I’ve decided to give fandelyon.com a gradual makeover as I no longer have the time to maintain it as a blog on writing.
It’s been a great site and still holds lots of great memories, and because of that I don’t intend to wipe the slate clean and start anew. There’s too much good stuff here.
As far as future plans go, it’s going to become a showcase for the Veil of Gods writing universe and my writing in general – the sort of place where you can find out about the story worlds, books, characters, history, etc.
I’ll decide what to do with the current information on a case-by-case basis – some of it’s outdated and will go, but some of it’s still relevant and I’ll find a place for it, either here or on my author site: chrisandrews.me.
As I’ve only just come to this decision I don’t have an ETA, but it’s not likely to happen any time soon (unless I win Lotto and the day-job gets converted to writing time). I’ll start making small changes this year, though don’t expect to see too many differences too soon as I’ve got quite a few writing projects taking precedence.
For now though, this is just a head’s up. Changes will be progressive as I add new content and tweak the look and feel, but overall the changes mean I’ll be able to separate out my ‘author’ blog from my ‘stories’ blog.
All I need now is the time to devote to it. Wish me luck.
I just had to share this review from TaM D’Lyte on Amazon: 5.0 out of 5 stars. “Yep! Character and Structure: An Unholy Alliance is my new book bible.”
Coming soon(ish) to an Amazon near you, Character & Structure.
Character & Structure: An Unholy Alliance is all about creating emotional impact for your audience by applying character to the common story structure elements people expect.
If you’re anything like me, you love a good book, and in the wake of the festive season you’ve probably got a voucher or two you need to convert into written words.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration, something new or something entirely different, this is what I got up to in 2018 reading-wise.
Overall, a solid concept that would make a decent television show, and an enjoyable read too. Letters from the Dead is Dawn’s first foray into a longer work. I like to support new authors, and gave this four-stars. Read the full review of Letters from the Dead. As I’ve met Dawn at a couple of writers conventions, I also asked her to do a guest blog post.
Illuminae is a ‘letters’ style story, in that it’s essentially compiled from recorded conversations and video footage etc, and presented in such as way as to build a narrative. Overall, a fantastic read. Here’s my review.
I purchased a copy of the anthology Mnemo’s Memory and other Fantastic Tales rather than grab the free version available from Prolific Works, largely so I could drop a ‘verified purchase’ review on Amazon. I know Dave and have read quite a few of his short stories, and figured the few bucks would be well spent. It was. I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed it. Here’s my review of Mnemo’s Memory.
This book was recommended to me by several different people, and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. An urban magic story set in London, with plenty to keep you interested and guessing the outcome. I’ll probably pick up the next one in the series when I get through my current reading list. I indend to review it when I get the time.
A decent read, but I was hoping I’d enjoy Moon Called more as I love a good werewolf / supernatural / real-world magic story. I enjoyed it, but not enough that I’d rush out and grab the sequel.
Blood Song was another great pickup and I intend to get the sequel when I can. Definitely one I’d recommend. Harsh and gritty, it’s the story of a young boy as he trains to be a warrior of the faith. Plenty of intrigue, politics and mystery as well. A superbly crafted book. Check out my full review.
I stumbled across this book via a TED Talk and am glad I did. It’s all about getting stuff done and how to do it immediately without the risk of putting it off indefinitely, including the psychology of why this method works. Highly recommended.
It’s essentially a bunch of quotes taken from public documents with a little narrative to explain and tie them together. It was okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get a copy.
A solid read focusing on today’s problem of too many things coming at you at once, making it difficult to focus and really think about a project. This book provdes some strategies to help you clear your unnecessary interruptions from your life, like limiting your exposure to the constant bombardment of email and social media. Well worth the time.
Although it had some reasonably good information, it was more of a sales pitch for the author’s business than anything else. Maybe grab a copy if you can see it in a yard sale, but not otherwise.
This is hands-down the best book I’ve ever read on personal finances. I bought both the audio and printed versions, lent it out to friends and even bought copies as gifts. If you only read one book on personal finances, read this one.
This books about using social media and other means to promote yourself and your products, as opposed to paying for advertising. While it provides some usable ideas, it’s the sort of thing you really need to work hard at in order to continually reinvent your strategies. There’s no silver bullet as far as I can tell. A little bit of a sales pitch, it’s not as on the nose as Key Person of Influence and the information’s better overall.
Wow, this book doesn’t pull any punches. It’s the best book I’ve ever read on the subject of personal growth. If you only buy one non-fiction book in your life, make it this one.
This was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. The main messages are ‘buy shares directly’ and ‘be wary about trusting advice from the financial industry’. Perhaps useful info if you’ve never read anything on the subject before, but it was a bit light-on.
This book’s a really good match for The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. It comes at the same issues, but from a more philosophical point of view. I’ve recommended this to friends and even bought a gift copy for someone. Highly recommended.
I grabbed this because I’m finding myself in the spotlight more and more. It’s well worth the read. I read the audio version, and although Chris J Anderson runs Ted Talks, he’s not a voice actor. I’d recommend the written version over the audio version. You can check out the full review.
I grabbed this largely because of the Marvel movies with the character of Thor, and figured as it was by Neil Gaiman it was well worth a shot. I can’t say I’m into Norse mythology any more now than I was before I purchased the book, but I’m certainly a lot more informed. Interesting and insightful. To put it another way, the third Thor movie is probably a lot more representative of Thor’s personality than the earlier ones.
I picked up Ted Talks by Chris Anderson largely because I’ve found myself doing more public events where I need to ‘not look stupid’ in front of an audience. Most of these events take considerable preparation, and trying to figure it all out as I went was essentially taking the long, hard path.
A training course a few years back gave me the basics of creating and running a workshop, but I didn’t really have a good handle on what made for a good speech.
What the book provides is an overall perspective on proven techniques to consider when giving a talk, including:
breaking the structure of the talk down
what works
what doesn’t
using images and other visuals
pitfalls to avoid when using presentation software
techniques for speaking.
Rather than offering a specific formula to follow or a hard list of do’s and don’ts, the book breaks down examples and draws out the lessons using both successful talks and those that didn’t go over so well, all taken from a long heritage of TED Talks.
The overall message is ‘do what works best for you’, while offering useful techniques and pointers on how to create the best speech for you.
About the book
“Ted Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking] explains how the miracle of powerful public speaking is achieved, and equips you to give it your best shot. There is no set formula; no two talks should be the same. The goal is for you to give the talk that only you can give. But don’t be intimidated. You may find it more natural than you think. Chris Anderson has shown how carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, spreading knowledge, and promoting a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience’s worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form.”
I recently tried an Amazon Giveaway for my debut novel, Divine Prey.
Amazon Giveaways are essentially a way to promote something to Amazon customers, with the goal of increasing either awareness or the sales for your product. In short, you get to put it in front of a lot of people, and hopefully that translates to more sales.
Unfortunately, it’s only open to people with a US postal address, limiting the potential audience and value of the giveaway.
Screenshot from my Amazon Giveaway page featuring Giveaway views and the flow-on effect to the product’s page visits.
Amazon claim the Giveaway is free, and while on the surface that’s correct, it’s not exactly true. While using the Giveaway feature is free, that’s it as far as their generosity goes. It still costs in products and postage, and the costs can be considerable, depending on what you’re giving away.
In my case, I gave away two paperback books. To make this happen, I had to purchase my own books off Amazon at full retail price, and pay for all shipping and taxes on top of that.
So far, these books haven’t turned up on my Amazon book reports as sales figures or anywhere else, so I don’t even get a small bump in ‘sales’ figures unless there’s some sort of a delay.
Here’s the overall results of the Amazon Giveaway:
The second half of the Amazon Giveaway results, showing 1181 entrants and costs in US dollars.
So how does this stack up in terms of value?
I noticed absolutely no change in sales figures during or after the Amazon Giveaway, though there was a slight change in page reads (very slight). I have no way to tell if that was due to the Giveaway, or Amazon ads, or something else.
In marketing terms, it put the book in front of a couple of thousand people, half of which were interested enough to enter the giveaway, and 62 interested enough to actually click through to the book’s page. No additional sales though – they were probably all hoping to win or just after a freebie because it’s easy to enter.
Maybe now that the giveaway has been finalised some people might return and buy the book (I doubt it without an additional prompt). The problem is, unless you pay for the Amazon Giveaway premium package (around US$600-ish) you can’t send a follow-up email or anything else to encourage people to come back and buy the book.
I doubt anyone beyond the winners were even notified.
It’s also up to you to promote and advertise the giveaway on social media and other places. Otherwise, it merely appears on the Amazon Giveaway page. I mentioned it in a few Google Plus groups, and Twitter. Maybe Facebook – can’t remember. I probably should have documented it.
To get an Amazon Giveaway up and running, you need to navigate to the bottom of your book’s page, and select the giveaway option:
Amazon Giveaway option on your product page.
And then you add information, like your name, a photo of you, and how many items you want to give away. This is a screenshot setting up a new giveaway using the same details as before:
Amazon giveaway information and options.
In this case, I’ve chosen to give away 2 paperback books, added my name and photo, and chosen the Sweepstakes option. Sweepstakes mean that at the end of the giveaway, Amazon will randomly select people from all entrants to receive the prize – as many as you’re giving away.
The other options are fairly self-explanatory:
Random Instant Win
Lucky Number Instant Win
First-come, First-served.
Whatever option you choose probably depends on how many copies of your book you can afford to give away. I couldn’t find an option to give away the eBook version, though I saw a few on the Giveaways page.
Next, and this is the really important part, you need to select the conditions for entry. I chose to add no barriers to entry the first time, as I wanted to get the book in front of as many people as possible while also setting up a baseline for comparison.
This time, I’m adding a very simple condition – entrants need to follow my amazon author profile. Hopefully that sorts out the tyre kickers from the genuinely interested crowd.
Opt-in for people who want to enter – follow my author profile on Amazon.
Alternatively, if you’ve got a book trailer, you could try one of the video options. You can only choose one option though.
After that, you need to make it discoverable.
You need to choose if you want your giveaway to be public or private.
I don’t see any value in making it a private giveaway unless you’re a big brand giving products away to a specific group (for example, people at a convention your sponsoring). Even then, there’s probably a lot of cheaper ways to go about it.
Regardless, I want my giveaway to be as open as possible in order to reach more people.
And here’s how your entry will look:
The entry and post entry screenshots, as if seen on a portable device.
And finally, go through a couple of screens where Amazon generously offers to give you a $10 discount when you open an Amazon credit card with them, you pay the costs of products and postage, and whalah!, your Amazon Giveaway begins.
The final pages for creating an Amazon Giveaway.
The giveaway goes live.
I don’t know how this Amazon Giveaway will go considering I’ve added a condition for entry (follow my Amazon author page), but at least now I’ve got a baseline to compare it with.
The real question is, is it worth the money? To be worth it, these giveaways would need to return my costs at a minimum, preferably several times over, and so far the first one is a long way from doing either.
I doubt the second one will improve on that, to be honest.
Still, there are other benefits, mostly via exposure to a group of people I probably wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise, and a legitimate way to promote my book without looking like a twat.
How valuable is that? Who knows? It’s essentially traditional marketing in some ways, and to be honest, traditional marketing doesn’t really work very well unless you’ve got a big bucket of money to throw at it – and even then, it’s difficult to tell.
What does work though is word of mouth, and to a lesser extent reviews.
The giveaway contributes to that – at least via spreading the word.
If you’ve found this post interesting or helpful, it’d be great if you could spread the word about it or link to it. Every little bit helps. Thanks.
Janet, a fellow author and prolific reader, has reviewed Divine Prey among a bunch of other books. You might be able to find something new to read in her post on Janet’s Writing Blog: Reading in May 2018.
Janet, a fellow author and prolific reader, has reviewed Divine Prey among a bunch of other books. You might be able to find something new to read in her post on Janet’s Writing Blog: Reading in May 2018.
For a long time I struggled to see the value of writing short stories.
While they’re fun to write, help provide ‘instant’ gratification, and have a chance of providing ‘street cred’ among the writing community, they’re probably not going to do much for your finances or writing career unless you’re winning competitions and in a situation to take advantage of the kudos (ie, you’ve got a couple of really good novels up your sleeve).
So my question has always been, are they worth the time and effort?
For example, you could, write 20 short stories at 5000 words each, spend a significant amount of time to edit and polish them, and perhaps you’d end up with a couple that were good enough to sell for coffee money or a copy of an anthology.
The reward? A better writing skill set and a pat on the back, and perhaps an opportunity to show off something else you’ve done.
Alternatively, you could write a novel of 100,000 words, spend the same amount of time editing and polishing it as you would 20 short stories, and have a novel you could shop around to agents and publishers, or publish yourself.
The reward: a novel you could perhaps have some significant success with, a better writing skill set, and a pat on the back.
Either way, the investment in time and effort is the same, and you’d learn a lot about the craft of writing.
Because of that, I’d suggest you do both.
That assumes you have longer term goals for your writing career. I.e., you’d like to make enough money to become a full-time writer. Maximise your opportunities.
Personally, I think the opportunities that short stories represent to help you promote your novels is their most valuable aspect. Even if you never win a competition or struggle to get them published, you can put always the better ones up on Amazon as ‘writing samples’, teasers designed to draw people to your other works.
If you do that, put whatever price you like on them as they’re unlikely to make you any money either way, but use the opportunities Amazon provides for promotion – take advantage of all your free days, and mention those days when your stories are free on your blog, you social media outlets, and wherever else you believe is appropriate.
You might even make a little coffee money from them from Kindle Unlimited.
But don’t stop there:
Somewhere in the text (beginning or end of the short story), make sure you mention your other short stories.
Put a few chapters of the novel you want to promote at the back of each short story.
You never know what might happen. Maybe nothing. Maybe great things.
Either way, they’re an opportunity you can take advantage of.
And in the spirit of taking advantage of such opportunities, two of my short stories are coming up for free days:
Get them while they’re free, see what I did, and let me know if you think this is a good strategy or not (and if the answer’s yes, make sure you do it yourself!).
Let me know your thoughts, or otherwise how it goes for you in the comments section.
In preparation for publishing my upcoming novel Divine Prey (see how I cleverly mentioned that so nobody would notice what I was doing? Subtle, huh?), I’ve put a few short stories up on Amazon to see how the process works. Putting stories on Amazon is pretty simple once you work it out.
Getting stories up there isn’t the issue though. Getting them in front of people takes a little more effort.
Putting anything on Amazon is a bit like winning the lottery; the chance of winning is only slightly more likely than not having a ticket.
So I’ve started experimenting with the marketing options on Amazon to increase my chances of having even a slight win. I’ve tried giveaways in the past. Now for Countdown Deals.
Apparently you can’t do a Countdown Deal if your story’s at the minimum purchase price of 99 cents.
That means raising the price to $2.99, but considering I wasn’t selling any at 99 cents it’s hardly a threat to my prosperity.
After one Countdown Deal for the short story Merrie Dawn, I didn’t get any interest at all. Not even a single page read on Kindle Unlimited.
Mind you, I didn’t advertise at all either.
I just wanted to see what might happen when the price dropped (back) to 99 cents for a week. Nothing, apparently.
The next short story, Wyvern’s Blood, is now on a Countdown Deal. Just to see if it was an aberration, I haven’t mentioned it on social media at all.
By the time I publish this post the deal will be just about over. So far, no interest. No downloads. No page reads.
I guess that answers some questions – putting stories on Countdown Deals alone won’t do anything, but at least I know that now. It’s not an assumption.
The next story off the shelf and into a Countdown Deal is Any Job in a Haze, which begins its deal on March 19 (that was a hint in case you missed it).
This time I’ll mention it on social media and see if there are any differences in results. A single download or page read would be a difference.
After that, I’ve got another short story to upload. I’ll put it up as a giveaway and mention it on social media.
All in all, it appears that offering something cheaply or free on Amazon won’t do your sales any good unless you also advertise it in some way.
What works best though? Let me know if you’ve had any success. Or failures.
For a while now I’ve been trying to work out what I wanted to do with this blog.
I’ve largely talked about the process of writing and traditional publishing, which is the journey I’ve been on until a year or two.
Because of that I don’t want to make this my author website, so if you’re interested in my stories (as opposed to my writing processes) visit My Author Website and subscribe or sign up for my newsletter to keep informed.
As I’m about to focus on self-publishing my first novel soon, so I thought I might share my experiences here.
Therefore…
So far I’ve written several novels, with the main focus on the novel now called Divine Prey (formerly Prophecy of Power or a similar iteration).
I gained an agent and a publisher for it. Unfortunately the agent quit the business and the publisher folded, leaving me where I before landing the agent.
I could have started that process again – looked for another agent and publisher, but the process was drawn out over several years and there were a few things involved in it that I really don’t want to revisit, like the time it took or giving other people control of the process.
Traditional publishing wasn’t an experience I felt comfortable with, though having an agent in your corner is a really good validation for your writing.
However, having chosen to go down the self-publishing path I have full control of everything, but I also have to take responsibility for everything.
The first part of that is ensuring the story is in a state fit for publishing; a product as good as what you’d see from any big publisher (hopefully).
Big ask.
So after far many rounds of editing and rewriting, I’ve now got it to a state I’m happy with. At the end of last year I also had it proofread by Jo Clay, a fantastic author and editor.
Les Petersen has also produced some professional cover art for me.
The next steps are:
apply the proofreading Jo did for me
complete the cover, including:
front
spine
rear (including the blurb)
lay out the interior (text), including:
front matter
story
back matter
publish
ebook
print (three versions which I can take to trade shows like Supanova and ComiCon)
I might need to produce slightly different layouts/covers for the different versions
I’d like to have all that done by the end of February. If I get the time, I’ll outline the process here as I go, or if not, afterward.
Don’t forget to visit My Author Website and subscribe to the blog or sign up for my (highly infrequent) author newsletter.
Every year I go out of my way to try and figure out what I have on, what’s coming up, and what I want to do with it all. Last year I also chose a word to go with it all: Achieve. Next year, the word is: Focus.
Usually what all this means is coming up with a ‘to do’ list which I rarely revisit and check off. In 2018 I’m taking a simpler approach.
I want to achieve three (writing) things in 2018:
Publish a novel (Divine Prey – formerly Prophecy of Power) by the end of February, but I’ll accept the end of March if life gets in the way. The goal though is February.
Edit another novel so it’s ready for publication (I have four first drafts to choose from). Ideally, I’d like to publish this novel late next year, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself on that. I’m trying to keep it simple.
Outline and write a brand new novel (the outlining has already began).
It’s a bit of work and I’ve got a few other things on, but three specific, simple goals should be something I can achieve – and it avoids the long list of tick off items I usually ignore. When it comes down to it, I’d rather kick one or two of those goals than tick off ‘to do list’ items that rarely amount to anything concrete.
Longer stories tend to include more characters than shorter stories, creating more complexity, but more opportunities as well.
For a novel there’s a minimum number of characters you’re likely to need. These are:
your protagonist
your antagonist
what’s known as an ‘influence’ or ‘relationship’ or ‘insight’ character. This is the person who ‘helps’ your protagonist see some truth about themselves and opens their way to the story’s resolution.
In a novel, other than your core three characters, you could expect at least a few more ancillary characters, giving you a well of potential conflicts and story-lines. This potential is derived from things like:
personalities
cultures
character histories
secrets
needs
wants
desires, etc.
When you’re creating a support cast it helps to think in terms of conflict – what drives characters and what that means to each other and the protagonist.
People holding hands and singing hymns don’t generally make for riveting reading until you mix in some drama, and drama is derived from conflict. If a character doesn’t bring conflict to the story they’re not paying their way, so consider getting rid of them.
For example, in the hand-holding hymn-singing scenario I just mentioned, everything is perfect… zzzz… until one of the singers keels over, foaming at the mouth from an exotic poison.
Interested now?
Who did it?
Why?
(and more importantly) Who’s next?
Consider the same concept in terms of our own cast of characters. Rose:
wakes up to discover she’s now a dryad, but thinks that’s just grand and so does everyone she tells (lots of hugs and kisses)
wonders off into the woods to be one with the trees
has the full support of everyone she knows.
The end… Riveting, right? Not.
Alternatively. Rose:
must come to terms with what she’s become (internal conflict)
needs to save herself and her daughter from the bad guy who wants to use and destroy her (interpersonal conflict)
has to save the dryad world (including herself) and possibly the extended magical world from enslavement and annihilation (external conflict and story threat)
Far more dramatic. To do all that though, she might need help.
Rose Thorn’s possible relationships (at the beginning of the story) could include:
Family (parents, siblings, daughter)
Friends (social)
Husband, ex-husband
Lover, ex-lovers
Work/business associates
Police (perhaps one specific officer investigating her case who just won’t let it go?)
A medical person who attended to her when she ‘returned’
The dryad who made her what she’s becoming
Christian Godson himself? (former lover and apparent friend? betrayer?)
The people Christian hates. Let’s call them the druids – a very secretive and powerful organisation of long-lived people.
It’s a simple question of asking who from the above list would bring the most conflict to the story on all kinds of levels.
How are her friends going to react to her change?
Who’s going to support her and who’s going to reject her?
Who’s going to turn on or betray her?
Who thinks they can take advantage of Rose’s situation?
Who already knows about the situation (druids? Christian?)?
Is the police officer or medic interested enough to pursue the issue – do they cause complications for Rose or her daughter Hope? Etc.
Christian Godson’s possible relationships:
The dryad who ‘made’ Rose
His henchmen?
The group of long-lived relatives who kicked him out of the club and who he now wants to destroy
Friends?
Lovers?
Business associates?
Druids?
Corrupt police?
People he’s blackmailing?
Rose herself?
Questions:
Who does Christian know and how will they be involved?
Can he blackmail the cop to ‘not’ investigate?
Can he buy off the medic (or kill them)?
How many henchmen does he have, if any?
What has he promised them?
Does he have a best friend or a jealous lover?
What are his long-lost relatives doing about the situation?
Is someone looking to take advantage of him and his longevity?
By asking these sorts of questions story possibilities begin to appear. Who else might be involved? How can we use these characters to provide setbacks for Rose and/or Christian? How can they be used to hurt Rose or frustrate Christian?
What about Rose’s daughter, Hope? Who does she know that could become involved in this story? What could they possibly bring to the situation? How can they influence Hope’s choices?
Last weekend I had a fantastic time mentoring emerging writers at the Writers of the South Coast Writing Retreat. I love being surrounded by writers. With so much creativity and enthusiasm it’s impossible not to come away motivated and ready to take on the publishing world.
And that’s where today’s post comes in. Harry Connolly has kindly agreed to let me share his advice on his book marketing and promotional experiences, particularly in relation to launching a first book.
Thank you so much for your time Harry. Take it away!
Book launches
You’d generally want more than a few months to launch a book, but if it’s your first and you’re self-publishing it won’t matter as much.
According to figures I heard a long time ago, the number one reason readers buy a book is because they’ve read and enjoyed one of the author’s other books. Number two is the recommendation of a friend. All other reasons, from title to cover art to whatever, are in the single digits.
Since you can’t target an existing group of readers with a first book you’re going to have to aim for the second: good word of mouth.
To do that you should have three areas to focus on:
reviews
exposure for the book
exposure for the author.
First, reviews
Reviews are the best and the most difficult to get.
I would suggest you start first with Booklife, the self-pub review arm of Publishers Weekly. Getting a star from them was a great boost, and reviews from places with prestigious names make for great blurbs on your Amazon page.
Cover
Do you have a great cover yet? You’ll need one before you send the book for reviews. A great cover assures the reader that the book is professional and worth picking up.
You should also target other reviewers who handle self-published work. Make careful notes of the lead times for each reviewer and follow their guidelines explicitly. Make it easy for them to pick you over one of the dozen other authors who sent books that week.
Second, exposure of the book
You’ll want a pithy way to describe it, first as a one or two paragraph description of the setup, then as a log line.
Traditionally, log lines are thought of as “[Protagonist] much [goal] before [plot deadline] or else [consequence of failure]” but it doesn’t have to be. That’s just a place to start, and the real task is to highlight what you think is cool and unique about your story.
When I was Kickstarting The Great Way I described the books as “A sentient curse causes the collapse of an empire.” That worked, but I still got questions from people who thought a log line-style description was supposed to focus on the protagonist.
And yeah, that’s a good starting point. But it’s like The Hero’s Journey or other plot frameworks: It’s a proven and effective method, but if you know what you’re doing you can do what you like.
The biggest risk you face with a first book is obscurity, so you want an appealing cover and title.
You want to quickly describe the book in a way that catches interest, and you want other people – preferably people who are not family or friends – telling everyone they know that your book is awesome.
To do that you need to get people reading it and that means complementary copies given out with the understanding that they’ll write an honest review.
First rule is to never send a book to someone without their permission.
The second is to never react to a negative review. When you ask for an honest review you have to accept what you get.
As Jim Macdonald says, responding to reviews is the ABM (Author’s Big Mistake).
Social media
Do you know people with a large social media presence? Are you guys sort of friendly? Ask if they’d be willing to read your book for an honest review. Include the (excellent) cover and the intriguing description.
Next, skim through Goodreads and Amazon for books that are very like yours and find reader-reviewers who:
are open to reviewing self-published work (because they’ve reviewed it in the past)
read a lot of books (so they’re more likely to actually review your work)
get a lot of responses to their reviews (because they have a significant number of followers)
show enthusiasm for the genre
favorably review books similar to yours (in other words, don’t send grimdark to the reader who only gives 5 stars to Terry Pratchett),
You don’t want to give your book to someone who is famous for snark, either.
Research
Start compiling names and contact information. Some of the top Goodreads reviewers will get a lot of contacts, so target ones with smaller followings. Send them messages with the same offer as the other reviewers. Send them books only if they ask for them.
You’ll need to send the book to as many people as you can because the enemy here is obscurity, and of course it’s cheap to attach an ebook to an email.
But you don’t want to send copies to places that are unfriendly to the sort of book you’ve written since that wastes your time and ensures a negative review, even if the book is good. So, when you make your list of reviewers, include the ones who seem inappropriate, either because of tone or preference, but mark them as inappropriate somehow. Red text works for me. That way, if you see the same somewhat generic name more than once you won’t waste time researching them and ruling them out.
But don’t worry about lost sales. Keep in mind that while review sites will often expect their review to come out on or near a publication date, readers are less picky and you can often offer books weeks or months after it comes out.
If you’re getting five-star reviews that will help sell the book.
Third, self-promotion
Last is to promote yourself, which is the weakest promo method.
Do you have a platform that will impress people, like teaching medieval history in college or teaching longsword? Mention that.
Are you well-known in some other field, like film reviews, tech reviews, that sort of thing? See if there are ways to leverage that by including your book title in the bio line of your articles.
Offering books to your co-workers, I’ve found, is a waste of time. Unless a person reads a lot – and I mean, a lot – people place no value on things they get for free and they’ll never look at what you give them.
Besides, word of mouth from strangers is always stronger than word of mouth from friends and family. “Read this awesome book!” is great. “Read this awesome book that my cousin wrote” less so.
You can try blog tours and such. I’ve done it. I think they’re most useful for established authors to remind readers that they’re still around writing books.
Good marketing
A great title is good marketing. A memorable author name is good marketing.
George RR Martin doesn’t really have to middle names starting with “R”. In reality, he realized that “George Martin” doesn’t really stand out, and he added the initials to make himself easier to remember.
But the best marketing of all is a great book. You could spend a year walking all over the country with a sandwich board sign telling people that your novel is exciting and fun, but it will never be as effective as the testimonial of a few complete strangers. And you only get one shot with those strangers, so it’s better to delay the release of your book if you can’t make reviewers’ deadlines or don’t have your cover sorted.
So offer free books on Twitter.
Put yourself out there as a writer with a message.
Do all the things that make lucky people lucky.
Try to get that word of mouth churning.
If you’ve written the right book and you have a bit of luck, you can start prepping for book 2. Good luck.
If you’re an avid reader you’ve probably found yourself halfway through a book or even approaching the end without any idea where the story’s going.
The cause could be that the story doesn’t have a main problem (or a strong enough problem).
Imagine how Star Wars would have played out if we weren’t shown early on that R2D2 contained the plans to the Death Star. Luke would have blundered from event to event before finally stumbling upon the Rebel base. “Oh! So that’s why the Empire was chasing me…”
In Star Wars, the problem was the Empire’s control and use of the Death Star. The stolen plans were the solution – revealed during the opening battle. The basic structure surrounding the problem in Star Wars was:
plans revealed
empire hunts for plans
plans lead to death star’s destruction.
This simple story problem provides clarity and focus for the entire movie.
Take a look at almost anything that’s been successful; books movies, whatever – there’s usually a very simple or obvious story problem driving the overarching story. For example:
Die hard: a group of thieves (terrorists) take over the Nakatomi Plaza building – big problem for the people caught in the building.
The Matrix: the machines use the matrix to enslave humanity – big problem for humanity.
Any romance: the inability of the main characters to get together.
Any murder mystery: the likelihood a murderer will get away with the crime (and/or do it again).
All these story problems are revealed or hinted at early on. That doesn’t mean you need to reveal your secrets early on, just the problem (or a part of it).
So if one main problem is good, two must be better, right? Not necessarily.
Two main problems
Give a story two equally important problems and you may end up with something like the movie ‘Hancock’. Hancock’s two main problems are solved in turn:
The first main problem is Hancock’s attitude – he’s an alcoholic superhero and his own worst enemy. To solve the problem he needs to change his attitude. He tackles the issue with the help of a new friend. That problem gets solved half way through the movie, at which point the movie requires a brand new problem.
The second main problem reveals another character with superpowers like Hancock’s. The redemption story then turns into an origin story; he needs to solve the mystery of his origins. It’s a very different story and a very different problem.
This means Hancock is a story that doesn’t know what it’s trying to be or do. It has an identity crisis.
Structurally, Hancock works like it’s the first two episodes in a television series shown back-to-back. While there’s a through-line focused around an antagonist that appears in both halves of the movie, the antagonist’s purpose isn’t an overarching problem.
Therefore, unless viewers love both stories and they’re willing to ignore their expectations about how a story normally works, they’re going to be disappointed.
Multiple problems
Your story can have any number of problems needing solutions, but each problem needs to contribute to the overarching storyline and its associated main problem. Story problems can’t be tackled in isolation; that’s what episodic drama is all about (TV shows, standalone books in a series, web series, etc., and even then there’s usually an overarching problem uniting all the parts).
In the case of Hancock the overarching problem probably should have been ‘figure out your origins or lose your superpowers’. If that meant he’d be forced to change his attitude in order to figure out his origins, then perfect. They would build on each other.
Similarly, our dryad story has several potential problems the protagonist needs to solve:
Who is Rose? Is it a story about identity?
Who’s after her and how does she stop them?
Can Rose save her daughter (does she need to save her daughter to gain enough confidence to achieve something even greater)?
Is the main problem the need to save (or free) the dryads from extinction or slavery?
Does Rose need to save the world?
Let’s go with all of the above points contributing to the major problem: ‘save the world’.
Although Rose will need to solve all sub-problems before she can save the world, each problem must contribute something to her journey – confidence, knowledge, etc. Exactly how that plays out is debatable, but let’s run with it.
How do you figure out your own story’s problem ?
To find your story problem, think ‘end-game’ rather than ‘start of story’.
Your protagonist probably won’t even know there’s a problem at the beginning of the story, but your readers will need some hints.
So… as soon as possible, find a way to tip your readers off that there’s a problem worth their attention (have a princess put some plans in a droid/send agents to kill Trinity – or maybe just blow something up, that always works). And then build on it.
Do you know what your story problem is? Let me know in the comments.
For a long time I struggled to see the value of writing short stories.
In preparation for publishing my upcoming novel Divine Prey (see how I cleverly mentioned that so nobody would notice what I was doing? Subtle, huh?), I’ve put a few short stories up on Amazon to see how the process works. Putting stories on Amazon is pretty simple once you work it out.
The next short story, Wyvern’s Blood, is now on a Countdown Deal. Just to see if it was an aberration, I haven’t mentioned it on social media at all.
This time I’ll mention it on social media and see if there are any differences in results. A single download or page read would be a difference.
For a while now I’ve been trying to work out what I wanted to do with this blog.
Every year I go out of my way to try and figure out what I have on, what’s coming up, and what I want to do with it all. Last year I also chose a word to go with it all: Achieve. Next year, the word is: Focus.
Longer stories tend to include more characters than shorter stories, creating more complexity, but more opportunities as well.
Alternatively. Rose:
Christian Godson’s possible relationships:
When I was Kickstarting The Great Way I described the books as “A sentient curse causes the collapse of an empire.” That worked, but I still got questions from people who thought a log line-style description was supposed to focus on the protagonist.
When your story lacks a problem
Two main problems
How do you figure out your own story’s problem ?