What’s on your mind, dear readers, about books and publishing as of today? What’s it all look like from your vantage point? What do you see ahead?
First Page Critique – The Scissorgate
We have another brave soul who anonymously submitted their intro to a book entitled THE SCISSORGATE. My comments on the flip side.
The Scissorgate
January 2002
The tire treads dug into the snow covered road, shattering the icy surface, as the car with government issued plates pulled over. The car’s exhaust blew billows of white steam that hung in the air before dissipating. The Chicagoan neighborhood was still and the air was light and brittle. The two men prepared to approach the modest home at 428 Lincoln Drive.
Even with the heater running they could still feel the bite in the freezing air. As they exited the vehicle, they immediately squared the hard shiny brim of their service caps across their foreheads. Frosted vapors expelled from their lips and noses with every breath. Their patent leather shoes, shined to a mirrored finish, crunched over the snow as they passed through the gate across the small yard. The naked branches, like fingers on the trees, pointed accusingly and directed them to leave. No matter how well groomed, with their hard starched lines and mirrored shoes, in every way their presence was an assault and even nature knew they shouldn’t be there.
“Jaxon, son, you left your socks and shoes in the middle of the living room again!” Olivia yelled as she bent to pick up the discarded items.
“That boy would lose his head if it weren’t attached,” she mumbled. She started toward his room when a knock at the door stopped her in her tracks.
She couldn’t imagine anyone being out in the weather as cold as it was. But unbeknownst to her, the chill the two soldiers brought to her doorstep was far more than Mother Nature could ever conjure.
Olivia saw two dress blue uniforms standing on her porch. Her mouth went instantly dry while her upper lip became beaded with sweat. Every Army wife’s worst nightmare. Her heart painfully began to thud against her sternum, screaming to escape.
Don’t panic. Jason’s home early to surprise us. He always found new ways to surprise her and Jaxon. She tried to convince herself that that is what brought these two to her home. But something about the soldiers standing on the other side of the glass front door . . . something about their stillness . . . the tension so thick and heavy made the seconds pass like minutes but her thoughts raced out of control. They’re in dress blues. It’s too formal. Where’s Jason?
“Ma’am are you Mrs. Olivia Parks?” The first frozen soldier finally broke the silence.
Critique:
Tag line
I like the use of tag lines to immediately let the reader know when and where the story scene takes place. In this case, the date of January 2002 is used, but for a bit of house cleaning, I would add another line – Chicago, Illinois – so the use of “Chicagoan” would not be necessary. This is a very minor point. Maybe it wouldn’t bother anyone else.
First line structure
The very first line of a book should stir some element of mystery or capture the imagination of the reader, such that if the sentence stood alone, it might make the reader want to read the book just to know more. Many readers post their favorite beginning lines on Goodreads, for example. This structure of this sentence could be stronger, since the subject (the car) is at the end of the line. See Recommendations for suggestions on a different focus for the first line.
Point of View (POV)
1.) For the first two paragraphs, there is no clear POV. It’s as if there is an omniscient narrator until the action gets to Olivia and the POV switches to her. There are two men in the government issued car and the word “they” is used to describe them. To make the POV clearer, it would be better if the action started with Olivia and she noticed the dark sedan pull onto her street. Create a mystery and center it on her emotion as she sees the car stop at her house.
2.) Another POV issue is the phrase “unbeknownst to her.” If Olivia doesn’t know whatever is unbeknownst to her, then it can’t be in her POV. An editor or agent would look at this first few paragraphs and see “head-hopping” POV and assume the rest of the book is full of it. I would suggest picking one POV per scene and stick with the action as if it’s through that character’s eyes. I usually select the character with the most to lose. In this case, Olivia is a solid choice since she’s worried about the bad news these soldiers are bringing to her door.
3.) The last line is a POV problem too. The reader is in Olivia’s POV, but she can’t possibly know that the soldier is frozen.
Setting/Over-writing
There is a lot of really pointed use of the cold weather in the first two paragraphs. I love a good setting and weather is a great way to emphasize the emotion of a scene, but I would prefer it be used more subtlety. As example of overly dramatic use of setting AND POV problems are these lines: The naked branches, like fingers on the trees, pointed accusingly and directed them to leave. No matter how well groomed, with their hard starched lines and mirrored shoes, in every way their presence was an assault and even nature knew they shouldn’t be there. It’s as if the Chicago chill and the icy trees have POV now. The trees are telling the soldiers they should leave and shouldn’t be there. This is over-writing to me. Similes and metaphors can be done effectively, but they should be more subtle and add clarity to what the main POV character is feeling, not inanimate trees.
Character Names
This is a minor point, but Olivia’s husband is named Jason, but the son is named Jaxon. Since I’m not sure how relevant this will be later in the story, if there are two characters with such similar names, the reader could be confused. I try to pick names using different letters in the alphabet, to make sure each name is more distinctive. This goes for secondary characters as well.
Recommendations
Since the main objective of this intro is to establish that Olivia has two soldiers at her door, presumably to give her bad news about her husband Jason, I would start with the anticipation of her getting that bad news. Have her see the car pull up. Maybe have her dealing with her son more directly, but trying to get him out of the room, while she deals with her emotions and the start of her horrific day.
Focus on her physical reaction to what she’s seeing – her heart racing, trembling fingers, unable to catch her breath and wanting to throw up, with flashes of her husband’s face in her mind as the soldiers walk to her door. A blast of cold air could hit her as she opens the door.
As they speak to her, where does her mind go? What does she see as the bad news hits her? She might focus on the details of the formal uniforms these men wear – their shiny shoes and belt buckles – or how a glob of ice melts on their shoes. But the point is to focus on Olivia and keep the POV in her head. That’s where the emotion is. The book may jump off into other characters and other action, but in this scene, it is about Olivia getting bad news.
What do you think, TKZers? What advice would you give this brave author if you were their critique partner?
Blood Score by Jordan Dane – Now Available on Amazon Ebooks at this LINK.
“Jordan Dane has an extremely skilled and talented hand at creating riveting suspense and characters that become real to us. You will find yourself living the story, holding your breath and turning the pages as fast as possible. I highly recommend BLOOD SCORE to everyone. It’s truly among my Top Ten reads of all time.”
~Desiree Holt
There’s no place like home
A beginning writer once asked me, “How do you find out what motivates your characters?” I suggested it could be done with something as simple as an interview. I said to consider interviewing your character as if you were a newspaper reporter asking probing questions about their life, quest, current situation, and other topics that could yield the answers. Come up with all the questions first. Then conduct the interview. It sounds simplistic, but it works.
As authors, we know how vital it is that all our characters have a goal. They must want something, and that something is what drives them forward in the story. But it’s more than just a want. They must also have a need. If we don’t know what our characters wants and needs are, neither will our readers. With nothing to root for, the reader will lose interest. And in the end, they won’t care about the outcome.
So what is the difference between want and a need?
The want is what our character consciously pursues in the story (Dorothy wants to get home after being transported to the Land of Oz by 
a tornado). The need can be a quality she must gain in order to get what she wants (courage, selflessness, maturity, etc.) or the need can be in direct conflict with what she wants. In Dorothy’s case, she needs to find the Wizard of Oz who supposedly can help her return home. Of course, we find that her real need is a lesson learned while interacting with all the good and evil characters along the Yellow Brick Road—a need to appreciate what she already has.
So the quality she needs to obtain is an appreciation of the love her family and friends have for her. If we work backwards, we already know that at the beginning of the story, she should show a lack of appreciation (or apparent lack) of those around her. Around the farm she lives on, they give her little attention and constantly tell her to stay out of the way. Knowing this need, we have now given Dorothy room to grow.
Now we can start forming Dorothy’s character in our head. We know that the story should force Dorothy into progressively greater conflicts so she sees how much her friends care for her, how much they stand by her and come to her aid. These conflicts should build until the final crisis (the Wizard leaves without her and she is trapped in Oz) where she is made aware of the deep love her family and friends feel toward her.
Every character must have a want and a need. The most critical are the ones for our protagonists and antagonists. But I think that even the smallest, one-time, walk-ons must be motivated. If we determine the goals of every character, we will have an easier time writing them, and the reader will have a more distinct picture of the character in their minds.
In planning our stories, it’s important that we determine our main character’s wants and needs first. In doing so, we’ll always have a goal to focus on as we write. Ask ourselves, what are our main character’s wants and needs? Can we express them in one sentence? Dorothy wants to return home and needs to find the Wizard of Oz to help her. Give it a try. If you get lost, just click your heels together and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”
What writers can learn from movies about writing
Sleepless in South Florida last night — I’ve lost control over chapter five — so I retreated to the sofa and the remote. And there, thank God, was “Wonder Boys.” I am beginning to think my muse speaks to me through the Turner Classics.
“Wonder Boys” is one of my favorite movies about writers. Others are “Barton Fink,” “My Brilliant Career” and “Swimming Pool.” (Charlotte Rampling retreats to Provence to finish her crime novel…ah yes.) These movies have stuck in my brain through the years not just because they entertain me but also because they teach me about this weird profession I have chosen. Here are a few my favorite lessons:
Wonder Boys: Make choices!
Based on the novel by Michael Chabon, “Wonder Boys” stars Michael Douglas as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing but, after winning the Pen award for his first novel, is stalled on his second, a 1400-page hot mess. (Will he ever publish again? Does he still have anything left to say? Is he a one-hit wonder?) A student tells him it is because he has not “made any choices” as a writer. Well, you HAVE to make choices as a writer; writing a novel is nothing if not a series of choices. Yet this is often the biggest obstacles, especially for first attempts. Maybe it’s because the writer fears he will never get a second chance so he crams everything he knows into one story. With experienced writers, it might be because the writer just sits down and starts writing without first thinking. (Which is really the hard part). You have to think about what your book is about. You have to think about how to structure it and what kind of characters you need. And you have to cut out the stuff that you don’t need. The stuff that is not in service to your story and theme. You have to make choices. In every chapter, page, sentence…and word.
Throw Mama From the Train: Know what you write
If you’re writing a thriller set in a nuclear sub, it is a good idea — as Billy Crystal’s character Larry tells his writing class — to know the name of the “thing the captain speaks through.” This is basic stuff — that crime and thriller writers get the details about forensics, police procedure, military protocol, and such right. But aren’t you dismayed at how often writers get this stuff wrong? I think it’s pure laziness. Because it is not hard to get experts to help you, to go watch a YouTube video of an autopsy, tour Edinburgh on Google Street View, to do research to find out how guns or Elizabethan government works. Verisimilitude — it’s a lovely word. (Yeah, I had to look it up to spell it right). We work hard to create fictional worlds that readers eagerly enter. They don’t like it when we rudely jerk them out of that world by dumb mistakes.
As Good As It Gets: Write what you know
When the poor secretary asks romance writer Jack Nicholson how we writes such great women, he delivers one of the greatest comebacks in all of moviedom (above clip). The lesson here is that yes, the chestnut “write what you know” is useful but only to a point. A fiction writer MUST be able to write outside her gender, race and limited world. But unless you have deep empathy and acute powers of observation, and, maybe most important, the ability to take a specific experience (especially if it’s your own) and make it universal so it connects with Everyman, you won’t succeed. I am not sure this can be learned. It might just be the special province of talent.
Adaptation: Know when to quit
Not quit writing. Just what you are writing. “Adaptation” speaks to all of us writers on many levels, but its most gut-wrenching lesson is about the despair of trying to be passionate about a book you don’t really care about. I’ve had to make the hard choice to abandon a book in midstream. But I’ll let my friend Sharon Potts tell you about this valuable lesson:
“For the past year, I’ve been struggling with a book that frequently feels like more than I can handle. Too many subplots that are all tangled up and I can’t seem to bring them to a satisfying resolution. And then I realized, my problem is more than plotting. It’s my protagonist. I don’t ‘feel’ her anymore. I don’t care if she saves herself and the world. So how can I write if I’m not passionate? And if I don’t feel it, will readers care when I finally finish the book? In the meantime, another story has been poking at me. A story that ties to my mother’s past and to historical events I’ve always cared about. Even before I write a word, I can already see my protagonist clearly. She’s so real to me that she overpowers the heroine in the book I’ve been struggling to finish. So I made a decision. After a full year and over 100,000 words, I’m putting aside my ‘frustration’ novel. I’m going to write the story my heart wants to tell.”
Deconstructing Harry: Know when to keep going
This is not my favorite Woody Allen movie; it’s a vulgar uneven portrait of a self-serving user who turns everyone in his life into fictional fodder. (Sorry, can’t get this video link to work!) One character tells him, “This little sewer of an apartment is where you take everyone’s suffering and turn it into gold.” Tough to watch. But I like the ending because it strikes the only note of light when Harry Block realizes “his writing, in more ways than one, had saved his life.”
Not a bad lesson, all in all. What are your favorite writer movies and what did you learn from them?
The CTFD Writing Method
Dear Me Five Years Ago,
I just read about a revolutionary new parenting method created by David Vienna called CTFD, or Calm The F*ck Down. Vienna proposes that kids are resilient and will grow up to be fine if parents would stop worrying about every little thing so much. CTFD isn’t for the children. It’s the parents who need to calm the f*ck down. I think his method has great lessons for you, so listen up.
As an unpublished author, you are concerned about everything (yes, I still remember like it was yesterday). You have so many concerns, I wonder now how you get any writing done. They go on and on: How will you get published? What if you’re writing isn’t good enough? Why doesn’t an agent want to represent you? Will you ever be able to do this for a living? Good God, you’re a mess.
I’m writing from the future to tell you…calm the f*ck down.
Even after you get Irene Goodman as an agent, you’re going to wonder why no publisher wants you (BTW, she advocated pretty much this same method, but you won’t really take it to heart at the time). When you get published by a big six publisher, you’re going to fret over the marketing for your first book even though most of it is out of your control. While you’re doing all that, you’re going stagger under the pressure of writing a great follow-up, convinced that you’ve run out of ideas.
Calm the f*ck down.
You’re going to give me an ulcer if you keep worrying about every little thing. You need to pace yourself. You’re so consumed with how that one book is going to be received that you’re not realizing you have a whole career ahead of you. I (we? you?) have six books published now, and I can assure you that there will be plenty of ups and downs in the coming years.
You’ve written three books without getting published? CTFD. Steve Berry wrote eight in twelve years before he got published. If you’re serious about making writing you’re job, don’t get hung up on those books. If they don’t sell, keep writing. You never know what’s going to be your breakout. When you were working at Microsoft, did you tell your boss: “My project is done—well-funded retirement, please!”? No, you went on to the next project.
You plan to be writing for the next forty years. That’s at least forty books ahead of you. Hell, Dean Koontz has written a hundred novels, and it took him forty before he wrote one you’ve heard of. You’re complaining that you’re career hasn’t taken off after three?
Buddy, calm the f*ck down.
I’m telling you, there’s no secret sauce. There’s hard work and luck. Sure, you’d love to have that one stratospheric hit that reaps millions of dollars and readers around the world. But here’s the thing: you have no idea which book that will be. It may be the next book or it may be ten books down the road.
Stop focusing on the book you just finished. It’s done. Yes, do your best to get the word out about it, but then move on and write another one. As James Scott Bell said in his blog yesterday, if you’re passionate about the story, odds are some other people will be, too. Maybe even a lot of people.
And if the next book doesn’t resonate with people, calm the f*ck down. You’ve got forty more chances to make it happen.
CTFD,
Five Years Later You
Finding Your Writer’s Voice
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
You hear it every time there’s a panel of agents and/or editors, when they are asked what they’re looking for in a manuscript. Someone always says, “A fresh voice.”
But no one knows how to define it. Over the years I’ve heard some attempts at explanation, and I’ve jotted them down. Here they are:
• A combination of character, setting, page turning.
• A distinctive style, like a Sergio Leone film.
• It’s who you are.
• Personality on the page.
• It’s something written from your deepest truth.
• Your expression as an artist.
Well, okay. I guess. But how do we develop voice? Indeed, is it something that can be developed? Or is it something you’re born with?
What if you write in different genres? Is your voice in a noir thriller going to be the same as your voice in a romance?
Should writers even worry about voice? I counsel my students to be true to the story they’re telling, true to the characters, and not to worry about this elusive thing everyone says they want. If the tale is well told, that’s the main thing.
But I do think there is something to be said for trying to coax out a little more voice, even though you can never quite nail it down to pure technique.
So what is it that does the coaxing? In a word, joy.
“In the great story-tellers, there is a sort of self-enjoyment in the exercise of the sense of narrative; and this, by sheer contagion, communicates enjoyment to the reader. Perhaps it may be called (by analogy with the familiar phrase, “the joy of living”) the joy of telling tales. The joy of telling tales which shines through Treasure Island is perhaps the main reason for the continued popularity of the story. The author is having such a good time in telling his tale that he gives us necessarily a good time in reading it.” – Clayton Meeker Hamilton,A Manual of the Art of Fiction (1919)
I think Professor Hamilton nailed it. When an author is joyous in his telling, it pulses through the words. When you read a Ray Bradbury, for instance, you sense his joy. He was in love with words and his own imagination, and it showed.
I recall a Writer’s Digest fiction column by Lawrence Block, back in the 80’s, and he was telling about being at a book signing with some other authors, one of whom was a guy named Stephen King. And Stephen King’s line was longer by far than for any of the other guys.
Which got Larry to thinking, what was it about King’s stuff? And he decided that it was this joy aspect. When you read Stephen King, you feel like you’re reading an author who loves writing, loves making up tales to creep us out, enjoys the very act of setting words down on paper.
Because when you’re joyful in the writing, the writing is fresher and fuller. Fuller of what? Of you. And that translates to the page and becomes that thing called Voice.
So the question is, how can you get more joy into your writing?
Here are some thoughts:
1. Be excited about your story. If you’re not jazzed about what you’re writing, you can’t be joyful about writing it. Dwight Swain, the great writing teacher, once said that the secret of excitement is to go deeper into your characters. Create more backstory, more secrets, more complexity, and you’ll get excited again.
2. Write at your peak “freshness” time. Find out when you’re most creative and awake and alive. Write for all you’re worth during that time.
3. Take a break when it’s drudgery, and do something else for awhile. I find that if I read a passage by one of my favorite writers, I soon enough get excited about writing and want to go back to my project.
4. Try a dose of Dr. Wicked. This neat little program can be accessed online, or downloaded to your desktop for ten bucks. Basically, it makes you write fast, because if you don’t it will soon emit a terrible sound that will sandpaper your brain. Writing fast, without thinking too much, is fun, and many times you’ll tickle out some of your best stuff that way.
5. Picture the reward. Now and then you need to daydream about your finished book and all the happy readers who are going to enjoy it––and who will put you on their favorite authors list.
For more on voice, please see my book on the subject.
So what about you? Do you find joy in your writing? If not, what are you going to do about it?
Loose Lips
It was revealed this week that a mystery novel titled The Cuckoo’s Calling and written by Robert Galbraith was in fact authored by someone named J.K. Rowling, whose name in the author’s slot on a book has been enough to cause children and their parents to line up in front of bookstores at midnight. The news leaked as the result of a Twitter tweet and spread very quickly. After the dust settled and the smoke cleared a book which had sold a few hundred copies since its publication in late April 2013 suddenly became very much in demand. Rowling, her publicist, and any number of people were accused of having leaked the true identity of the author to the world in an effort to boost sales of the book. It was revealed yesterday, however, that the cause of the leak was an attorney in the employ of the law firm which handles Rowling’s literary business. As an attorney myself, I’m embarrassed.
One of the things that is drummed into young skulls full of mush in law school, and thereafter in countless continuing legal education courses, is something called “client confidentiality.” Most people are familiar with the concept, at least in passing. It’s simple enough: if you tell your attorney something they take it to their grave. Believe me, attorneys hear some very interesting things. Not all of us represent someone on the order of J.K. Rowling, but there are any number of times that someone has told me something within ten minutes after sitting down in front of me that they’ve never told anyone else. What I’m told often comes under the heading of “too much information,” and occasionally I pray for selective amnesia, but that’s the way it goes. Whatever I’m told, however, stops with me, even in general terms. For but one example: if one practices family law and the next door neighbor comes to the office to discuss a possible divorce action, one does not go home and tell their spouse, “Guess who came in and talked to me today!” and give the spouse five guesses where the first six don’t count, all the while gesturing toward the house next door. The confidentiality, by the way, belongs to the client; to continue with the example, if the next door neighbor wants to tell the world who they consulted about a divorce, and what was discussed, that is their privilege. It doesn’t release the attorney, however, from the obligation of client confidentiality. Only the client can do that at their discretion and pleasure. Client confidentiality obtains in the state where I practice whether the prospective client ultimately retains the attorney or not. The “give me a dollar and I can’t discuss this with anyone else” is a great device to build suspense in a book, but it doesn’t apply in the real world. This makes sense. A prospective client has to be able to speak freely — spill their guts, as it were — so that the attorney can properly evaluate the case, make recommendations, and decide whether to represent the individual or recommend that they go elsewhere.
In Rowling’s case, the firm handling her legal matters with respect to her publishing — Russells — issued a terse though ultimately self-serving statement to the effect that Chris Gossage, a firm partner, had disclosed the information about Galbraith’s true identity to his “wife’s best friend” who ultimately tweeted her newly found knowledge to the world. Russells additionally stated that Gossage had made the disclosure “in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly.” This is a round-about way of assuming responsibility but not taking blame. It’s nonsense. An attorney receiving knowledge in confidence cannot subsequently disclose that knowledge to a third party in confidence. The information stops within the confines of the four walls of the office.
Rowling I am sure had her reasons for wishing to preserve her anonymity with respect to her authorship of The Cuckoo’s Calling. I don’t know what they might have been, and though I’m curious, it ultimately makes no difference. She doesn’t even need a reason. If you make a disclosure to your attorney the walls go up. That increase in sales of The Cuckoo’s Calling which occurred after Rowling’s confidentiality was breached is irrelevant. My gut instinct is that Rowling would have been much happier if the sales of the book had remained where they were and the secret of her identity had been preserved.
I’m unhappy about this, for so many reasons. So please. Make me laugh. Tell me the best lawyer joke you know.
Reader Friday: E-Reader or Tablet?
They say tablets are taking over as the preferred medium for digital books, slowly replacing the dedicated e-reader. Personally, I like my dedicated Kindle. I don’t like having distractions when I read. And I like its compactness.
But maybe that’s just me. What do you prefer, and why?
The First Step Is the Hardest: Writing Chapter 1
By Elaine Viets
The first chapter is the hardest – at least for me.
In one page, I have to catch the reader’s attention, set the scene, and introduce the main characters.
But I can’t overdo it. Too many characters, and my first chapter has “crowded room syndrome.” The plot can’t move forward and readers lose track of everyone. Also, a mystery has to pass the three-second test: That’s how long bookstore customers supposedly linger over the first page before they decide to buy it or put it back.
I’ll spare you the whining, pacing, and time wasting it took to start “Board Stiff,” my new Dead-End Job hardcover. Here’s the condensed version.
“Board Stiff” is the ultimate beach book.
I wrote about the cutthroat competition for tourist dollars on Florida beaches. I was inspired by a newspaper story about companies that rented paddleboards, surf boards and other beach toys and sabotaged their competitors. In my book, sabotage naturally became murder.
Standup paddleboarding is the hot sport.
In “Board Stiff,” Sunny Jim Sundusky believes someone is destroying his paddleboard rental business.
I started the chapter with this quote:
“They’re trying to kill me,” Sunny Jim Sundusky said. “They nearly succeeded in March, but I’m a tough old buzzard. I survived. They almost got me in April, but I escaped again.” That’s a grabber, I decided. But who’s Sunny Jim talking to? And why? Most important, where are they? Some novels have snappy openings, but leave the characters floating in space for pages. I made sure Sunny Jim was securely grounded in the second paragraph:
Helen Hawthorne and her husband, Phil Sagemont, sat across from Sunny Jim in their black-and-chrome chairs in the Coronado Investigations office. Sunny Jim sat in the yellow client chair, looking anything but sunny. Now I’d introduced the three principals: Private eyes Helen and Phil, and this Sunny Jim character.
The Dead-End Job mysteries are told from Helen’s point of view. Here’s her take on Sunny Jim:
Sun-dried was more like it, Helen thought, as she studied him. His face was red leather. His blond hair was dyed and flash-fried in a crinkly permanent. But he did look tough.
Helen has more to say more about Sunny Jim’s looks, but I needed to get on with the story. Why is he in their office?
“They’re gonna keep coming after me until they stop me for good,” he said. “That’s why I wanna hire you two. I hear you’re the best private eyes in South Florida.” I let Sunny Jim say the couple is the best in South Florida – and also pin the chapter to a place on the map.
The response is typical Helen and Phil, and reveals something about the PI pair. Phil knows they’re the best detective agency in South Florida. He takes Jim’s praise as his due. Helen is more modest.
“We were lucky to get good publicity,” Helen said.
“That wasn’t luck,” Phil said. “That was good detecting.”
“That’s what I need,” Sunny Jim said. “Detecting. I want you to stop them before they stop me – permanently.” Helen is the observant one. She watches Sunny Jim while he talks, and gives us a better picture of their potential client.
He stabbed his chest with a brown callused hand, right in the smiling sun on his yellow SUNNY JIM’S STAND-UP PADDLEBOARD RENTAL T-shirt. His arms and legs were roped with muscle and his chest was a solid slab.
Helen had seen enough steroid hardbodies to know that Jim built that beef the old-fashioned way. She thought he was attractive in a dated disco style, except he was too young to have caught the seventies’ disco fever. She guessed his age on the shady side of thirty-five. My novel’s first page ends with Sunny Jim’s demand for action:
“So, you gonna save my business or not?” Jim’s eyes were hidden behind expensive shades – Floridians rarely had naked eyes – but his chin jutted in a challenge.
I patted myself on the back and kept on writing.
What did my editor think? She wanted one change: “How can Sunny Jim call himself old if he’s around thirty-five?” she asked.
Oh, right. I changed that line to read:
“They nearly succeeded in March, but I’m one tough buzzard.
“Board Stiff” was launched.
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Check out the “Board Stiff” book trailer: http://tinyurl.com/ljgyzen
Buy it as an e-book and hardcover from bn.com: http://tinyurl.com/mvzbtfz
Buy it on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/kqdd8dj
Mailing Lists
Newly published authors often ask how to get readers on their mailing list for email newsletters. This process should start before you get a publisher. Once your book is sold, you’ll have an incredible amount of marketing to do. It’ll be helpful if you have already started collecting names.
The approach is two-fold: online and in person.
I send my quarterly email newsletter to nearly 5000 readers, booksellers, and librarians. How did I gain these numbers? In the past month alone, I’ve added 36 names of people I’ve met in person. Each one personally signed up for my mailing list. These came from three separate speaking engagements. Once you begin making public appearances, bring along a sign-up sheet to each event. I print out mine from Excel. One column is for the person’s full name. The other column is for their email address.
In the early days, I collected street addresses as well, but since the cost of postage has escalated, I no longer send postcards. Now all my mailings are online. However, if you plan to send out snail mail, you’ll need those home addresses. Or if you want to send a targeted email to fans announcing a signing or speaking engagement in their area, you’ll need their city and state.
So how else do you collect names, especially if you are unpublished? When you attend conferences, be sure to exchange business cards with everyone you meet.
Ask if people would like to be added to your email newsletter list. In the old days, I didn’t have to get permission. Anyone I met at a conference got added to my list, but promo materials got sent by snail mail back then. Nowadays people are spam conscious, so you have to be careful.
Sit with strangers at sponsored lunches or dinners and meet the people at your table. Hang out at the bar and give a friendly greeting to anyone wearing a conference name tag. Introduce yourself to strangers while waiting in lines to go into a meal or to an event. Your mailing list will build this way and over time you may gain lifelong fans.
After your book is published, you’ll start to receive fan mail. Ask if you may add the reader to your mailing list or direct them to your online opt-in form.
I categorize my lists so they separate into Booksellers, Contests, Fans, Librarians, Reviewers, and more. For example, I might want to send a notice only to my readers when a new book comes out. Several months before, I might want to notify booksellers, librarians, and reviewers about an upcoming release. Friends and Family are on my lists too, although I rarely bother them with announcements.
Holding a contest is a great way to collect names for your lists. Rafflecopter is the easiest method. Go to http://www.rafflecopter.com/ and sign up for a free account. The program automatically does everything for you. You can add bonus entries and have people Like your Facebook author page or tweet your contest.
You can join with other authors to offer a bigger prize and share the mailing list. For an example, visit Booklover’s Bench at http://bookloversbench.com, where I’ve joined with seven other writers. We offer monthly contests and cross promote each other in our personal newsletters, offering giveaways from our colleagues and sharing the entrants’ information.
Another great site to hold a contest and get a mailing list of over 1000 entrants is Fresh Fiction at http://www.freshfiction.com/ . It costs $129 but if you do this once every few years, it adds substantially to your newsletter list. (How to get people to Open your newsletter email would be another topic to address here—any takers, fellow authors?)
When you accumulate too many names to send out individual emails, consider using a mass email newsletter program such as AWeber (http://www.aweber.com/), Vertical Response, (http://www.verticalresponse.com), Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com), Mail Chimp (http://mailchimp.com/) or Your Mailing List Provider (http://www.ymlp.com/). I use Vertical Response and upload lists from my Excel program. I pay per email but you can pay a monthly fee if you’d rather do so, depending on your needs.
Put sign-up widgets on your website, blog, and Facebook Author Page. Periodically request your fans on Facebook and Twitter to sign up for your mailing list. In case one of these social networking sites goes defunct, you don’t want to lose your friends. Back up your email lists on your computer, your external drive, etc. They’re a valuable commodity, and you don’t want to lose them.
What other methods have you found helpful for adding names to your email campaign lists?
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