Are we there yet?

 Time sure has flown by.  Between my family and work responsibilities, barely staying ahead with my writing deadlines and book marketing goals, I realize, I am way too busy.   Oh, and have I mentioned being 26 weeks pregnant? Well, for this week anyway.

I have to admit that my blog entries have been few and far in between but that will change as I am focusing on staying as current as humanly possible. My co-workers will all be shipped to various military bases, leaving me some time to relax a little this summer.  Ok, who am I kidding ?  I’ll be busy taking care of finishing the sequel to Amethyst Eyes due in October and baby is due slightly before that.  It’s going to be quite the challenge. 

Rebirth!
Emma has since been released
and AE2 is on its way.

Regardless, I have kept an eye out on all kinds of posts, blogs and articles on publishing and marketing. It is a vital part of the writing process. I was asked recently during my school chat with the Institute of Children’s Literature, about the different venues found in the ever changing world of publishing.  My answer was that the experience varies from writer to writer who have both their own feast or famine stories to tell. With all the contacts I have made in the writing world, I can find as many different ways that were attempted to get published as there are ways to tell a story.

There is no more “traditional” way to get published, because even that world has undergone a major overhaul.  You must write, read, revise and rewrite.  You must rewrite again until you are satisfied your book meets all the requirements to be published…and then hand it over for a critique and an edit.   After all that, you go back and take into consideration the editors notes, do a ‘final’ rewrite before you submit your work.  You want to share the fruit of your creative pursuits and hopefully earn some coin in the process.

So you sent your work out to potential publishers. Again.  And then again.  Yet again, just in case you missed some promising company that will agree with the exciting and unique book you have written. You might get an offer from a renowned publishing house that will take control of your work and then in the process, have you sign over your book rights.  Then your work might get the treatment you least expected, a cover you don't like, editing that looks like butchering and to top it off, little or no publicity or marketing. None of which translates into proper distribution or sales. Let’s face it…the traditional publishing houses can’t afford to go all out and promote some unknown author. They (TP) do have a distribution power unlike any Indie author can tap into without having to pay, but is it worth it in the end?

Assisted Publishing means you pay for any and all services, but you retain your rights…after a year or two, depending on your contract. They also offer portals into the bookseller world…for a cost, and we're talking a shiny penny here. However, it is a good learning experience, because they bring to light more possibilities than you can imagine, so if you are willing to learn, you will know how to build up your platform and what steps to take by being observant.

The cover for AE was to be more like this one

 than the almost black one they published

 without even showing me. Look up on the left 

side of the blog page, you'll see what I mean.

You can retain all control by self-publishing making you the independent author with limited everything but you stay in control of your work that you spent all kinds of time, energy and effort writing.  BUT! If your graphic skills and editing abilities are lacking, then for the love of Pete…pay someone to handle it. You get one and only one shot at a ‘first impression’…and there are no 'do-overs'.   SOmeone who decides to totally self-publish has a lot more work than just writing a great story. you have to oversee the edit, formatting of the various ebook formats, get your cover art, layout and Lord help us all, marketing. You must keep having faith in your abilities to get your work out there and if not, do everything in your power to learn how to do so.  You have the magic.

Oh, on the editing side…I remember a ‘conversation’ where some indie authors were complaining about the ISBN fees. I had to wonder if they had paid someone to edit their work or not…because editing can cost anywhere from $500-$900 per novel depending on work involved and length. If they were not willin gto pay for their ISBN, did they bother to get an editor? 

I liked my 1st editor’s comment… "If I don't think the book is worthy; I won't waste my time or your money on it." I appreciated her honesty and had her edit my novel.

If there is one piece of advice I can give authors and aspiring authors it's this...don't skimp on the details. Editing is the most important part of publishing, taking for granted you have a great story, and the cover should be right up there on your priority list.  After that, roll up your sleeves and get on the promotions/marketing bandwagon. It's one heck of a ride. Oh~ and remember this bit I was handed by an experienced, successful author, when blogging and promoting, don't overdo it. No one wants to come across as one of those pesky sales people, landing at your feet before the door has closed behind you. No more than 10-15% self promotion.

Edit and Revise, show some pride in your work and spare the reader!

Hi!

Recently I posted an offer from Kristi Holl to edit and critique your Children's-YA manuscripts. Today I want to introduce you to yet another special person, who has a sharp eye and critical mind to help improve your labour of love.

Meet Ursula,

Ursula deals with YA, and adult manuscripts.

Now before you read her little excerpt, allow me to add this...when she talks about riding the train for 2 hours a day, it's to go and do what she does best...work with documents. She spends her days dealing with more formal (boring) words on paper...and has been doing so for many, many years. She's very good at what she does and in applying her technical skills and eagle eye to your manuscripts, you come out with a polished, professional document.
She works at the rate of $1/page, and asks for a deposit, but she will work out the details with you.

Here's what she has to say...

I love books. I have loved them as a teenager, burning my blanket with the lamp as I hid under it so I could read way past curfew. I loved them as a woman in labour, escaping to medieval Japan, far away from labour pains, and I now enjoy riding in the train for two hours a day being able to indulge in my passion for reading. They bring me comfort, take me away to another world, distract and excite me, they inspire me to do and be more by giving me ideas for my own evolution. In short, books are a huge part of my life.

When my best friend began writing, I had the privilege and pleasure of following the story as it was unfolding. In the process, I discovered that I actually had a very good antenna for grammatical errors, bad formulations, and an unerring eye for typos. These things just bothered me. They ripped me out of the world the book had brought me into and stopped the dream. My friend appreciated the input I could give her, and I think I have contributed a little bit to the excellent book she has since published. I have read some of the other books of new writers, beginners and more seasoned artists, and, because of my electronic reader, I have often downloaded free and cheap books. And I have discovered a whole plague of typos, errors, and bad writing. This never happened before the days of self-publishing and computers. Things like that would never ever have been published. And I believe they still shouldn’t be dumped on an unsuspecting public. I can read a mediocre or slightly boring story, or one that I do not agree with, if it is superbly written and in a beautiful language. But give me the best, most suspenseful, emotional, descriptive narrative, and after a few pages of silly, unnecessary mistakes that keep throwing me off the path, I will put the book down and never finish it. I would like to offer you my services to read your stories before you send them off into the world, and to correct simple typos, grammatical errors, repetitions, and other unnecessary evils. I will suggest small changes if I find a lack of clarity, or some clearly unintentional confusion, and make sure that your future readers will get the full enjoyment out of your works of love. If you need more information or want to “try me out” with a few pages or short stories, please feel free to contact me at writerfix@yahoo.ca , and I will show you what a difference I can make.

Critiques by Kristi Holl

When you think about the hours, months and possibly even years it took you to write your book, you should be the first to acknowledge that having your work professionally edited is the next logical step. It is the one step you should never, ever skip. I am not going to go on and on about this, I am going to introduce you to a very special woman.

Ms Krists Holl

Kristi Holl is an award-winning author of 41 books for children, two nonfiction books for writers (Writer’s First Aid and More Writer’s First Aid), and over 150 stories and articles for children and adults, as well as conference speaker. Two-thirds of her books are middle-grade novels. She also taught writing for 27 years and has done freelance editing for two publishers.

Kristi understands that publishing has changed and is unlikely to go back to the times when her first books were published by Atheneum. At that time, editors had much more time to critique an author’s work and help him or her get it ready for publication. Her critique service fills a void that was left after corporate take-overs and reduced staff left many editors too swamped to work closely with writers to polish their work. These days, to stand a chance with a traditional publisher, your book manuscript must land on an editor’s desk in very “clean” shape.

“I prefer to critique middle grade (8-12) or tween (10-14) or teen (12-16) novels or nonfiction,” Kristi says on her website. “I like to receive the entire manuscript in the mail, double-spaced and printed on one side of the paper. I make comments directly on the manuscript as I read. Then I write a lengthy (4-6) single-spaced letter of comments to go with the manuscript critique, pointing out areas of strength and weakness, plus writing instruction to improve the manuscript.

“I charge $40 per hour. The average 25,000- to 30,000-word novel takes me about 5-6 hours. I return edited manuscripts with critiques to writers within two weeks—usually less. I ask for a $50 deposit to be included when you mail me the manuscript, then the rest is due after I complete the critique. I send a bill for the remainder when I return the manuscript. Keep the bill for your tax records, as it is deductible as a business expense. If this interests you, let me know, and I'll send you my street address. Contact me at Kristi.Holl@gmail.com.”

Making Your Way as an Author

Since I have published my book I have had great pleasure in meeting other authors. I can honestly say I have found an amazing group people from around the world who all share something in common with me, and that’s the love of writing and story telling.

Another thing we have in common is marketing.

Where we may differ is as vast as the ocean…and that’s anything from simple differences like being traditionally, assisted or self-published, to formally trained in writing and journalism or a moonlighter with literary aspirations.

Although I have taken writing courses, which include all kinds of training and preparation from writing short stories, articles and novels to finding an agent or publisher, one thing lacking in these courses is anything and everything to do with marketing. Now don’t get me wrong, I love what I have learned, but I would have gladly taken an extra semester that included marketing.

So, here you are the published author…I guess you could compare that to being dropped into a canoe in the middle of the woods, paddle in hand. Note that I did not say “on or near” the water. That’s because you have to start paddling right where you are, to the nearest stream that might lead to a river or lake. Then what? You are still a long way from the ocean and paddling through gravel isn’t easy.

Once you hit water, you find yourself surrounded by others, paddling feverishly toward the next segment or body of water.

Every author knows all too well the amount of work they’ve invested in their manuscript. So why not make sure what your marketing has every chance of making it to the ocean? How? By making sure some simple principles have been followed.

1) Have your work edited, critiqued and revised.

2) Make sure your book cover is a good one…too often Indie authors have slapped whatever/however on their book. Now this is where countless Indie authors will pipe in telling me just how much time/effort/money went into their covers. My point here is that a few bad ones taint the pool, unfortunately labelling the lot.

3) If you are formatting your ebook on your own and do not have the money to have it done right, then ASK SOMEONE. There are other authors willing to help. Bad grammar is one thing, but getting author name and page number smack dab in the middle of your sentence is annoying.

By following these few tips you now have a quality product to promote.

Here are some things to consider while you’re promoting:

1) Develop your author platform and begin letting people know you’re out there. Pace yourself so that you can keep on top of your pages/sites. Doing too much too fast will show.

2) Join groups and cross market one another. I was told in a webinar that more than 10% self-promoting can turn people off of you. Host authors on your blog, do fun interviews and giveaways.

3) Look into Author Solutions, Writer’s Digest and similar places to keep up with the changing trends, get marketing tips and tools, (they offer free webinars). Get onboard with Goodreads (various groups), there are more threads than is humanly possible to follow from blog tours to reviews and cross-promoting.

4) Consider entering your work into contests. The recognition gained is priceless.

5) Participate in author presentations, book signings and book fairs to give yourself the chance to meet readers and become ‘real’ to them.

OK, so let’s say we’ve made it into a larger body of water…now what?

My best advice comes back to pacing yourself because aside from paying someone to handle your marketing, there’s no way out of it. You will have to roll up your sleeves and paddle your way along the current. Once you get a rhythm going enjoy yourself. Have fun meeting other authors, bloggers, and readers. I must say there are some great people out there and I am thrilled to have made some new friends.

 We are going to be talking with author M.J. Kane shortly, and not only will she be presenting her novel Butterfly Memoirs, but she has a few stories of her own to tell. So, stay tuned.

What's in a Review

As an author, reviews, opinions and constructive criticism are a crucial part of what we do. There is just no way around it, and we either work hard, getting all the comments, feedback and critique we can BEFORE we publish, or after. If we have hurried through the process it will show in the end result and comments. So please, do not take offense or be surprised by negative reviews…they serve an all important purpose; to make us better writers and to help us polish our work.

It does not help to write a false-positive review because we are afraid to hurt the author’s (and possibly a friend’s) feelings. In fact, we are not helping at all. If you choose to write alone, without feedback, then pay for a professional editing of the manuscript. This is something that should be done in any case, but especially if you were the only one to review the piece. Our mind gets to the point where it will add in missing words and skip over spelling mistakes…and if the misspelled word is still a word (like bend – end) the auto correct won’t pick it up either.

Join a critique group. Listen to their feedback. You do not have to make all suggested changes; it might help you solidify your point by adding back story to it, or might just let you know that you are on the right track. Regardless, you cannot and should not do without someone (and preferably up to ten people) giving you feedback. They are not in your head, they do not know what’s going on behind what you have written, and they will be able to notice missing links, characterization flaws, plot errors and such.

So, just as rejection letters are part of the job, so are negative reviews. Personally, I prefer to get my negative comments BEFORE I publish, so that I can make as many corrections and improvements as possible. However, if you have skipped these important steps, be forewarned…there’s just no escaping the red pen.

Oh, and if you are given a negative review…don’t take it out on the reviewer. Show some measure of maturity and dignity by choosing to learn from your mistakes.

Just as I was going to press the "Publish Post" button I came across this from a fellow author...

Elle LaPraim
This is me right now, in editing hell. I hate editing. The first two drafts are so painful, I would rather do just about anything else besides edit. BUT, doing the hard work is what separates the people who will be an author, from the people who just dream about it.

Revising and Editing your Manuscript

I probably spent more time reading and revising my manuscript than I had spent writing it. Until you actually go through this process, it is difficult to grasp just how many hours are involved.

I was fortunate enough to have a friend who read every chapter, over and over, along with me. This gave me an outside voice, and an opinion that helped me examine what I had written. I did not make every change she suggested, but her comments helped me make necessary adjustments, pointed out missing details, and so much more. (Sometimes there were details that I knew about the story, but had failed to share with my readers).

Using my Kindle (Amazon e-reader), I listened as it read my story back to me. Paying attention to the flow of the words and catching an occasional spelling mistake, I really appreciated this feature. When we read the story aloud, we can add missing words or skip over other mistakes without even realising we’re doing it. The Kindle proved to be an immense help.

Once these steps were covered, I shared my manuscript with a larger group of readers. I chose a group of readers, both male and female, that included every possible age group and genre. In writing a YA adventure, I knew that giving my manuscript to a Stephen King/Dean Koontz fan I was setting myself up for an interesting review. Imagine my surprise when she told me she had really liked it!

Taking my work one step further, I sent the manuscript to a professional for editing. Before she started in on all my hard work, she warned me that if she didn’t think the story was up to par she would not waste her time (or my money) on it. Which I thought was fair.

Holding my breath as I awaited the return of my precious package, I was thrilled to read the six-page letter that accompanied the manuscript. She liked it! She said she had thoroughly enjoyed it. After allowing myself a huge sigh of relief and one of my biggest smiles, I started on the revision of my manuscript once again.

One last time, I shared it with my reading group and awaited their comments.

Finally, I was ready to submit my manuscript. I could have continued to read and revise, but at one point you start changing words, only to change them back…a sure sign that it’s time to stop.

I’ll cover the submission stories in a later post.

For now, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year!