Monthly Archives: January 2014

Finding Your Purpose

Posted on by

“Every one of us needs a purpose that’s big enough to call forth the gifts and abilities within us.”
           — Richard J. Leider, Life Skills

Do you live your life “on purpose”? Do you know what that purpose is?

That unsettling question was posed to an audience of about 200 people at a workshop I recently attended.

Many of us don’t think too much about the real purpose of our lives, said the workshop’s leader, a vivacious woman named Kathleen Terry.  We know what we like to do, what we’re good at, and what we have to do. But if we can discover a purpose behind all those activities, according to Terry, we can develop a richness of spirit and add meaning to our lives.

Terry gave us an actual formula for finding one’s purpose:

G + P + V = Purpose

This is how she explained the equation:

“You heed your purpose when you offer your Gifts in service to something you are Passionate about in an environment that is consistent with your core Values.”

Next, we set about drafting a Purpose Statement. To identify our Gifts, we were each given a stack of activity cards. We had to sort the activity cards into three piles, with each pile representing our preferences: 
1) Activities we Love to Do 
2) Activities We’re Not Sure About
3) Activities we Definitely Don’t Like to do.

From the “Love to Do” pile, we had to select our top five favorite activities, then designate one activity as the most important of all.

My Number One activity card turned out to be “Writing Things.” My four runner-up cards were “Researching Things,” “Discovering Resources,” “Analyzing Information,” and “Putting the Pieces Together.” 

All my activity cards–a.k.a., my “gifts”–identified me as a writer. No big surprise there. At least it was obvious what I like to do.

But I still lacked a purpose. How am I meant to use the  writing in the service of a greater purpose in life? Is that purpose merely to entertain and sell books? (That doesn’t sound very noble.) Is my purpose to inspire others to develop their own creativity? Perhaps I could volunteer as a blogger or writer on behalf of a cause I’m passionate about, such as Monarch habitat preservation.


We weren’t expected to finalize our purpose statement in the two hours of the workshop, I was relieved to learn. It turns out, sometimes it takes people years to discover their life’s purpose.

But I’m glad to be thinking in this general direction. And if you ever have a chance to take a “Finding Your Purpose” workshop, I highly recommend it. 

What about you? Have you given your life’s purpose much thought? Is your writing an element of a higher purpose?

Emotional Resonance

Posted on by

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I’ve been reading a great book on writing for children and YA called ‘Writing Irresistible KidLit‘ by Mary Kole and, apart from wishing I’d read it a little earlier (for it encapsulates all the elements that make any novel great), I was particularly interested in the comments surrounding the need for emotional resonance. Kole writes that when she puts down most manuscripts or submissions she’s left wondering “And? So what?” She notes that all too often a book fails to create sufficient emotional resonance to make the reader care – and all too often this is because the writer hasn’t built in enough conflict.

Just a few weeks ago I experienced the exact thing Kole was writing about. I was only a couple of chapters into the final instalment in a very popular YA trilogy when I put down the book and thought “So what?” The story had totally lost any kind of emotional resonance for me.There was no longer any conflict that I cared about between the characters, and (as a result) I couldn’t be bothered continuing to read. To be fair, I did keep reading but I found myself skimming the pages until the end hoping that there would be a point at which I became reinvested in the story. 
There wasn’t.

Often when we talk about the craft of writing we focus on elements such as characterisation, setting, style, plot and structure. Embedded within all of these are the need to establish a strong voice and the need to make a reader care enough to keep turning the pages. However the issue of emotional resonance can be just as tricky to explain as the concept of ‘voice’ in some one’s writing. You know it when you see it, just as you know when it’s not there – but it can be a pretty difficult concept to wrangle to the ground.

So, mulling over this rather slippery concept of emotional resonance, I thought of a few key elements, namely:

  • High stakes for characters that have believable motivations and emotions;
  • High conflict between these characters, who face life changing events that a reader cannot help but become invested in; and
  • A greater (‘bigger’) question that touches upon core emotional needs that readers identify can with…

Central to all of these is conflict (both between and within the characters) – which is exactly what was missing from the book I just tried to finish. As I grapple with final edits to a current WIP, I have the issue of emotional resonance now firmly in my mind. I don’t want my agent or an editor finishing it, putting it down, and saying “And? So what?”(!)

So fellow TKZers, how would you characterise emotional resonance? How do you try to achieve it in your own writing? And have you ever put down a book because (like me) you found yourself saying “So what?”…

Write Until You Die

Posted on by
I love writers who never stop, who keep on pounding the keys no matter what decade of life they’re in. Writers like Herman Wouk, one of America’s greatest storytellers, who had a new book come out at the age of 97.
Don’t you love the way he looks in this photo? (Captured by Stephanie Diani for The New York Times. Used by permission.) “I’m not going anywhere,” he seems to be saying. “Not with all the stories I have yet to tell.”
That’s what I want to be like when the deep winter of life rolls around. Still writing. Still dreaming. Still publishing. Thus, I was intrigued by a story with the provocative title Is Creativity Destined To Fade With Age? It begins:
Doris Lessing, the freewheeling Nobel Prize-winning writer on racism, colonialism, feminism and communism who died recently at age 94, was prolific for most of her life. But five years ago, she said the writing had dried up.
“Don’t imagine you’ll have it forever,” she said, according to one obituary. “Use it while you’ve got it because it’ll go; it’s sliding away like water down a plug hole.”
Uh-oh. Does that mean older writers are destined to have a dry well? One researcher cited in the article says No:
“What’s really interesting from the neuroscience point of view is that we are hard-wired for creativity for as long as we stay at it, as long as nothing bad happens to our brain,” Walton said. (Lessing had a stroke in the 1990s, which may have contributed to her outlook.)
Another researcher, however, added a caveat:
But repeating the same sort of creative pursuit over the decades without advancing your art can be like doing no exercise other than sit-ups your whole life, said Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus of neuroscience at the University of California at San Francisco and the author of Soft-Wired, a book about optimizing brain health.
One-trick artists “become automatized, they become very habit-borne,” Merzenich said. “They’re not continually challenging themselves to look at life from a new angle.”
This is one reason I love our self-publishing options. We can play. We can go where we want to go without being tied to one brand or type of book. We can write short stories, novelettes, novellas, novels and series. When I’m not working on suspense, I like to challenge myself with a different voice for my boxing stories, my kick-butt nun novelettes, my zombie legal thrillers. I’m currently planning a collection of short stories that will be of the weird Fredric Brown variety. Why? Because I can, and because it keeps my writing chops sharp.
Which appears to be the key to this whole longevity business:
Older artists can also be galvanized by their own sense of mortality. Valerie Trueblood, 69, a Seattle writer who did not publish her novel, Seven Loves, and two short story collections until her 60s, said age can bring greater urgency to the creative process.
“I think for many older people there’s a time of great energy,” Trueblood said. “You see the end of it, you just see the brevity of life more acutely when you’re older, and I think it makes you work harder and be interested in making something exact and completing it.”
People with regular jobs usually can’t wait to retire. A writer should never retire. Fight to be creative as long as you live. Do it this way:
1. Always have at least three projects going
I wrote about this before (“The Asimov“). I think all writers should, at a minimum, have three projects on the burner: their Work-in-Progress; a secondary project that will become the WIP when the first is completed; and one or more projects “in development” (notes, concepts, ideas, character profiles, etc.). This way your mind is not stuck in one place.
2. Take care of your body
The writer’s mind is housed in the body, so do what you have to do to keep the house in shape. Start small if you have to. Eat an apple every day. Drink more water. Walk with a small notebook and pen, ready to jot notes and ideas.
3. Stay positive and productive
Write something every day. Even if it’s just journaling. Know that what you write to completion will see publication, guaranteed. It may be via a contract, like Herman Wouk. Or it may be digitally self-published. Heck, it could be a limited printing of a memoir, just for your family. Writers write with more joy when they know they will be read, and joy is the key to memorable prose.
4. Do not go gentle into that good night
Write, write against the dying of the light! (apologies to Dylan Thomas). Refuse to believe you have diminished powers or have in any way lost the spark that compelled you to write in the first place. If they tell you that you just don’t have it anymore, throw your teeth at them. Who gets to decide if you can write? You do. And your answer is, I’ve still got it, baby, and I’m going to show you with this next story of mine!
So just keep writing and never decompose.
What about you? Are you in this thing to the end?

True Detective

Posted on by

by Joe Hartlaub

If you love crime fiction you simply must start watching True Detective. The first season of the eight episode HBO series premiered last Sunday, January 12. I watched it this morning under less than ideal circumstances — sitting in my car during a snowstorm, waiting for my ungrateful and unappreciative daughter — using my Kindle Fire, and you could have set my hair on ablaze while I was watching and I wouldn’t have noticed.  It’s that good.

Fans of Breaking Bad who have been wondering what to do for an hour or so that did not involve a death grip on a book should fine True Detective to be just the ticket. The story is going to be completed in eight episodes — a totally new story, with new characters, commences next year — so you don’t have to worry about a cliffhanger ending that will keep you wondering over the summer about who did what and to who. Waiting week to week will be bad enough, yes indeed. The storyline, set against the pitch-perfect backdrop of Gulf Coast Louisiana alternates on different time tracks, ping-ponging back and forth between 1995 and the present. Such might be confusing in lesser hands but it works perfectly here, as we watch two mismatched Louisiana State Patrol homicide detectives named Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rustin “Rust” Cohle  (Matthew McConaughey) investigate the unsettling ritualized murder of a prostitute named Dora Kelly Lange in 1995, while they are separately interrogated about the case in the present. Primary attention is given to the 1995 timeline. Hart is the “normal” one in the team (though he’s not; not really) with an understatedly hot wife and a pair of too cute daughters; he is indigenous to the area and knows the lay of the cronyish land well enough to go along to get along.  Cohle, for his part, is effin’ weird. He is known as “Taxman” due to his penchant for carrying an oversized ledger around with him in order to take copious notes and make crime scene drawings. Cohle is smart, maybe brilliant — a fact recognized by Hart — but he is a fish out of water, a transplant from Texas whose occasional existential pronouncements tumble extemporaneously from his mouth with a rapidity that are unsettling to everyone around him in general and to Hart in particular. Cohle’s statements are so fraught with literary angst that it is impossible to watch the show without stopping the action in order to rewind certain scenes for the purpose of writing down the dialogue (I would imagine — hope — that someone will be compiling Cohle’s statements as the season proceeds and post them on a website). Such would not, however, make him a fixture at progressive cocktail parties. His appearance and demeanor are such as to be unsettling, more so when he is silent and affixes his thousand yard stare at someone, or something, or nothing at all.

The first episode sets up a bunch of dominoes, which include Cohle’s past (and present) problems with alcohol and the tragedies of his past; the seemingly neglected disappearance of a young girl from the same area years before Lange’s murder, and which may or may not be connected to the homicide; and the assurance, almost certainly incorrect, that Hart is the stable one on the team. Actually, by episode’s end the only assurances we have are that 1) Cohle is no longer a cop; 2) he and the deceptively laconic Hart have had a falling out in the interim between their investigating, and apparently solving, the case in the mid-1990s and the present; and 3) in spite of their having solved Lange’s homicide and apprehending her murderer, someone is again killing women in the same ritualized fashion.   

There is no sex in this first episode of True Detective, and only second or two of mild violence, but there are some intense scenes, nonetheless. I will mention but two. One is the discovery of Lange’s body, laid out in a manner both repulsive and uncomfortably erotic. No one wants to look, but the body is where the clues are. And if the poor detectives have to look, so do you, the viewer. The second is an excruciating scene involving dinner. Hart, in the midst of the 1995 investigation, invites Cohle over to his house to meet the wife and family. Believe me, it’s in doubt as to whether Cohle will pass the shrimp etouffee or filet the entire family as they eat. The only certainty is that Cohle will not be invited back. You, the viewer, however, will not be able to stay away.

I am not suggesting that you steal an hour from your reading time to watch True Detective. Merely add an additional ten minutes per night for six nights to make up for it. But watch True Detective. It will be the best police procedural you have ever been able to read without turning a page.  

Novel Short Advice

Posted on by

By Elaine Viets

    How do you write a mystery?
    There are whole books on this subject.
    But the best short advice is in Grafton’s new Kinsey Millhone novel, “W Is for Wasted.”

Wasted
    Private eye Kinsey Millhone talks about how she started investigating two mysterious deaths. One victim was a sleazy PI and the other was a homeless man.

TheLees-trench-coats-for-men
     Kinsey was drawn into the mystery by a call from the coroner’s office. The coroner was “asking if I could ID a John Doe who had my name and phone number on a slip of paper in his pocket,” Grafton wrote. “How could I resist?”
    That had me hooked. But then Kinsey explained how to write a mystery:
    “Every good mystery takes place on three planes – what really happened; what appears to have happened; and how the sleuth, amateur or professional (yours truly in this case) figures out which is which.”
    There it is. The art of mystery writing in one succinct sentence. We writers are supposed to set up the story for the readers, help them find out what really happened, and tell it, giving enough clues to play fair but not give away the ending.

sue grafton
    Grafton gives us another dollop of advice in Kinsey’s next sentence:
    “I suppose I could put everything in perspective if I explained how it all turned out and then doubled back to that phone call,” she wrote, “but it’s better if you experience it just as I did, one strange step at a time.”
    New writers and experienced ones need to remember Kinsey’s advice: Tell the story, one strange step at a time.
    Many newbies try to be too clever. They don’t have the skills to deliver a twisted tale. They get lost in the maze they created.

maze
    Experienced writers get bored with the format after writing book after book. We try to start in the middle, or start at the end, or switch narrators, often to amuse ourselves. Too often, it simply confuses our readers.

Basic RGB
    Following the straight path, in Grafton’s footsteps, can be far more difficult.  But she kept me interested for 496 pages.  She also made me care about two people society considers worthless: a crooked PI and a homeless man who doesn’t even have a name.
    How did Grafton pull it off? Read it yourself.
    I guarantee your time won’t be wasted.

Setting Goals

Posted on by

Nancy J. Cohen
As we begin the new year, it’s time to set our writing goals for 2014. Although this is a popular topic, here’s my take on it. I divide things into two categories: Creative and Business Goals.

editing

Under the Creative category, put your writing projects. Which story do you want to start? What book do you need to finish? Do you want to try something new and different? Have you started writing the synopsis for your WIP yet? Which projects have priority?

In the Business category, put down everything you need to do to bring those above projects to market. What steps do you need to take? How will you publicize your work? What new venture might you try that you haven’t done before (i.e. chats, podcasts, trailers, audio)?Or do you plan to accept the risks and lengthy learning process of self-publishing for the first time?

card1

Here are my goals for 2014. Whatever I don’t finish this year will get put off until 2015. I envision finishing my current WIP, doing the edits for my next romance, and then taking some time off to launch my self-publishing work. Then I can think about what to write next.

WRITING GOALS
Finish Peril by Ponytail, #12 in the Bad Hair Day Mysteries.
Do the edits for Warrior Lord, #3 in the Drift Lords series, when I get them from my editor.
Proofread the galleys until this project is done and in production.
Complete edits on my original mystery that I’m hoping to self-publish.

BUSINESS GOALS
Implement marketing plan for Hanging By A Hair, #11 in the Bad Hair Day Mysteries due out in April.
Complete legal preparation for self-publishing enterprise.
Hire book cover designer and ebook formatter.
Self-Publish my writing instructional booklet in time for SleuthFest. Order postcards.
Consider print and audio versions of above.
Design marketing plan for Warrior Lord once I get a pub date.
Begin prep work for publishing my father’s book, a true adventure of his 1929 hitchhiking journey across the U.S. It’s one of those things on my bucket list.

What goals have you set for 2014? Are you trying anything different for the first time?

<><><>

Tired of winter weather? Enter my “Taste of the Tropics” contest at http://nancyjcohen.com/fun-stuff/contest/. Win A Taste of the Virgin Islands Cookbook or one of two decks of Tropical Recipe Playing Cards. Deadline for entry is Jan. 25.

You wanna be a writer? Get real!

Posted on by

By P.J. Parrish

Way way back in the 1980s, when I was first starting out, I got asked by a local writers group to speak at their luncheon. The group had bagged some big-fish speakers in the past (I remember Les Standiford giving a particularly inspiring talk). But I guess they ran out of literary types so they asked me — a minnow of a romance writer at the time.

I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to tell this group of as-yet unpubbed writers. I finally decided to focus on the marketing and business end of having your book published — the underbelly stuff like co-op advertising, how “bestseller” slots in drugstores were bought by publishers, how the New York Times bestseller list wasn’t really based on sales. I thought they needed to know what they were up against. (Remember, this was pre-Amazon days when if you self-published you were automatically assigned to the eleventh ring of hell).

Well, you’d thought I had brought a dog onto the podium and shot it there in front of them. During the Q&A, they turned on me like rabid bats, each one saying, in different words the same thing: We don’t need to hear this. We need encouragement. One guy actually stood up and said — I will never forget this — “If you are so bitter about writing, why do you even do it?”

Maybe things were different back in the 80s. Maybe writers could afford to be mushrooms — keep in the dark and fed a steady diet of manure. But not anymore. Today, if you want to survive, you have to be smart, tough and tenacious. All of you who are steady Kill Zone readers know this already. But sometimes we all — including me — need to hear it anew.

As the great western philosopher John Wayne once said: If you wanna be a pony soldier, you gotta act tough.

I still speak at alot of writers groups and on panels and such. And now that I am more battle-tested, I try hard to be kinder. But damn, if someone asks me for advice about getting published, I just can’t coddle him or her with empty platitudes and pat their hands. I believe every writer needs a Dr. Phil in their life. Someone who will tell you the truth about why your plot sucks, why your characters aren’t compelling and even why you should throw away your manuscript and start over. Someone who will read your stuff, stare you straight in the eye and say, “what WERE you thinking?”

So, as we start off into this fresh new year, let me be your Dr. Phil. Let’s start with The 15 Things You Should NEVER Do.

1. Don’t procrastinate. You must choose to write. That might mean giving up something else, like golf or sleep. Too bad. Don’t jump from idea to idea. Pick one and ride it to the end. Don’t let the first wind that blows through your life distract you. Don’t wait for inspiration to come. Inspiration comes only WHILE you’re writing. It’s so much more fun to HAVE WRITTEN a book than to actually write one. (believe me, I know…this is my worst sin.) Writing the actual book is hard. Deal with it.

2. Don’t talk your story away.  I am also guilty of this but not as much as I used to be. Writers love to yak about writing instead of actually doing it. I got this great idea about a cannibal serial killer, yada yada… Pretty soon all your yadas are used up and you can’t stand your book anymore. Talk is cheap…or in this case, costly. As Lawrence Block once said, don’t book Carnegie Hall if all you do is sing in the shower. Shut up and write.

3. Don’t try to hit a home run on your first at bat. Don’t sit down to write the Great American Novel or the next Chick Lit Bestseller. First you have a better chance of hitting the lottery than landing on the NYT’s list. Give yourself permission to write badly as you find your narrative legs. Don’t get hung up on the perfect beginning. That’s what rewriting is for. I am really struggling with this one right now because my WIP is a totally departure for me and I am sort of flailing in the dark and I think I am losing sight of the “fun” part of writing.

4. Don’t beat yourself up as you go along. Trying to craft the perfect sentence can create paralysis. If you keep going back over the stuff you’ve already written YOU WILL NEVER FINISH. Write a first draft THEN go back and rewrite. And get intimate with that delete key. It is your best friend.

5. Don’t lean on adjectives. Most of us know this mantra but it always bears repeating. Adjectives weaken writing, and a string of them is deadly. Don’t use crap like “tall dark and handsome.” Find one apt word. But the real strength in writing is found in verbs. You’re not Proust.

6. Don’t overcook your words. It’s so easy to slip into cliches and overworked words. Don’t say “white as snow.” It’s not yours. Neither is “thin as a rail, sick at heart, hard as a rock, overcome with grief.” Don’t make do with time-eroded words like “beautiful, wonderful, interesting, lovely.” Find your own words and voice. And for god’s sake, stay away from dialects. Few writers can pull it off without looking silly, y’all…. (I committed this sin in my first book).

7. Don’t over-punctuate. This is my pet peeve. Some writers use alot of exclamation marks, semi-colons and dashes. Maybe it’s because they LOOK so cool — active, even — on paper. But they are crutches to prop up weak action, poor narrative and badly organized thoughts. Worse, they are signposts demanding reactions from readers (Okay, reader, now here I want you to feel excited!) You can write a whole book with just periods, question marks, quotes and a couple commas. Try it! Make your words do the work!!!!

8. Don’t neglect your theme. Theme is WHY you are writing the book. Even genre novels — well, the best ones — have themes. Steinbeck said an author should be able to state his theme in one sentence. But don’t get didactic. Maybe your book is about a body found in the Everglades, but your theme is about environmental destruction. But if you get preachy, readers will turn off no matter how many bodies turn up in the sawgrass.

9. Don’t get personal. This is a big mistake beginners make. Save your self-expression for your journal or blog. What’s wrong with self-expression? It is general, boring, trite, sentimental. NO ONE CARES about your years operating a bar in Queens. But they might care about a Queens man who loses his bar in a poker game and then kills to get it back. NO ONE CARES about your war experience. But they might care about an army unit sent to rescue the last member of the Ryan family. The trick of good fiction is taking your personal experience and making it universal.

10. Don’t be dishonest. Great fiction is always honest. Which is not the same as personal. You don’t have to “write what you know.” But you have to be able to tap into your powers of empathy to “know” the characters and world you create. To write honestly is also to take emotional risks. We’ve all read books where the characters don’t move us. Usually it is because the writer was holding back, unwilling to spill some blood on the keyboard.

11. Don’t get seduced by research. First, it is a time-killer (See no. 1). Do your homework but don’t let it get in the way. It is easy to get blogged down in research and then you feel obligated to use it in the book. The result: James Michener book bloat.  Now sometimes, research can open new doors in your plot but be careful you don’t use stuff just because you worked so hard to find it.

12. Don’t obsess about trivial stuff. 
Will a publisher steal my idea if I submit it?
Should I get Windows 9?
Do I need an agent?
What if they want me to change it?
Can I use White-Out on the manuscript?
Should I wait until I have better conditions at home to write?

You get the idea…
Answers:
No, if your book is good, they will buy it.
Work with what you already have.
Just write the damn book first.
They will…don’t sweat it.
You’re actually worried about this?
No. Poe was penniless and died in a sewer. He didn’t wait til he had the right desk lamp.

13. Don’t listen to your wife/husband/hairdresser/mother. Someday, when you are accepting the Edgar, you can thank all the folks who love you. But while you are trying to write, keep them at arms length. Sometimes, they can get inside your head in two disparate ways. First, they can criticize you and say you will never get published. Second, they can tell you everything you write is brilliant. Both are bad for you. Find feedback from someone who will be honest with you. (And yes, sometimes, that cold eye person IS someone who loves you!) But avoid writers group if all they do is sit around and bitch and moan about how its all a big conspiracy to keep them out.

14. Don’t be afraid to rewrite. The temptation is huge, after you type THE END, to ship that puppy out. Don’t. Let it bake in the thumb drive for at least a week, then go back and read it cold. The crap will jump out at you — huge gobs of smelly stuff. You must rewrite. As many times as it takes. The first draft is made with the heart. The second, fifth and tenth, are made with the head.

15. Don’t give up. Never up, never in. Not at the plate, no chance to hit. One of the main differences between the published and unpublished writer (besides talent — duh!) is that the latter packed it in. This is a cruel, difficult, god-awful business. There is no secret formula for what editors want. There is no big conspiracy to keep you out of the club. There are, however, overworked, badly paid people sitting behind desks in New York who are overwhelmed with manuscripts but are still willing to pay money for a well-told story. There are readers out there waiting to find a new author who has a great story to tell. The trick is to find them — through a combination of talent, craftsmanship, perseverance and luck. Especially luck.

This is Dr. Phil, signing off. Now get back to that computer before I come over there and cut off your fingers….

Book Contests for Indie Authors

Posted on by

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   
        


If you’ve decided to go the indie route and publish your next book yourself, perhaps first as an e-book on Amazon (Pros, Cons, & Tips for Publishing Your Book on Amazon) and then maybe in print too, be sure to check out James Scott Bell’s advice yesterday. And I second his praise for Amazon’s KDP Program – I went into detail on the advantages in a post recently at Crime Fiction Collective: “Thanks, Amazon, for Promoting My Books for Free!”

The competition is tough for independently published books, and an amateurish book can sink your reputation before you’ve gotten started, so be sure to put out a professional product (and it is a product). How do you make your book stand out from the crowd, rise up the ranks, sell well, and garner great reviews?

First, be sure to search out professionals to edit and proofread the manuscript, design the cover design, and format it properly. For an excellent, extensive list of professional resources for book design, editing, formatting, and more, check out Elizabeth Craig’s EBook Services Professionals Directory. Also, peruse DuoLit’s detailed Self-Publishing Resources Directory, and our list here at TKZ (in the sidebar).

Limited resources for all of those necessities? You can save a lot of money on editing costs by doing a thorough revision and edit yourself first (See my step-by-step tips for revision, Revise for Success, James Scott Bell’s excellent guide, Revision & Self-Editing, and my Fire up Your Fiction). You can also cut costs for formatting by doing the basic formatting yourself, per these instructions for formatting your manuscript. And you can get a high-quality cover design for as low as $99 on sites like this one where I got my two covers, or even lower if you choose a pre-made cover.

Then, once your story is revised, polished, and presented in an attractive, professional-looking package, and you’ve published it, think about entering it in a book contest. Winning an award for your self-published fiction or nonfiction book is a great way to gain recognition and respect – and increase book sales, so it rises above the masses. If you win an award, the publicity will boost your book sales, and you can add the award decal to your cover and mention the achievement on your back cover, in the book description, and in all your marketing and promoting, for that extra edge.

Here’s a list of book awards specifically for independently published books. It’s for your quick info only, and is in no way an endorsement of any of them. Click on the title of the award to go to their website for more details. And do let me know of any good ones I’ve missed.

[And if you’re looking to hone your skills and network, you might also be interested in checking out this extensive list of Writers’ Conferences & Book Festivals in North America in 2014 & 2015.]

BOOK CONTESTS FOR INDIE AUTHORS

THE BIGGIES:

~ AMAZON BREAKTHROUGH NOVEL AWARD

The Seventh Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest is right around the corner. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to win a publishing contract  with Amazon Publishing. 

How & when to enter: They must receive your contest entry between February 16, 2014 and March 2, 2014. The contest is limited to 10,000 Entries.

Prizes: One Grand Prize winner will receive a publishing contract with a $50,000 advance, and four First Prize winners will each receive a publishing contract with an advance of $15,000. Visit the Prizes page for the full list of prizes and details.

Categories: include five popular genres: General Fiction, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror and Young Adult Fiction. For complete eligibility details, view the Official Contest Rules, or read details on how to enter.

 

~ WRITER’S DIGEST SELF PUBLISHED BOOK AWARDS

Sponsored by: Writer’s Digest Magazine (F&W Media) and Book Marketing Works, LLC

Requirements: Open to all English-language self-published books. Entrants must send a printed and bound book. Evaluated on content, writing quality and overall quality of production and appearance. All books published or revised and reprinted between 2009 and 2014 are eligible.

Early-Bird Deadline: April 1, 2014        

What’s in it for you?                         

  • A chance to win $3,000 in cash
  • National exposure for your work
  • The attention of prospective editors and publishers
  • A paid trip to the ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference!

Fees: Early-bird entry fees: $99 for the first entry, and $75 for each additional entry.

Categories: 9, including 2 for nonfiction.

Winners notified: by Oct. 17, 2014

Notes: Very popular so very competitive. Your book needs to be professionally produced and sparkle in every way. I have judged for this contest for the past 3 years, so can provide more general info if anyone is interested.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? Yes – minimum 200 words, plus a 1-5 rating on 5 points.

Also, Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards

– New and for 2013, they only had two categories, fiction and nonfiction, so chances of winning were very slim. Maybe they’ll add more categories for 2014, which would improve this one. A definite plus is that, like the above WD contest, they do send you the judge’s rating and commentary, whether you win or not, which is very helpful.
[Update: 2 days after posting this, I received an Honorable Mention in this contest, plus a detailed, entirely positive review from one of the judges. Thrilled!]

~ FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Sponsored by: Foreword Reviews

Open to: all books from independent publishers, including small presses, university presses, and self-published authors, published in 2013.        

Deadline: January 15, 2014

Winners announced: at American Library Assoc. conference, June 26 – July 1, 2014

Entry fee: $99. Send two books per category.

Categories: Over 60 categories

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

Benefits/Prizes: Valuable publicity and $1500 cash prize for the Editor’s Choice in Fiction and Nonfiction.

Details/Advantages: “The judging is unique in that after the initial entries have been narrowed down to a group of finalists in each category by the magazine’s team of editors, the finalists are shipped to a hand-selected group of booksellers and librarians who determine the winners. This panel of industry experts use the same criteria for judging as they would use in their own acquisitions process.”

~ INDIEREADER DISCOVERY AWARDS

Sponsored by: Kirkus Indie

Requirements: Open to all self-published books with a valid ISBN. No restrictions on publication dates. Both eBooks and paper books can be submitted.

Deadline: March 15, 2014

Categories: Two main categories (fiction and non-fiction) and 49 sub-categories.

Entry fee: $150 per title, $50 fee for each additional category entered.  Submit two copies the first category entered and one each additional category.  One paper book and one ebook is preferred, if possible.

Winners announced: at the 2014 Book Expo America (BEA) in New York City.

Benefits: “Everyone entering the IRDA’s receives a guaranteed book review from one of IR’s professional reviewers.” Publishing partners: the Huffington Post and USA Today. “If your book gets a 4-5 star review—whether you win the IRDAs or not—it will be considered “IndieReader Approved” and we’ll give you a sticker so that booksellers and book buyers can identify it as such.”

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? Yes, every author who enters a book in the IRDAs gets a review–at least 300 words–by a professional IR reviewer.

 

~ NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS     

Sponsored by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group

Requirements: Open to independent authors and publishers worldwide. Enter books released in 2013 or 2014 or with a 2013 or 2014 copyright date

Categories: 60 categories to choose from

Deadline: February 14, 2014

Fees: $75 per title for the first category entered, $50 for each additional category.

Submission Details: Two copies of the book must be sent for the first category entered plus one copy for each additional category.

Prizes, Benefits, awards: Cash prizes, awards, exposure of top 60 books to NYC literary agent, awards reception, NYC

Details: The largest not-for-profit awards program for independent publishers

Winners notified by: May 15

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

~ NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE BOOK AWARDS

Requirements/Eligibility: Open to books with an ISBN, published 2010-2014. Send one copy of the book per category entered.

Deadline: March 31, 2014

Fees: $69 per category             

Categories: Lots of Categories!

Winners & Finalists: Will be publicized during Book Expo America; be listed on the official website of the IndieExcellence.com site; etc.

Winners announced: May 15, 2014

~ IPPY AWARDS – INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS  


Sponsored by: Jenkins Group Publishing Services, affiliated with Publisher’s Weekly.

Eligibility: independently published titles released between July 1, 2012 and March 15, 2014. Open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the North American market.

Deadline: March 15, 2014

Fees: $85-$95 per category; $55 to also enter the E-Book Awards or Regional Book Awards

Categories: 76 subject categories in National awards; Regional awards for the United States, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand; E-Book Awards with fiction, non-fiction, children’s and regional categories.

Benefits: Winners receive celebration party in NY City, medals, stickers, certificates, national publicity in major trade publications including Publisher’s Weekly and Shelf Awareness. Learn more

~ THE BEN FRANKLIN AWARDS

Sponsored by: IBPA – Independent Book Publishers Association  

Info: The IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in book publishing is regarded as one of the highest national honors for small and independent publishers.

Deadlines: 2013:First Call – Sept. 30, 2013; Second call – Dec. 31, 2013 (extended to Jan. 15, 2014)

Categories: 41 book categories + design = 55 categories

Entry fees: IBPA member – $95 per title, per category; Non-IBPA member – $225 for first title, which includes one year’s membership in IBPA; $95 for subsequent entries.

Benefits: Winners recognized at a gala event. Gold winners receive an engraved crystal trophy. Gold and Silver winners receive award certificates along with gold or silver stickers. All winners announced to the major trade journals and media.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? Yes. The Benjamin Franklin Awards are unique in that the entrants receive direct feedback on their titles. The actual judging forms are returned to all participating publishers.

OTHER BOOK CONTESTS FOR INDIE AUTHORS:

~ SHELF UNBOUND WRITING COMPETITION FOR BEST SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK

Sponsored by: Shelf Media Group, Half Price Books

Eligibility: Any independently published book in any genre is eligible for entry.


Deadline: Oct. 1, 2014.      

Entry fee: $30 per book.

Submission: Email a PDF or Word Doc of the book or mail in a physical copy.

Details and benefits: Top five books receive editorial coverage in the December/January 2014 issue of Shelf Unbound. Best Independently Published book will also receive a year’s worth of full-page ads in Shelf Unbound and will be stocked and promoted in all 115 Half Price Books retail stores. Shelf Unbound book review magazine reaches more than 125,000 readers.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

~ USA “BEST BOOKS” AWARDS

Sponsored by: USA Book News

Eligibility: Open to all books with an ISBN and published 2012–2014. Galley copies are welcome.

Deadline: September 30, 2014.

Entry Fee: $69.00 per title/per category.

Categories: Over 100 active categories to choose from.

Details: Winners and Finalists will be announced nationally in November 2014.

Prizes, Benefits: Winners & Finalists In Each Category Receive: USA Book News Exposure, National Media & Industry Exposure, Results Announced on USA Book News’ Social Media Pages, Publishing Industry Exposure. USA Book News also operates The 2014 International Book Awards, now in its fifth year.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

~ THE ERIC HOFFER AWARD

Deadlines: Books: January 21. Short prose: March 31.

Fees: Books: $50

Categories: 16 categories

Prizes: Two grand prizes, one for short prose (i.e. fiction and creative nonfiction) and one for independent books. Prizes include a $250 award for short prose and a $2,000 award for best independent book. In addition, various other honors and distinctions are given for both prose and books.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No. “Our judging process is a three tier system. Two successive category judges score the book on a seven point criteria system and provide feedback before it is passed to the higher level judges, but we do not provide feedback to the authors / publishers / nominators. We did in the early years, but it resulted in too many authors feeling the need to defend their books.”

~ READERS’ FAVORITE BOOK AWARDS

Accept manuscripts, published and unpublished books, ebooks, audio books, comic books, poetry books and short stories in 100+ genres.

No publication date requirement or word count restriction. Entries are accepted worldwide as long as the work is in English.

Fee is $89.00

Four award levels plus a finalist level in each of our 100+ categories.

Special Illustration Award competition for illustrated books.

Roll of high quality, embossed award stickers ($50 value).

Digital award seal for your book cover and print/web marketing.

Personalized award certificate.

Olympics-style physical award medal with ribbon.

Awards ceremony with guest speakers and media coverage.

Book displayed in our booth at the largest book fair in America.

Book review posted on 7 popular book and social networking sites.

Mini-critique of 5 key areas of your book.



OTHER BOOK AWARDS:

– Beverly Hills Book Awards
– Bookworks Awards
– eLit Book Awards
– EPIC eBook Competition
– Global eBook Awards                               
– Green Book Festival
– Nautilus Book Awards
– Publishing Innovation Awards
– Reader Views Literary Awards

BOOK FESTIVAL CONTESTS:
– New England Book Festival
– New York Book Festival
– San Francisco Book Festival
– The Beach Book Festival
– The Hollywood Book Festival
– London Book Festival
– Paris Book Festival
– The Living Now Book Awards

INTERNATIONAL
– International Book Awards
– The International Rubery Book Award
– The WISHING SHELF Independent Book Awards [UK]

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
– The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards     

Can you think of any more to add? Have you had any experiences with any of these book contests that you’d like to share?

Besides publishing numerous blog posts, her popular Editor’s Guides to Writing Compelling Fiction, the award-winning Fire up Your Fiction and Writing a Killer Thriller and her handy, clickable e-resources, Quick Clicks: Word Usage and Quick Clicks: Spelling List, Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor. Find Jodie on Facebookand Twitter, and sign up for her occasional newsletter here. Author website: JodieRenner.com.

Marketing is Easy, Writing is Hard

Posted on by
It was probably the English actor Edmund Kean (1787 – 1833) who uttered famous last words that have been attributed to others. On his deathbed he was asked by a friend if dying was hard. The thespian replied, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”
Thus, we come to the subject of today’s post, which is this: Writing is hard. You should know that already. (I should say, writing well is hard, but that doesn’t sound as snappy).
But here’s the other side: Marketing is easy.
Yes, I said easy. I can hear the sighs, nay, the howls of protest. “If it’s so easy, how come my books aren’t selling?”
The answer is almost always: Because writing is hard. You’ve got to have a superior product to sell, and that’s not easy. It’s not easy for anybusiness to create great products. If it were, everybody would be rolling in dough and tipping fifty bucks at Sizzler.
Believe me when I say, quoting my own 5 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws: it takes quality production over time to make a go of indie publishing.
So why am I saying marketing is easy? Because marketing is not the same as that tiresome buzzword, Discoverability. If you remember that, your life will be a lot happier. If you need help marketing your product or business, take a look at the services provided by clickslice.

Marketing you control. Discoverability is out of your hands. Don’t brood about discovery. Write well, and market easily, and discovery takes care of itself. With this being said, just because marketing may be easy for some, this doesn’t mean it is for everyone. Once you know how to implement these techniques, seeing the results are worth it. But if you are new to the world of business, with the assistance of companies such as GLM, you’ll be able to get a better understanding of how marketing with things like promotional events, for which you should get some Custom backpacks, can help align your business’s direction and produce higher performance results. There’s no harm in asking for help, especially when it comes to your business, as I’m sure everyone wants to succeed.

So why do I say marketing is easy? Because the things that work best for fiction writers are pretty much known. After you’ve written the best book you can, and given it quality design (editing, cover, description, key words), then you proceed to market. In my opinion, these are the top five ways to go:
1. Word of Mouth
This is, has been, and always will be the greatest driver of sales for any novelist. It is “passive marketing,” because it is done by others on your behalf.
Beyond the book itself, you really cannot do anything to improve word of mouth. There was an attempt to do so a few years ago, when authors were buying 5-star reviews.But that practice was quickly flamed, and some authors suffered because of it.
So don’t stress about this aspect of marketing. However, in the words of Bonnie Raitt, give ’em something to talk about.
2. Your Own Mailing List
I wrote about this here. Growing a list should be an ongoing enterprise. You should have a website with a place for readers to sign up for your updates. You should also learn how to communicate effectively so as not to annoy people. That’s the subject of a future post.
3. KDP Select
If you’re just starting out, the Select program from Kindle Direct Publishing is one of the best ways to get your work

out to new readers. You list your book exclusively with the Kindle store for ninety days and are allowed to offer your book free for five days within that period. The days can be used singly or in order. I advise doing it in order. Like I’m doing right now with my first Irish Jimmy Gallagher story, Iron Hands. Yes, it’s free, so nab it. I’ll wait.

Welcome back. Another option in the Select program is the Countdown Deal. Read more about that here. Currently, you cannot run a countdown and a free promo in the same quarter. If you’re just starting out, go for the free promos first. Your main task is to get people to your work.
How you utilize KDP Select with multiple titles is up to you, but I would advise keeping at least some short works with the program.
4. A Subscriber-Based Ad
Services like BookBub, BookGorilla, and Kindle Nation Daily may run an ad for your book. You pay for the privilege. But here is where many writers make a mistake. You should not view this kind of ad as a way to make money or “break even.” You may, in fact, not make back your initial investment. This discourages many writers who may not take out another ad.
But it’s still worth it to do so because when you attract new readers a percentage of them will become repeat customers. Thus, the value of a your return is not dollar-for-dollar, but future income based upon the new readers you generate.
5. Some Social Media Presence
It’s necessary to have some footprint out there in social media. But don’t try to do everything. Pick something you enjoy and which doesn’t gobble up too much of your time. Remember, social media is about “social” and not (primarily) about selling. See my notes here. There is a part of social media that’s too hard for me to recommend: personal blogging. TKZ is a group blog. Trying to produce content by myself, at least three times a week, takes too much time and effort for too little return. The people who can do this are few, and I’m still not convinced the ROE (Return on Energy) is worth it. Choose wisely where you specialize.
Okay, that takes care of the marketing. If you have any further questions, you should consult Joanna Penn’s book.
Now the hard part, writing. Concentrate most of your efforts here. Writing is a craft. It has to be learned, practiced, polished, criticized, revised, and practiced some more. It has to be wild and free on one side, yet disciplined and structured on the other.
Yes, you can write for pure pleasure, that’s fine. You don’t have to sell in big numbers if you don’t want to. But if you’re serious about gathering readers in ever increasing numbers, work at the craft.
Beethoven had to work at his music.
Picasso had to work at his painting.
Pete Rose had to work at baseball. He became one of the greatest hitters of all time with less than all-time talent. His problem was that he thought gambling was easy.
So here is your lesson for the day: Work on your writing and don’t gamble.

Are you stressed out about marketing? What are you doing to counteract that? How about a writing self-improvement program?