Category Archives: Business

A guest post by Lisa Mangum.

I love words. I love how they work and how they sound and how they look on the page. I’ve been reading since I was three, so perhaps it’s not much of a surprise that I chose a profession that is all about words.

I actually chose two professions: I am both a writer and an editor. I’ve been in the publishing business since 1997, when I was hired by Bookcraft as their Editorial Assistant. Bookcraft merged with Deseret Book in 1999, and I’ve been there ever since. After several years as an Assistant Editor, I recently switched responsibilities to work more in acquisitions and developmental editing. It’s the part of the job I love the most: finding that diamond in the rough and polishing it until it shines. Every time I see a manuscript turn into a book I think it is magic.

And nothing was more magical than seeing my own manuscript turn into a book. I wrote The Hourglass Door in 2007, and it was published by Shadow Mountain in 2009. I finished out the trilogy with The Golden Spiral and The Forgotten Locket. My most recent book is After Hello.

So, having been on both sides of the writing desk for so long, what is the best advice I’ve been given about writing?

Three things:

My first piece of advice comes from my friend Rick Walton who tells this to his students who aspire to be writers:

1. “Quit. But if you can’t—do the work.”

Writing is hard. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, but it is hard. So, before you get too far down that road of “being a writer,” you should think seriously about just quitting. Because if your heart isn’t in it, then there’s nothing wrong with not being a writer and being something else—with following your true passion.

But if there is something inside of you that won’t let you quit, that says, “No! I am a writer; I do have a story to tell,” then your only choice is to do the work.

Which leads me to Advice #2:

2. “Dream bigger.”

Recently, I was on a panel at SLC Comic-Con about Disneyland and one of the other panelist said that what she wished she’d known earlier in her career was that it was okay to dream bigger.

I love that! I think we as writers work hard to figure out what works for us and how to write a story and how to get published. And then we think, “Whew, I made it.” Well . . . maybe we need to dream bigger. If there is always a bigger dream out there beckoning to us, we’ll never stop reaching for it. And if we never stop reaching, we’ll simply get better and better until we reach that new dream.

So whatever it is you’re dreaming about—dream bigger.

3. “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. Don’t stop.”

I saw this years ago written on a wall in the Innovations building at Disneyland, and I instantly resonated to it. Writing is a process; don’t hurry. Take time to learn your craft. Take time to enjoy the journey. Publishing is a process. Take time to learn the business. But don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time. Don’t worry if you make mistakes, or if other people don’t understand your vision. Just—don’t stop.

I believe that there is a story inside each of us that only we can tell. Each of us has a valuable and unique voice. Don’t be afraid to use your voice. Don’t be afraid to tell your story.

So dream bigger. Do the work, and don’t hurry, don’t worry, and don’t quit.

Guest Writer Bio:

Lisa Mangum has worked in the publishing department of Deseret Book since 1997. She specializes in editing fiction for the Shadow Mountain imprint and has worked with several New York Times best-selling authors, including Ally Condie, James Dashner, and Jason F. Wright. While fiction is her first love, she also has experience working with nonfiction projects (memoir, educational, cookbooks, etc.) and some children’s picture books. She loves finding that “diamond in the rough” in the slush pile, and she is particularly skilled in the developmental editing part of the process. Lisa is also the author of four national best-selling YA novels (The Hourglass Door trilogy and After Hello). She graduated with honors from the University of Utah, and currently lives in Taylorsville, Utah, with her husband, Tracy.

November is The Business of Writing Month

November 1, 2013

Kristin Luna

Kristin Luna Marketing Publishing Reviews Rewriting Submissions The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

Hello, faithful readers and new readers alike!

Ah, November. For most people, it’s just… November. For writers, it can be one of the busiest months of the year. It’s got Thanksgiving in there, it’s the month before some big holidays in December, and it’s National Novel Writing Month. November is a great month for writing, but it’s also good for going a little insane trying to juggle all of these commitments as a writer and still trying to be real live person.

Bear with us, dear readers, as we try to not go insane this November. In fact, we’re keeping our left-brains in check this month by diving into the business side of writing. You’ll read posts about some of the more logical and analytical aspects of being a writer, such as:

Working with an editor
Beta-readers
Hiring a cover artist
Marketing vs. advertising
Networking
And more!

As a special treat, we also have guest posts from the likes of Lisa Mangum, Stephan McLeroy, Nick Ruva, Heidi Wilde, and Sam Sykes.

Help keep us sane by commenting on our posts and sharing them with your friends!

Happy reading!

Kristin

Horror Comes Creeping…

October 31, 2013

mary

Craft & Skills Marketing Mary Pletsch Publishing The Writing Life No Comments

Happy Hallowe’en and Blessed Samhain!

Like many other people, I’ve read a few Stephen King novels, and watched a few scary movies, particularly around this time of year. And yes, perhaps I have a greater appreciation for zombies than most of my co-workers. And okay, I don’t flinch away from putting the darkness in dark fantasy, and I feel that no honest war story can fail to convey the horrors of warfare.

But I never considered myself a horror writer.

I knew, however, that even as a newly published author, I didn’t want to fall into a rut: the same themes, the same settings, the same sorts of characters. I decided that this year – the year after my first publication – I would challenge myself. So in addition to the military science fiction that I love, I spread my wings and wrote some stories to submit to a few anthologies outside of that genre.

The first of those anthologies was Dark Bits by Apokrupha. Dark Bits is an anthology of “52 + 1” flash fiction horror stories. I thought that a word limit of less than 500 words was a good way to try a, er, “little” something new.

It turns out it took all weekend to craft those 500 words (from someone who can routinely crank out 2000 words/day), because flash fiction comes with its own inherit challenges: you need to develop your character(s) and convey the story arc, beginning to end, in a very limited space. My first draft was almost twice as long as it needed to be; my major editing challenge was to tighten the work into the word limit, making every word count. The end result is a tiny taste of terror called The Long Haul.

The Long Haul is a story best described as “Emily Dickenson is a long-haul trucker.” Hop into the cab of a cross-country delivery gone wrong, brush up on your poetry, and hold on tight. The first few miles will be okay. Just be aware, there’s a long…a very long…way to go.

You can order your own copy of Dark Bits here: http://apokrupha.com/dark-bits/ Books are available in ebook, Kindle, paperback and hardcover formats. There’s also a 2014 weekly planner which includes a flash fiction story for every week of the year!

Bolstered by the success of “The Long Haul,” when I found out an editor I know was accepting submissions to an anthology of horror stories, I tried my hand at a longer-length tale. I’m pleased to announce that next year, you can find Mishipishu: The Ghost Story of Penny Jaye Prufrock in Fossil Lake: An Anthology of the Aberrant, coming next year from Daverana Enterprises. More gruesome details will be given closer to publication date…

If once is chance, and twice is coincidence, I’m not far away from “third is a pattern.”

I suppose that makes me a horror writer. Among other things.

Marketing on Amazon

October 30, 2013

fictorians

Guest Posts Marketing 2 Comments

A guest post by Jodi McIsaac.

The world of publishing is changing at whiplash speed, and the company setting the pace is Amazon. As the largest bookseller (with 29% of the market) in a world where more books are now bought online than in brick-and-mortor stores, Amazon is a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately for authors who want to sell books (and who doesn’t?), this is a good thing: Amazon is the #1 place where readers go to buy books, and you, the author, can use that to your advantage.

As traditional publishing houses offer less and less (and often zero) marketing support, it’s never before been more important – or easier – for authors to connect directly to their readers, and to take charge of their own marketing.

But where to start? There are two easy ways to market your books on Amazon. While these tips apply primarily to self-published authors, who have more control over how their books are presented to the world, traditionally-published authors can work with their publishers to use Amazon to their advantage, and find a new and enthusiastic audience for their work.

1. Enroll in KDP Select

If you are self-publishing and using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform (as you should), you have the option of signing up for the KDP Select program. In exchange for agreeing to sell your e-book exclusively on Amazon for 90 days, they will (a) include your book in the Kindle Lending Library, and (b) allow you to give it away for free for up to 5 days during that 90-day period.

Now, the first part is a no-brainer—Amazon Prime users are allowed to download one book a month for free from the Lending Library. The great part is, Amazon pays the authors out of a “global fund” that’s usually around $600,000 a month. That means you might even get paid more when someone borrows your book than when someone buys it. And it’s a great way to reach new readers who will take a chance on your book when it’s free to them. And that brings us to the next point:

What do you mean, they’ll “allow” me to give my book away for free for 5 days? Why would I do that?

For many reasons, actually. Strategically giving your book away is a great way to gain exposure, get more reviews (which in turn drive more sales), and introduce new readers to your work. This plan is especially effective if you have more than one book available—if readers enjoy your free offering, they will often go searching for your other books. It used to be that authors who used KDP Select also saw a big jump in sales in the days and weeks following their free promotion, because Amazon counted the free “sales” as paid sales, which often meant that books landed on the bestseller lists after the free days were finished. But in the past few months Amazon has adjusted their algorithms, so the sales bump isn’t quite so dramatic as it used to be. Nevertheless, it’s a very worthwhile marketing tactic. My book Through the Door was downloaded over 60,000 times in five days when it was enrolled in KDP Select. Many of those readers loved it, told their friends, signed up for my newsletter, and have since pre-ordered the second book in the series.

2. Optimize your metadata

In How to Market Your Book, Joanna Penn says, “You can never sell as many books as Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and the other retailers can sell for you.” This is because those retailers thrive on being useful to their customers—and that means presenting their customers with buying options that they think you’ll like. They do this by means of top-secret algorithms, but there is a way you can make your book stand up and say “Pick me!” It’s called optimizing your metadata.

Don’t worry—it’s not as complicated as it sounds. “Metadata” is basically everything about your book except for the content itself – the title, description, author bio, reviews, excerpts, table of contents, and keyword data. When you upload a book to Amazon you (or your publisher) have the opportunity to fill in all of these “behind the scenes” fields. This data drives recommendations and placement on Amazon—such as a “what to read next” spot in a promotional email to their customers or a coveted placement on readers’ home pages. Think of it as the equivalent of front-of-store and end cap placement in your local bookstore, except it’s targeted to the people who are most likely to buy your book based on their buying history. Here’s how you do it:

 Make sure you are in the right category—which means you need to know your audience and what they are looking for. Readers don’t want to buy a book in the romance category only to discover it’s actually a horror novel. The more specific you can get with your categorization, the better. Is it “fantasy” or “paranormal romance” or “urban fantasy” or “contemporary fantasy”? Yes, there is a difference, and if you can nail that down then your readers will know where to find you. You have the option to pick more than one, just make sure they’re both true. Right now I’m “shelved” in Contemporary Fantasy and Women’s Fiction>Mothers and Children. Both work, because the book is a modern-day fantasy novel about a mother trying to save her child.

 Brainstorm keywords that best describe your book. For example, mine might be “Celtic mythology, Ireland, fantasy, gods and goddesses, modern magic.” Then use Google’s free Keyword Search Tool (you’ll need a Google or Gmail account), which will allow you to plug these keywords in and discover which similar terms people are searching for. Choose the words that are searched for most often and most accurately reflect your book, and you’re almost done.

 Narrow down your list by comparing what is being searched for on Amazon. Plug your keywords into Amazon’s search bar and see what comes up – are these books similar to yours? If yes, you’ve got your keywords.

 Now, use these words in your metadata fields. Use your keywords as often as possible in the metadata categories I listed above (while making them sound natural, of course). The more you can work these keywords into your metadata fields, the easier it will be for Amazon’s algorithms to find it and match it with the right readers.

It’s only a few hours of work, and there’s a big upside: research has shown that simply optimizing your metadata can boost a book’s online sales by up to 28%.

Of course, Amazon is always changing things up—in the publishing industry and on their own website. So it’s important to stay abreast of all the developing marketing opportunities the online retailer provides. But using the KDP Select program and optimizing your metadata are two excellent places to start getting ahead of the curve.

Guest Writer Bio:

Jodi McIsaac is the author of THROUGH THE DOOR, the first book in the bestselling contemporary fantasy series, The Thin Veil. The second book in the series, INTO THE FIRE, is being released on November 12. Visit Jodi at her website or on Facebook and Twitter.