The other day I strapped my AlphaSmart on my back and rode my bike to Starbucks to do a little writing. I set up at a table, got my brew, started tapping away. The place was crowded, all the other tables were taken.
Presently, a gray-haired woman appeared and said, “Mind if I share your table?”
“Only if you behave yourself,” I said.
She smiled (a good sign for a wiseacre such as myself). I motioned for her to sit. She had a coffee and an e-reader.
“So is that a Nook or a Kindle?” I asked.
“Kindle,” she said.
“You like it?”
“Love it. I’ve been reading some indie books lately.”
This surprised me. The word “indie” is rather specialized nomenclature. She knew what was going on in the self-publishing world.
Ever the opportunist, I said, “I like that. I’m also publishing my own books.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m getting very annoyed at the bad editing I’m seeing.”
Boom! Not, “Oh really? You’re a writer? I’d love to read one of your books!”
No, I was getting the boom on behalf of sloppily edited books everywhere. I had a little work to do.
I asked her what sorts of things annoyed her, and she talked about not just typos, but the misuse of words. The basic mangling of the English language. At one point she said, “Dude, open the dictionary or thesaurus.”
I started liking her then. A gray-haired lady who uses the word Dude can’t be all bad. I decided to interview her as a resource on what readers are thinking. She was a fountain of information. Here are some of the things she told me:
She doesn’t like too much info on “tertiary characters” because “I don’t want to get invested in characters that don’t do more in the novel. I get disappointed if you don’t follow through with them. Frustrating. Or they show up again in the last few pages and I think, ‘Dude, where the hell have you been for the last 300 pages?’”
Regarding reviews: “One star reviews are usually trolls.” But also: “Very few authors come up to a five-star review. I never read five-star reviews, especially with exclamation points. You see five exclamation points and I think, Please!”She looks at reviewer history and what other books they liked and reviewed, before making a purchase.
I asked her how she found books. She said:
1. Amazon mailings
2. Looks at the “customers also bought” books Amazon suggests on a book page
3. Sampling. “I love the free sampling.”
4 “If I find an author I like, I read everything he’s ever written.”
That last, BTW, is in line with other surveys. The two biggest ways readers find fiction are 1) word-of-mouth from trusted sources; and 2) looking for more from a favorite author.
On opening pages:
“The first couple of chapters need to set out the story arc. Not too much slam bang boom.Where is it set? Still need the gotcha, gee whiz, but I need a sense of the larger story arc, too.”
“I like wit. I mean say something intelligent, say things that grab my attention. In that first chapter if all they’re doing is grunting and shooting each other, nothing is telling me if any of those characters has anything upstairs worth reading about.”
On style:
“Style does matter. I just read a book with a good plot, good characters, great dialogue, but the narrative portions were just subject-verb, subject-verb. Boring. Hasn’t he heard of any other parts of the language? After awhile I was dragged out of the story, almost like he wrote two books.”
She asked me about my books, and I gave her a card. As we chatted she was thumbing her Kindle, and about a minute later was ready to order one. She asked which one she should start with, and I suggested Watch Your Back.
“Done,” she said.
“You bought it?”
“How could I not?”
It was a pleasant twenty minutes, and I’d made a sale. Now I can only hope that I’ve made a reader, the kind who puts me on that favored list of authors she has discovered and wants to read everything by.
And then keep working on the one thing I can control, the actual writing, making it the best I can do each time out.
Because that’s the only way you build a writing career, Dude.
Love this vignette. My biggest hurdle is a willingness to talk about my own writing (general shyness, plus lingering insecurities about my work, etc). Had I been in your situation, I would have missed out on not just a sale, but a learning opportunity as well. Something I should take to heart!
What are the odds of that? Seriously, sharing a table with someone who can speak to a writer on a level that not many readers can? Plus that’s really great information and feedback on the process.
I bet you’d have happily paid for her coffee and muffins just to get that feedback! Great story.
Great conversation, and a lot of things said that writers tend to forget readers also notice, not just literary critics and agents.
Sounds like one astute reader. Great feedback from her. I don’t think her opinions are isolated. I’m sure she’s expressing a broader viewpoint albeit perhaps more articulately. Thanks for sharing.
She will of course tell her friends about the nice gentleman she met at Starbucks and who shared his table with her, and who just happened to be an author. She’ll no doubt strongly urge them all to buy a book a two and at least one of them almost certainly will. Ripples spread outward. And the most important thing, of course, is that you made a stranger’s day more pleasant.Nice post, Jim.
Refreshing.
I’m tweeting this to all my peeps.
Paula
I really like what she said about having a character say something “intelligent” at the beginning. This could be witty, observant, timely, whatever, but it helps us see this is a character worth following. It strengthens that all important bond between reader and character.
This is why we like Phillip Marlowe and Stephanie Plum, for example.
Dude, typo in your last sentence!
“Because that’s the only you build a writing career, Dude.”
She is indeed a smart reader, and typos in all books are on the increase. Drives me crazy too.
Hope she’ll read the Try Dying series. Loved it. So much.
See that? Another smart reader.
Thanks Nicole. Fixed!
I want her as a beta reader.
Isn’t that so true, Joe? A beta reader who is truly a reader AND knows what’s up with the craft.
That’s the way to get readers, Jim–one at a time. Nice work, Dude.
The smartest thing you did there was to ask her questions. General questions about books. That’s why she bought yours, Dude! You were more interested in making a friend than making a sale, and therefore, you made a sale. Less savvy writers would have started the hard sell the moment their tablemate pulled out the kindle. You were restrained, and set a good example for writers everywhere.
Two take aways.
One, maximize what Amazon does for the writer because readers use it.
Two. Write at Starbucks. Never know who you might meet, Dude.
I love that Dude stuff.
Margaret, I attribute that to my social media philosophy, which is 90/10. 90 percent of the time, be social, interesting, interactive, non-selling. Earn trust.
Thanks for the good word.
What a great lady:) and I agree with her on the sloppiness – but I have also found the same in many traditionally published books. She would make an excellent beta reader!
Thanks for sharing, Jim! What a fireball full of good advice.
As a gray(ing) lady lawyer of 50+, I use the word dude regularly.
I love this column to infinity squared.
I just bought “Watch your Back” because I like to know which book an author has written that he likes best. Or, at least, is his first suggestion for a potential new fan.
Smart move on your part, Mr. Bell, because, like your new friend, if I like this book I will also buy everything else you’ve ever written.
Thank you, Amanda! That’s very kind of you. Much appreciated.
I just saw this posting because Elizabeth Craig just tweeted the link to it. Fun to read, and congrats on the interaction!
Serendipity, that.
What strikes me is that she’s still reading Indies, despite experiences with poorly edited, poorly written stuff. I’m sure your book will tip her scale to the good-book side.
Nice Starbucks you’ve got there. The nearest to me is filled with Apple people, and they talk bytes, not books.