Monthly Archives: May 2012

Buying Books That Are Finished

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Larry D. Sweazy is a commercial indexer and novelist. He writes a series of Westerns for Berkley Books featuring Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger.  The series starts with Rattlesnake Season and continues with the fifth installment, The Coyote Tracker, forthcoming in August of 2012.  Sweazy’s first mystery novel, The Devil’s Bones, was published by Five Star in March of 2012. 

Long before I was a writer, I was a reader.  A voracious reader.   I picked my books because of cool, artistic covers that caught my eye, because of genre, because of a writer’s reputation, and countless other reasons that I’m probably not even aware of.  The biggest reason I bought a book was, and is, a writer’s reputation.  If I’d read one book by a certain writer and loved it, then I wanted more of the same—but different.  Whether it’s an eBook, or a real book, that I’m buying, my criteria for the purchase hasn’t changed now that I’m a professional writer.  But I’m not so sure that’s true of the world of books, at the moment, in 2012.  It seems everything is changing, including books themselves.

I’ve bought countless books off the rack at the drugstore, online, at book stores, independents and chains, and in the end, after I’d read the book, it didn’t matter where I bought it.  I have hundreds of books on my bookshelves.  I can’t tell you by looking at them where they came from—but I can tell you whether they were good or not, whether they satisfied me, whether the stories took me away, whether I got my money’s worth.

Now my choices for eBooks are different.  The locations are fewer, on one hand, but much easier to get to on the other.  And eBooks change.  If an author, or company, doesn’t think the book is selling as much as it should, the price changes, or the cover changes, one day it’s free, the next day, it’s not.  Does the text change, too?   Can I, as a reader, really trust the quality of the eBook?  Everything changes with the press of a button, on a whim, or after a day or two of dissatisfaction of no sales, or the lack of blockbuster numbers. Really, it’s like a book is never finished now, like it’s OK to put a book out into the world as a beta test.

I can see the allure of the never-ending book as an author—we don’t think a book is ever finished.  But as a reader, as a buyer?  No.  I’m sorry, I don’t see the allure of buying a book that’s never finished.  I want to buy something that’s final. Done. Completed.

After a book is printed there are no second chances.  Yes, there are second editions and beyond, but they’re announced on the cover.  The buyer, the reader, wants to know what they are getting.  If I buy an eBook by an author, read it, like it, comment on it, write an Amazon review, then two weeks later discover said author has completely changed the eBook to drive more sales…then I’ll remember that, and most likely, never buy another book by that author again. I’ll feel cheated.

Once an eBook is published it should stay published in its original form.  Some books take time to find.  The Internet and eBooks allow for that more than ever—if a book doesn’t change.  So my advice to writers, traditional or self-published, is to publish your book when it’s finished and not before.  I don’t want to read a first draft or a tenth draft.  I want to read a book that is the writer’s best effort.  I want to buy a book that has been published well.  I want to read a book that’s done, that has a good-looking cover, professional editing, and a great story.  It doesn’t matter where I buy the book (though there will be those that argue that it does—and they may be right, that’s just not the point of this posting).  It does matter whether the book is finished or not.  Final, completed, professionally published, no matter where it was published, or who published it.

I love buying books.  A majority of readers are collectors of one sort or another.  I have some books that I will take with me wherever I go, because I’ve been moved to tears by them, and changed and entertained by them.  I want to keep those books close.  To read again, to hold, if just for a moment, to recapture that moment… of completion.  But if I feel like I’ve been had, just marketed to, sold a bill of goods, and bought an eBook that is ever-changing, well, I’ll leave that book behind.  Or I’ll hit the delete button.  That book will have no place in my collection, or my heart.

It Never Rains But It Pours: Boosting Your Signal In A Saturated Market

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Congrats! You’ve gotten an agent, sold your book to the publisher of your dreams, and received a tidy little advance.

“So, when’s my book tour?”
“Eh, we’re not going to worry about that. We’ve got this great advertising plan instead. We’re going to advertise on Facebook, GoodReads and Reddit.”
“Um, okay…but how am I going to talk to fans of the genre?”
“What?”
“How am I going to reach into the community that I came from, where people know my name because I’ve blogged for all these awesome sites like Booklife Now and SFSignal and sold stories to all these genre magazines?”
“Well, we’re sending out about 50 review copies!”
“Oh that’s great. Where to?”
“Well, like 10 copies to the New York Times, and 5 to Washington Post and 5 to Times Magazine, and one to the Religion Reporter at–”
“Uh, guys, genre! That’s where people know me and would buy this awesome book!”
“…”

Now, this is based on the experience of two of my clients, amalgamated and exaggerated a little…but not much. It isn’t a hypothetical exercise for my amusement, it’s how the industry works.

Promotions and book marketing are a tricky sport. Profit margins are thin enough when things go well, even for the ‘Big 6’. Publishers need the best possible results for the least amount of money. The best results are, of course, going to be if the New York Times or the Washington Post pulls it out of the towering stacks of submissions and writes a glowing review. That happens just often enough to be worth the resources and effort.

It isn’t just a crapshoot on the higher levels, either. Reviewers and bloggers are inundated with unsolicited copies and requests, and time is limited. Will and skill aren’t always equal, so while there are hundreds of reviewers, not everyone will fit your needs. This is where knowledge and research are vital: Bitten By Books will have no interest in your Sword and Sorcery, while Monster Librarian probably isn’t the best place for your YA fantasy romance. The more you know your market, the better your results will be.

And, too, there is a fine balance between sending out more copies than will be bought, and not sending enough copies out. Send too many out, and you might cancel out your sales. Don’t send enough out, and you may end up hearing ‘wow, I didn’t even know your book was out yet!’. Neither one is desirable.

So, say you’re an author handling your own publicity, or wanting to bolster your publicist’s efforts. What do you do?

1.) Before you do anything, check with your publisher, agent, editor and publicist, or any combination of the above. Every situation varies, but you need to maintain both transparency and communication. Ask your team if you can help, and then go from there.

2.) When you talk to your team, ask them for whatever materials they have: a ‘tear sheet’ with the official info, e-books or NetGalley info, or a press kit. Also ask for a list of places that they are sending your books. There’s no point in sending multiple copies to the same place, it just wastes resources and makes you look sloppy.

3.) Research your market. Tor.com posted an excellent list of review sites, but don’t just go down the list, mailing a copy to each person on the list. Read the requirements. Check the list of books they’ve reviewed.

4.) You should be aware of books similar to yours, and authors in your subgenre. Google reviews of their work, and see who covered them.

5.) If your resources are limited, create a hierarchy. Who do you absolutely HAVE to have cover your book? Who is a potential? Who is just overflow, get’em if you’ve got extras?

6.) Social media is your best friend and your worst enemy. DO NOT follow the advice that so many self-help websites promote. Be genuine. Talk about things other than your book. Limit yourself to, at maximum, two ‘my book is for sale’ posts a day…and that’s your upper limit. Less is more, in this case, and if you power too often, you risk alienating potential fans in a hurry.

7.) Speaking of the ‘learn how to promote your book today!’ sites…avoid. Avoid at ALL costs. Instead, focus your efforts on industry professionals. Do your own research. Don’t fall for cheap mailing lists, or guarantees to get your book on a best-seller list. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Even the best publicist can’t guarantee you a spot on the best-seller list.

8.) And if you do hire a publicist? Make sure you have a good contract. Specify how much you’ll pay, and when. Leave an escape clause. Err on the side of overkill, because it protects both the author and the publicist.

The book industry throws an incredibly steep learning curve at you, as a new author. It’s a learning curve that doesn’t ever level off much, either.

But, just maybe, with a little luck, a lot of very hard work, and copious amounts of alcohol, you can make it through this ring of hell, too.

The Adulterous Life of the Writer

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Jay Faulkner resides in Northern Ireland with his wife, Carole, and their two boys, Mackenzie and Nathaniel. He says that while he is a writer, martial artist, sketcher, and dreamer he’s mostly just a husband and father. His work has been published widely, both online and in print anthologies, and was short-listed in the 2010 Penguin Ireland Short Story Competition. He is currently working on his first novel. Jay founded, and edits With Painted Words, a creative writing site with inspiration from monthly image prompts, and The WiFiles, an online speculative fiction magazine, published weekly. He can also be found as a regular co-host and contributor on the Following The Nerd radio show. For more information, check out jayfaulkner.com or follow him on Twitter at @thejayfaulkner.

Clocks slay time … time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life. ~ William Faulkner

Hi there, my name is Jay and I’m a writer. I thought that it would be best to start this guest blog off with a simple introduction and that seemed quite apt. Except that isn’t quite true. You see if I was to tell you what I am – and being honest – ‘writer’ would come some way down the list of things. First and foremost I am a husband, to the beautiful Carole, and father, to my two wonderful boys: Mackenzie and Nathaniel. After that I am a worker, for which I travel about 90 miles a day and put in about 45 hours a week. I teach two martial art classes a week. I’m a regular co-host and contributor on a weekly radio show. I’m part of the Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership, where I do social media work and try to raise awareness of issues facing people with rare diseases. Oh yes, and I write.

I occasionally like to sleep as well.

There are the lucky few who are able to put the ‘writer’ tag at the top of the parts that make their sum, so to speak. The ones who have worked hard, and caught a break or two, and now write full-time, for a living. Then there are the others – the ones like me – who are writers after everything else has been taken care off. The ones who grab whatever time they can to sit down in front of the keyboard and knock out the words that have been swimming in their heads whilst everything else is going on.

You see I might put everything else that I do, that I am, before the ‘writer’ part but I can honestly say that I go to sleep thinking about words, plots and characters; I wake up thinking about protagonists, antagonists and even tritagonists … though, admittedly, when it gets that far I have to do something as my mind gets far too crowded! I have notepads in my workbag, in my martial arts bag, in my jacket pockets even. I have electronic notes on my phone, on my email, on my laptop and on my PC. I have notes that never make it out of my head to anywhere else.

Because, even when I don’t have time to write – when I am busy being a husband, a father, an employee, a teacher, an advocate or any of the other things that fill my life – I am thinking about the words that are yet to come.

I used to think that the adage of a writer having to write each and every day, to set a word count and hit it no matter what, was the right thing to do; that without doing so you weren’t a writer. I used to feel frustrated if I couldn’t meet the word counts I had set myself, or wasn’t able to sit down for a solid couple of hours each and every day, and write. I used to feel guilty when I did take those hours, each and every day, because I could hear my children playing outside, or missed a social engagement with my friends. It got to the point where I was making excuses about what I was doing:

“Do you want to come to the cinema tonight, Jay?”

“No thanks, I’ve got a meeting in the morning to prepare for.”

“Did you get a chance to read that report last night, Jay?”

“No, actually, I went to the cinema with some friends.”

I’d actually done some research into men who go to any lengths when having an affair. They lie to everyone around them in order to fill whatever part of them it was that wanted to be with someone else. Eventually they even began to lie to themselves about what was going on, perhaps believing their own untruths.

And, just like a mistress, writing became my own guilty secret. Rendezvous with the laptop at 1am in the morning when everyone else was asleep; the notepad taken out, discreetly, and words fumbled between the tedium of project updates; a text message, or email, sent to myself in the middle of the night, hoping that my wife wouldn’t wake up with the glare of the phone as I sent my other love another furtive ‘quickie’.

To meet the spurious targets I had set myself, in order to satisfy myself that I was still a writer; I entered into an illicit affair with my Muse.

And then I caught myself on. I realised that it wasn’t something real, something tangible, I had with my Muse anymore but, instead, furtive moments in the dead of the night where neither of us were ever truly satisfied. I wasn’t living up to Her expectations at all: I wasn’t going the distance for her, in terms of time or words.

… yeah, I know, it happens to everyone and She was quite understanding about it really but one’s masculine ego does take a bashing the first time, in the middle of the night with the sheets wrapped around you, you can’t finish what you started.*

Something had to give and, finally, it did.

My ego.

I realised that I don’t have to write one thousand words a day, each and every day. I realised that I don’t have to try to ‘fit in’ my writing amongst everything else and try to keep up the pretence that I am a writer above everything else. As long as I write, to the best of my ability, each and every time that I can, then that is all that truly matters because, after all, a satisfying fifteen minutes is better than a wasted hour.

So, at the end of the day I am a husband, a father, a worker, a teacher and many other things too. Amongst them all – the parts of my sum – I am a writer. My family accepts that, and supports it, as do I.

My Muse is still happy to tease me, to call me at all hours of the night and day but, ultimately, knows that I will always be Hers, no matter how much time I get to spend with Her; She no longer watches the clock.

As long as I continue to write for Her, of course.

And I will.

– Jay

*I was talking about a short story, you filthy minded people! ;)

The Writer’s Toolkit: Almost Everything You Need to get the Story Started

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It’s long gone now, lost to some damnable garage sale or other, but my father once had a wooden shoeshine box that sat at the back of the bedroom closet beneath a rack full of awful ties. The box was a real showpiece: furniture-quality American poplar with dovetailed joints and an elevated footrest. As a kid who liked to dig through his parent’s stuff, I’d get the box out from time to time, flip open the brass latch at the front, and play around with the contents.

The shoeshine box held two horsehair shining brushes, a dauber brush, a bottle of cleaning cream, tins of Kiwi brand shoe polish (black and brown), and a soft shining cloth. There was no polishing glove. In all the times I watched my father shine his shoes before going off to work, he’d first pull an old sweat sock over his hand to prevent the dark polish from staining his fingers.

I mention the shoeshine box because I’m a big fan of toolkits. I’m fascinated by the things professionals collect to do their jobs – the stranger the better. Ever see a professional piano builder’s kit? It’s a sexy assortment of lathes, chisels, and auger bits. Have you ever heard of a tobacco smoke enema kit? Oh, they’re very real, I assure you. In the 1800s, they were the indispensable piece of medical equipment for assisting drowning victims – until they were debunked. Once, on a research trip to a medical history library, I got my hands on a Civil War-era surgeon’s battlefield kit. Although most of the implements were of the cutting and sawing variety, everything was stainless steel – still gleaming – and very lightweight. Nasty little cutters. Take an arm here, take a leg there…

Every professional has their toolkit. As writers, we’re no different from the rest. It can be easily assumed that anyone reading the BookLifeNow.com site on a regular basis has stacks of books on every flat surface in their home. But there’s always room for more, eh?

Recently, I was at a conference during which a panel attempted to come up with a list of essential books for any writer to devour before picking up the pen. The panel moderator called it a “writer’s toolkit.” I listened, made notes. I didn’t agree on a number of the titles mentioned – some were irrelevant to my chosen genre, others didn’t interest me. But the mention of the toolkit held my interest. When I returned home to the paperback-and-empty-whiskey-bottle nest I call an office, I walked the stacks and hunted down every title that had been helpful to me in all my efforts. My writer’s toolkit (abridged):

Dialog gives definition to your characters, reveals motivations, aids in setting, and propels the story forward. No two characters should speak alike.

Dialogue (Write Great Fiction Series) by Gloria Kempton

Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella

Characters in fiction should be treated like real, live human beings. With history, motives, and reputation – they are believable and worth caring about to the last page.

Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

Writer’s Guide to Character Traits by Linda Edelstein

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

Writing Your First Novel is damn difficult work. Ask any professional and they’ll tell you the same. It’s hours and hours of dedication to the craft, but it beats working.

Your First Novel by Rittenberg and Whitcomb

How NOT to Write a Novel by Mittelmark and Newman

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Writing Great Horror is a topic near and dear to my heart. Horror has its own language and rules and pitfalls. Whether a slasher or a morality tale, horror stories are part of a genre that is continually reinventing itself.

On Writing Horror by the Horror Writers Association, Ed. by Mort Castle

The Philosophy of Horror by Noel Carroll

Writers Workshop of Horror by Michael Knost

Psychology for Screenwriters by William Indick

Story is the realities, not the mysteries of writing. Story is the essential element to any successful product of the craft. A bad story does not excite readers and turn pages.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee

The Hero With 1000 Faces by Joseph Campbell

20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald Tobias

I’ve always thought that books on writing are invaluable, due to the fact that they are a resource available at any time of day or night. I can’t count how many times I’ve left the bed at three in the morning and picked up one of these books to sit at the kitchen table until I’d worked out some plot turn or character aspect. If nothing more, a writer’s toolkit is a preparation – waiting for that moment when you’re struggling to hammer something together.

In the title, I suggested that this toolkit was almost everything you need to get the story started. Every toolkit is personal. None is ever complete. What is your essential writer’s resource? What books do you lean on in times of trouble? Let us know in the comments section below.

Cheers!