post 2 sentences describing your book. Be sure to include your genre, length of work, and your pen name if it is different from your Facebook identity.
3. Please note that you can only pitch books already published through PubIt! Please include the link to your product page.
4. Bloggers interested in your work have been asked to reach out to you directly (through a direct message on Facebook) by Tuesday. At that point you can learn what materials they would like to receive for review. Please respect the bloggers’ selection process and don’t be discouraged if you don’t receive a response this time.

Read the rest here: Review Day: Friday, August 5th 2011.

How Often Should I Blog?

The answer, of course, depends on you, on how much time you have available and, most of all, on what you want. I began to blog a few months ago and started off posting about once every two weeks. (Little did I know that I was fostering an addiction, but that's a post for another time!) I had no idea if anyone was reading my posts; it felt as though I was tossing them out into a void. Then I found Google Analytics. It was one of those moments where you feel warm light fall on your shoulders and hear the sound of trumpets.

Now at least I knew whether anyone was coming by my site; at that time, about six people a week, but still! That was okay; heck that was great! I was excited that six people were reading my blog.

My excitement lasted for a few days, until I found out hundreds were visiting the blog of a friend of mine. I wanted that kind of readership (I know! Greedy, aren't I?). But what to do? How could I increase readership? I read and studied and schemed. I tried blogging more frequently (once a week), blogging about different topics, I even tried leaving a reader participation 'hook' at the end of my post to encourage feedback. And you know what? It worked! Traffic on my site began to increase and, slowly, even the rate of increase began to increase.

And then it all came crashing down. I was using Wordpress at the time and loved it, especially all the different styles, and then, mysteriously, the site that was hosting my blog died. All that work! All those posts! Everything was gone.

After a fair amount of hand-wringing I decided to start again from scratch. I decided to use Blogger.com this time, so I wouldn't have to deal with any technical glitches, and because it was easy to customize and was free (love free!). This blog would be about everything and anything to do with writing, with a special focus on topics relevant to people at the beginning of their writing careers.

Today, although I can only dream about Joe Konrath's numbers, I'm happy to be able to write that more than six people read my blog, but I only saw a significant increase in numbers after I began to blog four or so times a week. That said, I think that the number of posts it takes to start to build a platform likely differs for different people and different blogging styles. John Locke, for instance, advises blogging once a month and that strategy certainly has worked for him.

If you are wondering how often you should blog, I sincerely hope you find out what works for you and, most of all, I hope you find the journey enjoyable.