Tag Archives: publishing

Networking: Friends with Benefits

Conventions Mary Pletsch The Writing Life No Comments

In October during Marketing and Promotion month, we had a great post on networking by Kim May. There’s a lot of great advice here on how networking can help you reach and connect with your readers.

This month, I’d like to focus on how to network with industry professionals.

Few of us are lucky enough to have people in the entertainment industry – and yes, writing and publishing are part of the entertainment industry – as part of our circle of family and friends growing up, but it is possible.  Ironically, one of my friends-who-is-also-a-published-author started out as the roommate of another friend I met through my toy collecting hobby.  Looking back, I laugh at some of our earlier meetings when neither of us had any idea of the other’s interest in writing.

But let’s assume you don’t have a contact like that.  I didn’t for many years.  How do you meet people who are working where you would like to be someday?

You can read blogs, join newsgroups, “like” Facebook pages, and/or follow Twitter feeds.  The best part about these venues is that even if you live in an isolated rural area, and can’t afford to travel, as long as you have Internet access, you’ve got all you need.

First, reading blogs etc will give you a feel for what it’s like to work as a professional writer / in the entertainment industry.  You may find it’s not for you.  Or, when you reach that point yourself, you will have some idea of what to expect.  I’m eternally grateful for the advice from a writer, who is now also a friend, who put on her blog the importance of turning around correspondence for publishers as quickly as possible.  They’re people too, they’re on deadlines too, and keeping them waiting and wondering if they are going to hear from you or not is an undesirable situation.   As someone who used to submit things on the day they were due–and never before–I realized that holding on to my finished submission until the due date wasn’t doing me any favours.  And I would never have realized that without this advice.  It’s invaluable, and it’s free.

Comment when you have something useful to say.  Over time, people will recognize your name and, if applicable, your avatar.  Remember, though, that reputations can be bad as well as good – keep the drama off someone else’s site, or you will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Conventions, seminars, launch parties and book signings are great in-person venues if you’re lucky enough to be able to travel or live near a city.  Authors and editors will give panels, readings, room parties, and book signings.  Attending panels and readings gives you conversation starters when you go to the parties and signings:  introduce yourself by name, then ask a question, comment on something, or give constructive feedback.  Don’t hog the person’s time – they’ll be meeting a lot of other people at the event.  At subsequent events, you can then re-introduce yourself (“we met at Ad Astra this past April”, “I came to your book signing last year in Toronto.”)  Faces become familiar very quickly.  And I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention Superstars Writing Seminars, where I received great advice from professional writers and also met a number of fellow newcomers just starting out in the field.  Look how far we’ve all come!

I’m very fortunate to have a friend who is a New York Times bestselling author–the person who first recommended Superstars to me, despite not being part of it herself.  It was her assurance that Superstars was worth the money and time that got me here today.  I’m not going to drop her name here, because the purpose of this post is not me showing off how special I am because of who I know.  I mention it to illustrate that unfortunately, the following paragraph contains advice that still needs to be shared:

Don’t expect professional authors to become your new best friends.  They’re busy people, on lots of deadlines.  They have private lives they aren’t going to share with people they’ve just met.  They are not going to drop everything to reply to you immediately, and they don’t owe you anything.  Be courteous, be respectful, be appreciative, and be professional.  These writers are active online and at conventions to connect with their audience and, if they are generous and have time, to share some insight on their profession.  You will not become friends with everyone you say hello to, and you will not stay friends (or even acquaintances) if your sole purpose of communicating is to “get stuff,” whether that “stuff” be attention, information, free swag, or “awesome inside sources”.   Treat industry professionals as people, not as means to your goals.

When you are at conventions, do attend public events (book signings, autograph sessions, panels, public room parties and launch parties).  Do not try to crash private functions (ie author-only parties), follow people into the restroom to strike up conversations, or loiter outside people’s hotel suites waiting to pounce on them.  As on the Internet, being loud, drunk, promiscuous, smelly, obnoxiously persistent or rude gives you the wrong reputation very quickly.  And remember that alcohol makes all sorts of things seem like A Good Idea At The Time.

As someone who rarely drinks alcohol in public I strongly recommend a glass of pop, soda or juice carried around a room party or nursed at a convention bar if you are a non-drinker or if you have reached your drinking limit.  People will think it is a drink (thereby saving yourself the need to constantly turn down offers of drinks) and you will both appear sociable and remain in control of how you are presenting yourself.  (I also note that if you are a non-drinker, after seven or eight Dr Peppers you will feel like bugs are crawling all over you, so go easy on the caffeine-as-alcohol-substitute.  Lessons from Ad Astra 2013–bad decisions made so you don’t have to!)

The best thing about networking is that it builds its own momentum.  Once you know one person, they will introduce you to other people.  Soon you’ll find yourself in contact with all kinds of people who are working in, or working towards, your chosen profession.

Working with Editors

Editing Frank Morin Publishing 3 Comments

Working With EditorsAs writers, we love to focus on writing, on creating that next great story.  It took me a while to realize that typing “The End” is only the completion of the first part of the process.  Once we finish that first draft, get the story out to beta readers, compile all the useful feedback, determine edits, and finish subsequent drafts, we finally have a story we feel rocks on all levels and is ready to go.

That’s when we need editors.

Some indie authors try to claim they don’t need an editor, but I’ve never seen any such story turn out well.  Not as well as it could have been.  Not as well as it should have been.  Not well enough to compete in today’s market with well-read readers who can spot an unedited story fast.

A book without an editor is like a theatrical production without dress rehearsal.  You’ve got the characters, the dialogue, costumes, and a setting, but the whole has not been polished to where an audience can enjoy it.

Why invest so much time in producing a book only to undermine the finished product?

Usually the reason is one of two things:  Time or Money.

Time:  with the internet making it so easy to get books available to readers, it is so incredibly tempting to skip the careful edit and just getting it out to readers faster.  Why wait when you could be selling copies already?  The truth is taking a little more time and polishing the story will result in far better reviews and far more copies sold.  I’ve started reading books that skimped on final polishing, and I was universally disappointed and usually threw the book away without finishing.

Money:  Editors are not free.  Yes, they’re an investment and authors need to find a way to cover that investment.  If you don’t believe in your story enough to make that investment, convinced you’ll sell more than enough copies to still profit, then how are your readers going to believe in it?

Then again, with avenues like Kickstarter available, it’s often now possible to raise the money to cover such costs up front instead of having to fork over all the cash yourself.  I plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign for one of my stories next year.

How do you find a good editor?  There are lots of editors out there, and just like anything else, there are good ones and bad ones.  Here’s where networking comes in.  Talk with other authors about editors they liked and ones they didn’t.  Good editors will provide a listing of stories they’ve edited, and that can provide great insight into whether or not they might be a good fit.

Once you find an editor, you’ve got to get on their schedule.  Good editors are sought after and usually their schedules are booked out weeks or even months.  Get on the list early, and don’t be late with your work.  If you miss your deadline, it may be a while before they can fit you in again.  If you see you’re going to be late, notify the editor as soon as possible to make it easier for them to rearrange their schedule with the least amount of disruption.

I worked with our own Joshua Essoe on the manuscript for Set In Stone, a YA Fantasy novel currently in the hands of my agent.  I realized I needed to make some significant changes to the manuscript prior to sending it in, so we had to reschedule a couple of times.  Joshua was very accommodating, but I tried to warn him far in advance, as soon as I realized I was going to be late.

That brings up another point:  make sure your book is really finished prior to hiring an editor.  If you’ve just completed your first draft, I’d recommend you take the time to have some beta readers finish it and compile their feedback.  It’s likely you’ll need to make some changes.  Go through it a couple more times to ensure it’s really where you want it, and that the book you wrote is really the book you thought you were writing.  Only then will you be able to maximize the benefit of an editor.   If they’re so busy giving you feedback on major structural issues with the work, it’ll be harder for them to help you really polish it.  And if you want to go back again to hire them for a second pass, that’s going to cost more since they now have to invest more time in the project.

Even when your book is DONE and ready to go, you’ve found the editor you think will be perfect for the work, and you’ve sent it off to them, there’s the question of style.  Some authors and editors just don’t see eye to eye on matters of style.  There’s no way I know of to completely protect yourself from running into a situation like this.

Working with Joshua, I was extremely pleased.  His comments were spot on, thoughtful, and insightful.  I agreed with his approach to editing, and almost universally applied his suggested changes.  With a different manuscript (also in the hands of my agent), I wasn’t quite so lucky.  The editor was very experienced and well respected in the industry, and much of their suggestions were beneficial.  However, we differed over some aspects of style.  At first this worried me, and I wondered which of us wasn’t getting it.  That’s where working with a second editor on a different work proved beneficial.  I could compare the two editors’ styles, and realized they approached the same questions sometimes from very different points of view, with very different resulting recommendations.

So I had to make very conscious decisions regarding my own style and how I wanted to apply tone and voice to each story.  I had made some of those decisions while writing, but hadn’t clearly defined it.  The editing process forced me to choose specific stylistic approaches in each story.  Only then could I see clearly which advice to accept and which to ignore.  In some cases, the editor didn’t understand the style, and gave bad advice.

Just like everything else, it’s a learning process, and I consider the funds spent on editing both manuscripts well worth the investment.

Take away:

  1.  Prior to engaging an editor, make sure the book is really done.
  2. Find an editor you feel you’ll be able to work well with.  Use advice from other authors, and do your research.
  3. Get on their schedule well in advance, and don’t be late with sending them the manuscript.
  4. Notify them early if you fear you’ll miss a deadline.
  5. Study their feedback carefully.  Some of it may not be right.  In the end, it’s your book and all decisions are your responsibility.
  6. Don’t ever release a novel without a professional edit.

Horror Comes Creeping…

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

Dark_Bits_coverV3-208x300Happy 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.

Press Kit Case Study, Part Two

Evan Braun Marketing Publishing 1 Comment

Yesterday, I talked about the print materials that I included with the press kit for the first book in my current series. If you want to make an indelible first impression, that’s only a starting point. I’m now going to take it one step further.

I mentioned that you shouldn’t provide a simple press release in a manila folder. That much should be obvious. But if not in a manila folder, what will you use to contain this grab-bag of awesomeness you have assembled? If it’s just paper, you could get some full-colour customized folders. This gets dicey if you’re going to include a physical copy of your book, which I strongly recommended yesterday. (I still strongly recommend it today!)

My needs set me toward finding a box.

1. The box. Not just any box old box. This will be the first thing your box recipient will see. There are places online where you can design and purchase all kinds of beautiful customs boxes, but unfortunately you may find that some of them break the bank. If I had unlimited resources, I would have gone with something like these. The possibilities are endless. My budget meant I had to rely on my wits. With the help of a close family member, I got my hands on thirty white medium-sized pizza boxes. We delicately refitted them so that they were the perfect size for the book, with room on each side for extra materials, opening and closing with a clasp.

This involved a fair bit of work, because the last thing I wanted was to present my press kit in a box that shouted “Cheapskate!” The end result was highly professional. (If you’re interested in exactly how we refitted pizza boxes to look classy, well, that’s a post for another day; let it simply be said, without explaining the mechanics, that it’s quite possible when done with a skilled hand.)

2. The box label. Don’t make the mistake of addressing your box to “Reviewer,” or something equally anonymous. This is not a form letter. Every news outlet is going to have a person (or a department of persons) responsible for deciding what goes on the air, or on the page. Find out who those people are and address the boxes to them personally. In some cases, it may be advantageous to address your kit directly to on-air talent, specific columnists, or people in the organization with whom you have a personal connection. This helps you to control the success of your press kit, so that it doesn’t languish on the front receptionist’s desk for a few days before being dumped in the trash. Make sure it gets in the right person’s hands. In my case, I printed a graphic on the front of the box which identified the recipient; the graphic I chose matched a graphic from the cover of my book, making sure that both the product itself and the box it came in looked like they belonged together.

3. Personal letter. Another personal touch I included was a short letter introducing the book and my marketing effort to the particular recipient. If I knew something about the box’s recipient, this was the place to take advantage of it. Each letter was slightly different from the next, due to its personalized nature. The contents of the letter was a little bit redundant with the press release, except much more intimately presented (no… not that kind of intimate). The letter was printed on a small narrow band of distressed paper, rolled up in a scroll, and tied with a short length of twine. Each was signed by hand. This was designed to be the first item of the kit which was handled by the recipient. It was the figurative opening handshake.

4. An invitation. I included an invitation to my launch, inside a hand-addressed envelope. These invitations were provided to me by the bookstore where my launch was held, saving me a bit of effort. The bookstore’s logo (a major retailer in my city) lent a further air of professionalism and credibility.

5. Goodies. We’re getting to the end now. I wanted to include a couple of extra trinkets, but I didn’t have much time or money. Ideally, your goodies should be a specific complement to your book. I didn’t have quite enough time to prepare something as cool and intricate as I would’ve liked, so I settled for customized pens and notepads. I designed and ordered these through a local printing company, and I got an excellent deal. The pen and notepad contained my book title, my series title, and my official website. I distributed these pens far and wide, and every once in a while I still see them out in the world when I go to the bank or visit a local restaurant. I also used these pens at my signing; for each book I signed, I used a unique pen, and then gave away the pen to the person buying the book.

Finally, a note about packaging: if you go this route, of preparing and filling a box, make sure it packs tightly. The last thing you want is for the contents of the box to be messy when it’s opened by its intended recipient. Pack it in such a way that it can be turned on its side and flipped around a few times without disturbing what’s inside.

I sent my finished kit to radio stations, newspapers, magazines, bloggers, libraries, and a few prominent local authors who I hoped might lend some support. The final result is that I received responses from just less than half of the people I sent it out to. Considering that I was a first-time author with virtually no platform or publishing history, I believe that was a really big success. I’m hoping that by repeating this effort, my response will improve with every release.

I hope my experience and advice has been helpful. All the best in preparing your own press kits, and if you have questions, leave them in the comments!