Category Archives: Guest Posts

Jess Owen: Kickstarter – The Indie Author’s New Secret Weapon

Guest Post by Jess Owen

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter yet, as soon as you finish this article you’re going to be inundated with emails from old friends, family members and distant colleagues asking you to support their Kickstarter campaign. Just wait.

So what is it? A streamlined, user-friendly website to facilitate an idea called crowd funding. The folks at Kickstarter believe that, “…a good idea, communicated well, can spread fast and wide,”* . . . and gain support. Monetary support. What began as a grass roots fund raising method for indie music bands has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon that gives individuals the financial power to see any creative project through to completion, and gain a tribe of new friends and fans in the process.

Artists, musicians, authors, inventors, restaurateurs, film makers, you name it, Kickstarter supports it.

All you need is one tangible project, a timeline, a bag of goodies to hand out at the end, and you are ready to dive in. Don’t forget a “can-do attitude.”

I used Kickstarter to fund the hardback printing of my debut novel, Song of the Summer King. Rather than turn to POD, I decided to research printers in order to gain a wide view of all available options to the modern self-publisher. While I waffled on how best to go about paying for and distributing my book, a friend mentioned Kickstarter.

This is how it works: an individual creates a project. This must be a tangible goal with an end date and a product (like an album, a book, an art show; no “fund my life” projects). For me, it was printing the hardback book. A traditionally published author might want to create a whole bunch of snazzy schwag for her launch event, but not have enough funds. Kickstarter can do that too. Once you create your project, you figure how much money you need, set the financial goal, give yourself a time limit within the maximum of 6o days, and launch! (For more detailed information on the mechanics, read through the Kickstarter School on their web page.)

I raised $9,000 in thirty days, with an initial goal of $6,000. Here’s how I did it.

I found my audience. It is critical that you know where to find the people who will actually want to read your book. If this is starting to sound like every other writing article on marketing, it should. If you don’t understand marketing yet, it will be difficult for you to succeed with Kickstarter or any other fund raising program. Kickstarter is basically a way for readers to pre-order your book, plus fun and prizes. So know where your peeps are, and how to get their attention. I write fantasy, and for years have also been a minor member of the fantasy art community. Still, this was a place to start. I began to draw a lot more gryfons and wolves when I knew I was going to self-publish, and with that work, I started to attract fans, fellow artists and readers with those interests.

In other words, I built a platform. Start doing that now, no matter what stage you’re in.

Next, involve your family and friends. My family and friends were my biggest supporters. I hope yours are too. If they aren’t, go to your chosen family, your good friends, your writing buddies, your neighbors, church-whoever supports you. Don’t be ashamed that you’re asking for money, either. Be proud! Be excited! You have created something, or you’re certainly about to, and the people who love you will be excited for you.

Have a plan. I had a plan to give interest a boost at the beginning of each week of my campaign. The first week was family and friends. The second week, I had artists post pieces of special promotional works centered around my book. Yes, I had to pay for them, but I was supporting other artists. Also, their work was better than a simple advertisement, because their 10,000 interested fans were suddenly looking at beautiful pieces of art about my book, with links back to Kickstarter. The next week I was in my hometown newspapers, and after that, I appealed to bloggers. It doesn’t matter what your plan involves, as long as it targets your audience base.

As far as figuring out rewards and timeline, I researched other projects. Art featured heavily in my rewards, because I’m close to the fantasy art community. I picked a cover artist who appeals to my target audience, and offered prints of her work at several reward tiers. I was also surprised that my own artwork was a relatively popular reward option.

Choose rewards that are pertinent to your story. Got a cool sci-fi novel? Get nifty badges or buttons or figure out a way to do super slick holographic bookmarks. Think of what you’d want in a grab bag from your favorite author, and offer that stuff as rewards. Study what other publishing projects are offering. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just figure out what’s already working.

Remember to factor the cost of rewards into your funding goal. This is a mistake I made, and I’ll admit it without shame. (The point is I’m wiser now . . .) Factor in rewards, shipping, and the percentage that Kickstarter takes out for processing credit cards. I asked for $6,000, raised $9,000, and walked away with $8,110 because of the processing fees and people whose pledges didn’t go through. I had just enough to cover my project.

Aside from all the technical information, what I will say is what I think Kickstarter, and websites like it, mean for authors-particularly, self-published authors. Many aspiring authors have sometimes said or thought, “If I could just get my work out to the people, they would love it.” Well now’s the time to saddle up. You can use Kickstarter to raise money for that professional editor, cover artist, layout and lettering designer, and any other initial costs associated with self-publishing.

We are in the Information Age. Anyone who understands how to move information and get it to the masses will succeed. Writers who can track down and target their fan base will sell books. Now, that fan base can invest even more love and support by actually helping you publish your work. The psychological power of active community support is going to be huge in the near future. Your fans are not just fans anymore. They’re investors. They’re partners. They’re going to be excited for more than just your next book, they’re going to be excited for you. And that is priceless.

Kickstarter and other websites that facilitate crowd funding are about more than just money. They’re about community. They help you find your fans, your friends, your colleagues. They help you build your tribe. The people who pledge to your project don’t just want to buy your book. They want to help worthy dreams come true and watch people succeed. And they want to be a part of it. Even if you’re an independent author, there’s no reason you have to do it alone.

To me, that’s pretty darn exciting.

Guest Writer Bio: Jess has been creating works of fantasy art and fiction for over a decade, and founded her own publishing company, Five Elements Press, to publish her own works and someday, that of others. She’s a proud member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Authors of the Flathead. She lives with her husband in the mountains of northwest Montana, which offer daily inspiration for creating worlds of wise, wild creatures, magic, and adventure. Jess can be contacted directly through her website, www.jessowen.com, or the SOTSK facebook fan page, www.facebook.com/songofthesummerking

Eric Edstrom: It Worked, It Failed – Lessons Learned in Indie Publishing

Guest post by Eric Edstrom

On December 24th, 2011, I clicked “save and publish” on Amazon’s KDP platform to launch my very first novel, Undermountain. A few hours later the book appeared for sale on Amazon.

Relief and satisfaction washed through me. I had realized a life-long dream, a biggie from the bucket list. I had done it. I’d written and published a novel.

I relaxed and smiled. No more pages of edits to go through, no irritating “track changes” issues to deal with from an editor, no more “when will your little book be out?” questions from doubters.

I’ve done this twice since then. In January of 2012 I published a little non-fiction ebooklet about writing lyrics for the Nashville music scene. And on July 1st I released Afterlife, the sequel to Undermountain.

I don’t claim to be an expert. If anything, I’m an advanced beginner. But I do have enough experience to offer insights into what has and has not worked for me as an indie author.

1. Goodreads.

Although many authors fear Goodreads due to trolls torpedoing authors’ books, I’ve found a friendly and welcoming community there. I wouldn’t have half the reviews I have without them. There are a number of Goodreads groups (basically discussion forums) with dedicated topics for “Authors Requesting Reviews” or ARR. Join one, read the ARR rules, introduce yourself, offer up free copies, and be patient. And it’s pretty much a no brainer, give a free e-copy of your book to anyone who promises to review it. It worked!

2. Hiring editing and proofreading services.

I worked with two editors. The first one did an okay job, but mostly just pointed out that my book was crap. I rewrote a bunch of it and then worked with Joshua Essoe, who helped me beat it into shape. After that I hired a proofreader. Notice I’m not mentioning who did that. I should have done an extra proofreading round after that. It worked. Lesson learned: ask for references.

3. Sourcing cover art through Crowdspring.com.

This worked, but it made the cost higher due to Crowdspring’s listing fees. I listed a project there, set my price, and then waited for designers to submit concepts. I gave feedback and encouragement to some of them, and eventually chose the cover you see for Undermountain (which is awesome according to everyone). Since then I’ve worked directly with the artist on the sequels. It worked! Lesson learned: It’s cheaper to work with artists directly. Find unknowns on deviantart.com and conceptart.org.

4. Hiring services to prepare my manuscript to feed into Smashword’s infamous meatgrinder conversion software.

I did this for Undermountain because I was exhausted and couldn’t face reading Smashword’s style guide. I paid ebookartisandesign.com $50 to do it. It worked!

5. Preparing my manuscript for the meatgrinder myself for book 2.

It’s actually not that hard to do if you clear space in your calendar and mind to just do it. It worked!

6. Hire Createspace services to create the interior layout for the POD version of my book.

I got my POD book done and ready for sale. It worked . . . but I was extremely disappointed with the speed and quality of their service. Their mistakes added three weeks to the process.

7. Create the interior layout using Word for Mac.

I did a superior quality layout for my second book in about four hours by following a tutorial I found online. If you’ve done your own prepwork for the Smashwords meatgrinder, you have the perfect starting point, BTW. It worked!

8. Dictating the first draft.

Once I got over the idea that dictation wouldn’t work for me and just did it, I found that it was insanely fast and the quality was good. I wrote a blog post on this. It worked!

9. Reserving an editor time slot before the book has been written started.

I did this on my second book because I knew Joshua’s schedule was filling up. I treated this date the same way I would a deadline for any other editor. I worked backward from that to figure out my schedule. I worked forward from that date to figure out my launch date. As a result, I launched an awesome book on time. It totally worked!

10. Tweet spamming my book.

I couldn’t help myself at first. I was so proud of my book and thought all fifty-seven of my followers would rush to Amazon and buy it. I do tweet my buy links occasionally, but for the most part I’m trying to build relationships on twitter. I have no evidence that I’ve sold a single copy due to tweeting. Tweet spamming: Fail!

11. Being afraid to push my book.

I just got done saying I was a Twitter spammer, but in real life I wouldn’t bring it up with anyone. Fail! Lesson learned: You’re not selling your book so much as you are selling yourself. Some people are good at this, some are like me. I can say with 100% confidence that I never sold a book to someone who didn’t know it existed.

12. Advertising on Facebook.

Fail! I sold nothing. I’m not saying it couldn’t work, just that it didn’t work for me. Why? Because I had no idea what I was doing. Advertising is an skill, and to do it right you really need to A/B test everything and tweak headlines.

13. Amazon Select.

Fail! (for me) I gave away thousands of free ebooks. There was no post giveaway sales boost and I got only one review as a result (it was very positive, BTW). I think my absence from other platforms set back my growth there and my sales on the big A did not go down once I left the Select program.

14. Creating a printed version of my book to boost sales.

Fail! I’ve given away way more copies than I’ve sold of my POD book. From a return on time/investment standpoint, POD was not worth it for Undermountain. And yet . . . there is nothing in the world like holding that book. Now that I know how to do interior layout myself I will continue to do them. Lesson learned: when you hire your cover artist, make sure they agree to tweak final dimensions for the wrap-around cover and placement of back cover text, etc. The issue is that you won’t know the spine dimensions until you know how many pages the book will be. And you won’t know that until the book is finished and the interior layout is complete.

15. Create an awesome book trailer that will go viral, resulting in huge sales and movie options.

Fail! I did all the work on my awesome trailer myself. It was far more expensive than it had to be because I licensed stock video and sounds from istockphoto.com and pond5.com. I already owned Final Cut and had video editing experience, so at least that didn’t cost me extra. Lesson learned: having an awesome book trailer is its own reward.

16. Speaking to a bunch of eighth graders at a local school.

It worked! Many were very interested in buying my book. Lesson learned: Make sure your your POD book is ready. This may be different now, but not one of the 100+ kids in the audience owned an ereader at the time. Due to Createspace design services slowitude, I did not have any inventory on hand. Fail!

17. Ringing up sales by obsessively refreshing the KDP, Pubit, Smashwords, and Writing Life dashboards.

Fail! I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that this is ineffective. If it was, I would be the best-selling writer in the history of the world.

Guest Writer Bio: Eric Kent Edstrom is an author, songwriter, and guitarist. The first two volumes of The Undermountain Saga, Undermountain and Afterlife, are available in ebook and trade paperback from all online retailers. Eric lives in Wisconsin with his wife and daughter.

Twitter: @ekdstrom
Facebook: facebook.com/EricKentEdstrom
Web: ericedstrom.com

The greatest YA science fiction series about bigfoot of all time: The Undermountain Saga. Book 1: Undermountain and book 2: Afterlife. The final book will launch 24 December.

Rebecca Shelley: Facing the Blank Page

Guest Post by Rebecca Shelley

I went skydiving once. It was a thrilling experience, one I hope to get the chance to do again soon. Ever since then, one moment of the whole experience has stuck out in my mind, that is the moment I stepped up to the open door on the airplane and looked down at the ground so many thousands of feet below me.

 The wind whipped my face, stinging my cheeks, and my stomach dropped to my toes. I knew I had to jump, but every instinct screamed that I should not. My instinct for self preservation had kicked in, and if I had listened, I would have missed out on one of the most exciting adventures of my life.

Fortunately I was jumping in tandem with an instructor, which means our harnesses were hooked together. He didn’t hesitate, so I couldn’t hesitate either. Together, we thrust ourselves from the plane and fell.

If you’re a writer you’ve probably experienced something similar to that moment before I jumped out of the plane-the stomach-dropping moment of opening a new file and facing the blank page. Even if you’re an experienced writer like I am and have faced that same blank page every morning for thirty years, there is still that flash moment of uncertainty. The desire for self preservation that makes you hesitate, wondering am I good enough, can I put into words the story that is swirling in my mind, what will my readers think of this, what will the reviewers or the critics say?

I’m sorry to say this moment of consternation that comes with the blank page doesn’t go away over time, the more things you published even, the more this feeling can intensify. It feels like so much is at stake and it would take almost inhuman courage to just get writing. If you’re feeling this way, it may (or may not) help to know the feeling is normal. Here’s what I do to combat it.

Jump

 Jump. Stop staring at the blank page, stop taking in the dizzying height and jump. When you first open the blank page, jump into writing as fast as you can. When I first start writing in the morning, I put my hands on the keyboard and start typing whatever comes into my head, which usually turns out to be a selfish rant about everything bugging my in my life for example:

(My carpet is terrible, I need new carpet, and paint and furniture, my stove won’t even work. I don’t dare let people come to my house until I can get it all fixed up but I don’t have money for that because all the money goes to pay school fees and medical stuff and car repairs ack. I can’t even deal with the money issue right now and I really really hate my carpet.)

My initial jump onto the page completely ignores spelling and punctuation. All I’m doing is jumping, getting my hands moving on the computer keys.

Then gradually as I type I run out of things to rant about and can start typing my feelings and impressions about the book I’m working on or about to work on. Random ideas about character, things I think I need to go back and change, how I want the scene to go. Words I might want to use in describing the setting.

At this point I’ve already jumped out of the plane and experienced free fall. Now, I pull the chute and it opens, slowing my descent. By writing about the book or scene, I’m creating a parachute which I can control and steer toward the landing spot on the ground.

That landing spot, the place where my feet touch ground, is the point where I’m fully engaged in the point of view of the character in the scene I’m working on. I’ve left behind my real life and all its problems as I fell and worked my way into the life and problems of my character and am ready to live the book I’m writing.

So here’s my challenge to myself and everyone out there facing the blank page. Jump!

For those of you who take my challenge, I’m offering a free copy of my latest ebook Wings and the White Horse. Just email me at rebeccashelley at rebeccashelley dot com with your jump story, and I’ll give you a coupon code for the book.

Ode to a Blank Page

By Rebecca Shelley

So beautiful

Clean and White

Unsmudged by ink and its offenses

You stare at me

I stare at you

Eye to eye

Daring each other to blink

What muse would thrust the first stroke of words?

What writer would dare to pour heart-pumped blood onto the page?

Knowing that no critique can despise the empty white

No reviewer can chastise the unwritten word

I stand on the brink, trembling with uncertainty

And you, oh daunting nemesis, taunt me

Questioning my skill and courage

With the weight of Atlas on my fingers

I reach for the keyboard and strike

_________________________

Rebecca Shelley is the author of over 27 books, including the best selling Smartboys Club series, and the beloved Dragonbound series. Her latest book, Wings and the White Horse, celebrates her love of flying.

Wings and the White Horse

After her father dies, Jolain Thomas must decide whether to pursue the career her father set out for her or follow her lifelong dream to become a professional pilot. Gathering her courage, she chooses her dream but falls into the clutches of a desperate kidnapper. Now she must battle her fears and fly through a dangerous storm if she is to survive and save the kidnapped baby.

Includes a bonus short story, “Magic Works,” in which a line of magical housecleaning products causes mayhem.

Jordan Ellinger: Flexing Your Writing Muscles with Help from the Writers of the Future Contest

Guest Post by Jordan Ellinger

The Writers of the Future Contest, more properly known as “L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future”, is quite simply one of the largest, most well-respected short fiction writing contests in the world. By some accounts, it has the fifth largest purse of any contest, and is one of the only ones without an entry fee.

When Joshua Essoe, the managing editor for Fictorian guest posts, asked me to write an article about the Writers of the Future Contest, I started out with the title “How to Win the Writers of the Future Contest”. But that article has been written before, a couple of times, by previous winners of the contest. So I scrapped that idea, and instead decided to write about the experience of winning. But that article has also been written. Dozens of times. I used to even maintain a page linking to them.

So what could I cover that hasn’t already been discussed? Well, the contest has helped to shape my career almost from the moment I decided to write seriously, so I thought I’d write a little bit about what it has done to help me succeed professionally.

I discovered WotF back when I first started writing short fiction. I’d found a battered copy of Writers of the Future Volume 9 at a used bookstore, and the title intrigued me. “Writers of the Future”. It was an anthology for undiscovered talent. I was undiscovered and, hopefully, talented. I was excited.

It was encouraging that I recognized some of the writers within. Sean Williams was a #1 NYT Bestseller and Star Wars author and appeared in the table of contents alongside noted Baen author Eric Flint (1632). So that table of contents told me that some of the authors who won the contest went on to have great careers. I wanted in.

Unfortunately, the book was old. The spine was lined with cracks and calling the cover “dog-eared” was generous at best, so I Googled the contest and, impressively, it was still going. They’d just released volume 20. Longevity is a very good sign in short fiction, and twenty years impressed the hell out of me.

The first story I submitted was called the Autobomber, which was about a robotic suicide bomber. Looking back, I can see the story’s flaws and I eventually retired it to the trunk, but at the time it was the best I could manage. Encouragingly, it won an Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mentions are something I think the contest does right. Fully 10-15% of entries will receive HMs. Though the number of entries is kept a strict secret, internet gossip places it at around 1500 a quarter, which means that some 100-150 writers receive one. This is enormous encouragement. Often it’s the first bit of positive feedback an author has received at that point in their career.

While some writers win the contest on their first attempt, it took me seven, and I was able to mark my progress by the awards that I won. At first it was Honorable Mentions, then a Semi-Finalist, then another Semi-Finalist, and then eventually my Finalist story “After the Final Sunset, Again” won 1st place in Volume 25. Because there were so many tiers of prizes, I could actually see myself improving as a writer, and that was all the encouragement that I needed.

The prize for placing as a Semi-Finalist is a critique of your story by the contest administrator. In my case, that was the late K. D. Wentworth. I’d submitted a story called Mannequin Empire, about a hot shot engineer who figured out how to transfer the consciousness of a real dog into a robot body. Now, this guy was a bit of a jerk. Think Tony Stark without the redeeming qualities. When the critique came back K. D. explained that, though the writing was good, I had written an unsympathetic main character. Because she had no reason to like my protagonist, she had no reason to read further.

By the time I received K. D.’s critique I’d already submitted my next entry to the following quarter and it too placed as a Semi-Finalist. Guess what my critique said? Unsympathetic main character. Now, this contest is judged blind, so she had no idea that the same person had written both stories. What she’d done without realizing it was to identify a major weakness in my writing.

Armed with that knowledge, I set out to create the most sympathetic character I could. A mother who fights for the life of her unborn child. “After the Final Sunset, Again” was the result and it ended up winning first place.

I’m not going to talk about what the workshop or awards ceremony was like. Google “Writers of the Future Resources” and you can find dozens of workshop blogs, my own included, that cover the experience in more detail than the space allotted to me here. Instead, let’s talk about what happens immediately after you get home from the workshop week.

One of the best kept secrets of the contest is that Author Services Inc., the people who administer it, will keep in touch with you after you win, and continue to support you in any way they can, including getting you a spot on the 2nd most watched morning show in America. They have a vested interest in helping you to succeed. The better their contest winners do, the more the contest gets a reputation for picking winners. And they’ve picked some doozies. Patrick Rothfuss, Karen Joy Fowler, David Farland, Jeff Carlson, Stephen Baxter, David Zindell…the list seems endless.

I met several pro-writers at the workshop weekend, one of whom got me my first novel contract (coming out in November. No, I can’t talk about it yet. But it’s coming). Since then I’ve been developing a close network of friends who are neo-pros and we back each other up. We share opportunities with each other and recommend one another for writing assignments. Winning the Writers of the Future contest was my entry into the world of the genre writing, and for that alone I’m grateful.

Now, no article about the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest would be complete without a short paragraph on Scientology. Roy Hardin was asked about it on NBC Daytime, and I’m frequently asked about it at cons. I have no feelings about Scientology either way, or any religion for that matter. However, I do believe it’s wrong to discriminate based on one’s religious preferences–no matter what they are. “Nuff said.

The fact is that, to my knowledge, everyone at Author Services Inc. (the agency that administers the Contest) is a Scientologist. However none of the judges are (or have ever been), and no Scientologist has ever been included among the winners. There are rumours of a “firewall” between the contest and the religion L. Ron Hubbard founded, and in my experience it could very well exist.

No one ever mentioned Scientology when I was down there. No one. Not even the guests at the various events we were invited to. Whatever else he did, L. Ron Hubbard was a writer first and foremost and he enjoyed paying it forward. The folks at Author Services say that they recognize that and are paying it forward in his name, and I believe them.

So, to sum up, the contest has been the gift that keeps on giving. It encouraged me with Honorable Mentions when I was just starting out, rewarded me with a win when I’d reached a certain skill level, and has helped me develop a robust network of neo-pro and pro writers who’ve become my friends. It’s more than just a writing contest, and I encourage anyone who is reading this to enter. Hopefully it’ll help you to develop your writing muscles and launch your career the way it has mine!

Guest Writer Bio:Jordan Ellinger is a Writers of the Future winner and Clarion West graduate. His story “Kineater” recently made an appearance in Warhammer:The Gotrek & Felix Anthology and has work upcoming in Hammer&Bolter as well as World’s Collider, a new anthology from Nightscape Press. In his spare time, he helms Every Day Publishing, publisher of Every Day Fiction, Every Day Poets, Flash Fiction Chronicles, and Raygun Revival. To read more, visit his website www.jordanellinger.com or follow him on twitter @jordanellinger.