I respect interviewers. In case you don’t realize, I am one. I have a lot of experience with it. Weekly. Sometimes daily, as an interviewer, not just interviewee. But there’s a practice that’s becoming more and more prevalent these days and which I really abhor of people preying on hopeful authors’ dreams and offering big exposure if they’ll just pay a fee for the privilege. And often this takes the form of interviews. And I find that pretty insulting. Exceptions might be a few cases where you’re guaranteed exposure like national television or radio, but even then, you shouldn’t have to pay and here’s why: They need content.
That’s right. You’re providing them content they need. Why else would they be out following random people on Twitter, commenting on your blog or advertising for authors to use their “great interview services?” One guy is so foolish about it, he follows you, then when you follow back, he unfollows. Uh, yeah, right. He’s preparing to interview me and he’s not doing research? There’s a clue right there.
Blogs and media need content. And the reason authors get interviewed is that people are interested. They want to find new books. They want to learn about celebrities and people doing something significant they admire. That’s why authors are getting invited to interviews and it’s why you don’t need to pay to do them.
I have another secret for you to. Listen carefully. There is no short cut to a large audience. Nope. Sorry. Even seeming overnight bestsellers are not overnight. It took them years to get there. And with the marketing muscle of a major New York corporation behind you, it’s easier to get boosts in exposure more quickly, but that takes thousands of dollars, even millions sometimes, and multiple outlets in a constant stream several times a day for weeks or months. If you can’t afford that, you’re paid interviews may give you a slight momentary splash, but I promise it’ll fade within a few hours or minutes and you’ll be back where you started. Even worse, the sales generated won’t make up for it. If I sell it myself, I make $3 per book sold roughly. At least until publisher’s advance and costs are recouped. If I paid $50 for an interview, that would mean I had to sell 17 books to just break even. I’d be losing my $3 on each book because I already spent it. So that’s like giving 17 books out for free. If you pay more for an interview, well, you do the math.
There’s a reason some sites charge for interviews and others don’t. Greed. Yep. They know people are desperate and hungry and they’re taking advantage. They have so many people wanting in, they have people pounding down their doors. And as long as authors continue this foolish rush, they will continue to get used by these people. The authors are not getting rich. The interviewers might be.
I maintain three websites. I spend $300 a year in hosting. That’s $25 per month. I spend 10-12 hours a week in responding to comments and writing posts. If I were paid for that, I’d charge at least $20 an hour. But to keep traffic growing and steady, I need regular posts, and I post not just on my blog but other places where I can link and keep visibility, so I write 4-6 posts a week. At an hour a post, that’s about $120 a week. Forget the comments, let’s call that part free. Most interviewers don’t bother responding to those. So that’s $505 a month right now for my three blogs and time and effort. But these sites post daily. And they post interviews two or three times a week. At three a week, $50 each, they are making $150 or $600 a month. If they have only one blog, they are probably paying $100 or so for hosting. Prep time on interviews is maybe an hour per post. $20 per hour. Plus social media marketing. I spend 3 hours a week probably on that. So $60. So add social media to mine at I am at $565. If you add the time it takes to do interview questions, let’s be generous and say an hour each, that’s $60. So their expenses are $120+$8.40 for hosting each month. $130. They have made $20 off those three interviews. And if you consider they probably don’t account for blogging time, they’ve actually made $70. You’ve lost $50. Who’s getting the better deal?
Interviews are invaluable for lots of reasons. The more the better. The more sites the better. Why do you see celebrities all over the place saying the same things over and over? Because they reach a different audience at each place. It has value for them. And that’s great. But they don’t pay for it. They get it free, because the interviewer uses their name in promotion and gets a lot of audience which is ad revenue. You may be an emerging or unknown author, like myself, but you are still bringing value. Someone interesting people can discover offering possible book of interest. In fact, the fact that you’re not on every channel is to your advantage. They’re less likely to flip through because you’re something new.
And I’ll tell you another thing. Since you don’t have access to their blog stats, you can’t verify the audience they guarantee exposure, too–not for your post, not for other posts. Those visitor counters can be faked. You can get ones that ask you which number you want to start the count on. (Oh wow, day one and I already have 150k hits, I’m awesome!) It varies day to day for them as much as it does for anyone else. AND there are tons of other sites you don’t have to pay for–bloggers, fellow authors, etc. who’d gladly welcome you. You just have to network and ask around. When I tweet that I’m looking for host sites, I always get one or two responses from places I didn’t think of or know about. Free.
If you get a big publishing contract and your publisher wants to spend money that way, let them. Who cares as long as it’s not coming out of your pocket. But when it does come out of your pocket, you should be careful to make sure it really delivers the return you want and need. Don’t buy these interviewers’ story about how they’re just trying to help you succeed. They just care about authors and want to help them live their dreams. My initials. (Drop the middle one.) I’m pretty confident that’s NOT their main motive. Instead, they are like all the other Writing Scams, and they are numerous, read http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/ sometime if you don’t believe me. You are not alone in your dream of writing success. But don’t let greedy people take advantage. This is just one more way to victimize writers, and you deserve better because writing a book is a big accomplishment. It’s worth celebrating. And you shouldn’t have to pay for that.
For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, and The Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories featured in anthologies and magazines. He edited the new anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. His children’s book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novels and nonfiction. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.
The final profile in our ongoing series features Jaleta Clegg. Jaleta set her Space Battles tale in the world of her eleven novel series, which started with Nexus Point and continues soon in Priestess Of The Eggstone. With a science degree and a day job as a science teacher, including helping run Space Camps, author/editor Jaleta Clegg seems uniquely qualified to write science fiction. Her short stories can be found in publications like Abandoned Towers and Bewildering Stories magazines and anthologies like How The West Was Wicked, The Last Man Anthology and Wretched Moments and in the zine Tales Of The Talisman, edited by co-Space Battles contributor David Lee Summers. An active social media user, she can be found on Twitter as @jaleta_clegg, on Facebook and through her website/blog atwww.jaletac.com. Information on her novels can be found at www.nexuspoint.info. She’s coeditor with Frances Pauli of Hall Brothers Entertainment’s forthcoming anthology Wandering Weeds: Tales of Rabid Vegetation wherein her own story will once again play lead in to a story by myself as it does in Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6.
BTS: How did you find out about the Space Battles anthology and what made you decide to submit?
Jaleta Clegg: I saw the call for subs and thought, “I love space battles. I need to write one.” I had a great idea, too, that just needed some time to finish fermenting so I could write it.
BTS: This is not your first anthology sale, correct? Tell us a little about “Bait & Switch.” What’s it about? Where’d this particular idea come from?
JC: Oh, no, definitely not my first. I’ve got over twenty different short stories in anthologies all over the place that have come out in the last two years. Most of them are silly horror. Writing those keeps my inner demons quiet. Writing the SF and Fantasy shorts keeps my inner geek happy. The full list is on my website: www.jaletac.com
The main character in “Bait & Switch” is a cadet named Tayvis. He features prominently in my SF adventure series. I thought it would be great fun to peek into his past and find out a bit more about him. In the story, he’s a cadet on his first training flight. He gets sent to the gunnery section as an observer. When the ship is attacked and the point gunner knocked out, Tayvis takes his place even though he’s had almost no training.
BTS: How’d you get started as a writer?
JC: I’ve always loved stories. I taught myself to read when I was four. This leads naturally to wanting to tell my own stories. I didn’t actually finish anything until years later. We had just moved to a new neighborhood, it was early summer, I had four kids ages 2-7, and I knew no one. I wrote my first novel out of desperation. It snowballed from there. Or I could say that I finally found an outlet for the voices in my head. If I let them play on paper, they don’t bother me as much.
BTS: Do you have plans to do any more with this universe?
JC: Definitely. The universe is a very large place. I’ve got lots of story ideas and lots of characters to play with.
BTS: You have a novel series with the first book out from Cyberwizard. Tell us about that, please?
JC:Nexus Point (www.nexuspoint.info) is my first published novel. It’s set in the same universe as “Bait & Switch”. Tayvis is an undercover Patrol agent on a low-tech world looking for drug smugglers. He finds Dace instead. She’s not what he expected. The book is told from her point of view, though. He’s not what she expected either. Yes, there is a teensy bit of romance in the book, but also lots of explosions and fights and chase scenes and action.
BTS: How’d that idea come about?
JC: I had several story ideas I wanted to play with and in a stroke of genius or insanity, realized they were all about the same character – Dace. I started writing one, realized it was book three, backtracked to write the other two, and watched the storyline change. Tayvis was originally supposed to be a throw-away character in the first book. I’m glad he stuck around for the rest of them.
BTS: How many books are planned for the series?
JC: I’ve got eleven books written. I don’t think there will be more about these characters. Once you save the universe, there isn’t much story left to tell.
BTS: When do you expect more books to come out?
JC: I recently signed a contract with Journalstone for the next book – Priestess of the Eggstone. It is tentatively scheduled to be released in August 2012. I loved working with Cyberwizard, but the economy caused a lot of things to change. Cyberwizard is still publishing, but they had to cut their list of pending manuscripts. I’m very happy Journalstone has offered me a contract. We haven’t discussed the rest of the series, but it’s definitely on the table for the future.
BTS: You also edited your first anthology, Wandering Weeds. Tell us about that and when it is expected to be released.
JC: My hat is off to any editor who tackles anthologies. It’s hard work! Writing rejection letters was very difficult. I know how bad it can sting to get one. But, we couldn’t take all the stories that were submitted. The ones we have are fantastic. I’m excited to see this project come together. The idea came from a writing challenge in our writers’ group. Someone mentioned tumbleweeds, someone else mentioned radiation, and the idea of mutant tumbleweeds was born. We wrote stories, loved them, but had no idea where to submit them. So we decided to put together an anthology. Hall Brothers Entertainment is publishing it for us. We’re just about ready to send them the files. I can give you a sneak peek at the cover. Wandering Weeds: Tales of Rabid Vegetation should hit the shelves sometime late this spring.
BTS: Where’d your love of SF come from?
Jaleta's Wookie
JC: I’ve always been fascinated by the night sky. Astronomy is one of my loves. When I discovered that people wrote books about space and aliens, I was head-over-heels. I remember reading a much-battered copy of The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet when I was eight, A Wrinkle in Time when I was nine, and my first Andre Norton when I was ten. I devoured all the books by Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Niven, and any others I could find. I’m still looking for copies of Jack L. Chalker’s Well of Souls series. I want to read them again. Watching Star Trek whenever my dad wasn’t making me weed our enormous garden also helped fuel my love of space. But, confession time, it was always Scotty and Chekov for me. I saw Star Wars when I was twelve. I wanted my own Millenium Falcon so bad it hurt. I still do. I’ve got a Wookie, now I just need a starship.
BTS: What other projects do you have in the works that we can look forward to?
JC: I’m up to my elbows in steampunk fairyland elves right now, working on a new novel. We’ll see where that one goes. I’ve also got a lot more silly horror short stories cooking. And some dabbling in other genres. I’ve got more story ideas than I have time. I’m playing with the idea of opening an etsy store to adopt my cutesy cthulhu items. I’ve got crocheted cthulhu toilet paper cozies and Sunbonnet Cthulhu pillows, based on an old applique quilt pattern. There’s always something to keep me busy.
Thanks so much, Bryan, for letting me stop by the blog. And thanks for the opportunity to be part of Space Battles. From what I’ve read, it’s a great collection of stories. With lots of explosions. My kind of chick lit.
Speaking of chick lit, here’s an excerpt from Jaleta’s decidedly non-chick lit Space Battles story “Bait & Switch”:
Bait and Switch
Jaleta Clegg
“Buckle up, kids, battle drill time.” Lonnis flipped his station to live. The lights in the tiny room glowed red.
Tayvis fumbled with the restraint in the jump seat next to the door, excitement making his hands shake. Cadets rarely got the chance to see the weapons in action on a Patrol cruiser. Lonnis sat to his right, straddling the control console, both hands seated in the gloves that controlled the ship’s weapons. Tish, his spotter, sat to his left, her face green in the glow of her targeting screens.
Lonnis rolled his shoulders, settling into his controls. “Watch closely, kid. This is more complicated than those simulators. No matter how good the programming is, it will never match the real thing. Comm, port forward is live.”
“Target-firing commencing in five.” Hedrik, the voice of comm control, crackled from the speakers.
“Let’s break our old records,” Lonnis said as the screens came alive with multi-colored traces.
Tayvis tried to keep track of the screens. Each object near them appeared on Tish’s screens. She marked targets with red, other objects turned gray under her rapid touches. Colored lines spread from each target, green for projected course, blue for last known heading. Lonnis twisted, firing weapons at the targets. Lights flickered and died across his screen, replaced by new targets, new tracings. Their ship position and heading, thruster settings, and other information scrolled across the bottom of his screen.
The tracings disappeared. No new ones replaced those eliminated.
Lonnis’ screen flashed once as the last target disappeared. He slipped
his hands from the control gloves. “Targets eliminated. Port forward,
locked.” His hands flipped the safety switches on. The control screens
faded to silver, the lights changed from red to normal. “How’s my
time, Hedrik?”
“You’re getting slow, old man. Three point four seconds longer
than your record.”
Lonnis grinned. “That’s because you reprogrammed the spinners
again. I wasn’t expecting that sharp spiral.”
“Keeps you on your toes, Lonnis. You’re buying the drinks next
port. Comm out.”
Lonnis stretched his arms over his head. “We should work on the
projected courses. You were off your mark today, Tish.”
“Right, blame me because you can’t shoot straight.” Tish unbuckled
her restraint. “Not as exciting as you thought, Tayvis? Real battle is
more chaotic.”
“It’s a game of prediction and anticipation,” Lonnis said. “You
figure out where the target will be and lay down a trap. Mines and
missiles.”
“Pulse beams are better,” Tayvis answered. “Mines and missiles
can be detected and detonated by counter-measures.”
“True, but not if you place them right. If you fire a pulse beam
inside your shields, the energy reflects back and blows your own ship
to kingdom come. You have to leave the weapon port outside the field,
making it vulnerable. Pulse beams are for close range combat only. Or
for salvage work.” Lonnis leaned on the doorframe. “Mines and missiles
are more effective and safer for distance combat between ships.
Of course, whether you hit them or not depends on the skill of your
spotter.”
Tish leaned back in her seat, crossing her long legs. “I’m the best
and you know it, Lonnis.”
Lonnis dropped his hand to Tayvis’ shoulder. “You’ll be a decent
point someday, if you can get past the theory. That’s what the Patrol
Academy is good for, beating the nonsense out of you before you get
yourself killed.”
The lights blinked red, on and off before settling on a steady glow.
An alarm shrilled.
“Proximity alert,” Tish said, flipping her screens on. “Incoming
missiles!”
“Another drill?” Lonnis reached for his controls.
The ship rocked. Smoke and explosions filled the air. The door
to the gunnery pod slammed shut as more alarms sounded. Tayvis
gripped the restraints as the ship’s gravity field flickered off. Lonnis
slammed into the doorframe.
“This isn’t a drill.” Tish tapped rapidly on her screen, scanning for
information. “Lonnis, we’re under attack. Lonnis?”
“He’s out,” Tayvis said, checking the older man for a pulse. Blood
trickled through Lonnis’ white hair.
Another round of projectiles slammed into the ship. Smoke poured
through the air vents.
“Central comm!” Tish hit buttons. “Nobody’s answering.
Nobody’s shooting back. I’ve got a ship out there, and more missiles
incoming. Three minutes to impact, unless someone does something.”
She waved at the gunner’s seat. “There’s a comm link to the bridge.
Activate it.”
Tayvis rose to his feet. Half the systems in the pod were dark, unresponsive,
but the gunner’s seat still showed lights. Observe only, the
captain had said. Was this a test?
“The red button to your left. Press it.” Tish tapped her screens, then
swore. “We’re rotating. I lost the ship. Starboard Aft, you hear me?”
Tayvis flexed his hands. He’d never touched a live station before.
Would they have staged real smoke and blood for a drill?
Tish slammed her fist into the side of the weapons screen. “Hey,
stupid. Get the bridge on the line, now!”
It wasn’t live weapons, it was only a comm button. Tayvis slid
into the seat, straddling the controls. He tapped the red button. The
control gloves hung empty, inviting. He slid his hands inside. The firing
screen lit up.
Speakers crackled to life. “This is Hedrik. Port Forward, what is
your status?”
“Lonnis is down, but the cadet and I are fine,” Tish answered.
“What’s going on?”
“Thank the stars someone is still down there. We got ambushed by
a Fellucian marauder. The shields are holding at thirty-seven percent.
For now.”
“The other weapons stations? I picked up another salvo headed
our way before the ship drifted. I’m on the blind side now.”
“No one else is responding. The marauder knew just when to hit
us. End of drill and we had most of the systems resetting.”
Tish frowned. “Our weapons are still live.”
“We have no engines,” Hedrik answered. “We have thrusters, but
I don’t know how much good they’ll do us.”
Tayvis flexed his fingers in the gloves. Anticipation and prediction,
he could do this. “I can shoot.”
“Cadet, you are ordered to stand down.” Hedrik’s voice crackled
over the speakers. “You have no training or authorization to use those
weapons.”
“I’ve got enough, and you don’t have anyone else. Tish, can you
track those incoming missiles?”
“Cadet, stand down. That is a direct order.”
Tayvis punched the button, shutting off comm control.
Tish stared at Tayvis. She licked her lip, a dart of red tongue.
“We’re dead if we don’t do something.” Tayvis tapped the buttons at
the end of the gloves, mentally reviewing what weapons each released.
“Hedrik gave you a direct order.”
“The comm line must have cut out. I didn’t hear anything. Give
me targets, Tish.”
Tish tapped her screens. “We’re turning to face the ship. Targeting
systems online. Incoming missiles. Impact in thirty seconds.”
“Not if I can help it.” Tayvis released a cloud of reflective debris
on a trajectory to intercept the nearest.
“That will get the lead one, but miss the other two. Drop a few
mines on a starboard curve to pick those up. And do it soon or you
won’t catch them in time.”
Tayvis tapped the buttons in sequence, launching mines on a
curving course towards the two missiles.
“Mines to port, and more missiles.” Tish spoke in a clipped voice
devoid of emotion. “Painted red and gold.”
Colored dots sprang to life on his screens. He dropped more chaff
and several mines of his own, blue dots glittering on the screen. He
launched a shrapnel missile towards the enemy minefield, hoping to
detonate the mines.
“Let’s hope the bridge detects that one,” Tish said. “And changes
vectors before we blow ourselves up with our own missiles. I’ve got
the marauder targeted.”
A red dot, with a blue line tracing its last course and a green line
tracing its predicted course appeared on Tayvis’ screen.
“They’ll use the explosions as cover and change course. It’s what
I would do.” Tayvis flicked through his options.
“And you’re an expert now?”
He fired missiles at the ship. Think of it as a game and he wouldn’t
panic. “They’re moving into that radiation cloud so they can change
vectors without us detecting it.” He launched a salvo of mines to the
left of the nebula cloud, scattering them across the far edge.
Tish swore as she scanned for new targets. “You’re wasting mines.
We have a limited supply, cadet.”
“They’ll come out the way they went in.” Tayvis launched
another round.
“Is that what you think? They’re stupid if they come out the way
they went in, and their attack proves they aren’t stupid.”
The thrusters fired, the ship veered onto a new vector. The Fellucian
marauder screamed across the screen, almost close enough to touch.
“Mines!” Tish shouted as a new round of explosions rocked the Exeter. They grabbed their consoles as the ship shuddered and rolled.
The stream of damage reports across the bottom of his screen.
Continued in Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which you can purchase here.
It’s common wisdom that writers make terrible self-editors, even those of us who edit for others on a regular basis professionally. It’s a natural thing given the passions at play. Writers get so close to their work that it’s easy to gloss over missed words, typos, etc. We know what we meant to say and the mind just fills it in. Plus, you can only reread the same words so many times in a row without losing focus. But copyediting is an important step in the process. And when you get to the final stages of preparation for publication, you’ll face the need to review your manuscript one final time to make sure it’s right. After all, you have to live with the results ever after. So here’s 8 Tips I’ve learned from trial and error which have helped me when it comes to copyediting my own work.
1 ) Take Your Time — It’s easy to be impatient and rush. After all, copyediting isn’t the most exciting stage of the process. And again, you’ve already been over it so many times, the words just start blending together. But this is your last chance to avoid embarrassing mistakes you might regret later. So work at the pace you need to in order to pay attention to the details, even if that means taking a break every few pages.
2 ) Read It Aloud — I don’t sit down and read every word of my novels out loud. That’s hard to find time for. But I have friends who do that. I do read aloud scenes after I write them, and I read aloud passages which pop out at me in later drafts. If it raises a question mark, I read it aloud. Run-on sentence? Read it aloud and see if you run out of breath. Awkward phrasing? Read it aloud and you’ll know for sure. Missing punctuation? Reading aloud will verify that, too.
3 ) Print It Out — Yes, I know. Cartridges and paper cost money. But if your galleys don’t come printed, it’s a good idea to print them yourselves. If you spend as much time each day staring at a computer screen as I do, you’ll understand how your eyes can begin to glaze over after a while and really affect your concentration. Copyediting required solid focus and full attention. Having the whole page in front of you without the back lighting, can really help you with this. It also makes it easier to get context and catch repetitive words or phrases. You can read aloud without scrolling. And you can flip back more easily to compare passages if the need arises.
4 ) Posture Makes A Difference — When you’re dealing with details and need focus, it’s not the time to lay on your bed or relax in a lounge chair. This posture sends signals to your body that it’s time to relax and your attention span tends to relax along with it. Seated in a good, straight-backed chair at a desk or table is a much better place for copyedits. It sends signals to your mind that it’s time to be alert and pay attention. And it really can make it easier to get the focus you need.
5 ) Plan Your Time — Through trial and error you probably have learned when your best creative times are; when you’re at your finest focus and most productive. Right after lunch when you’re needing a nap, for example, is not the time for detail work. Neither is anytime you’re riled up emotionally (angry, sad, frustrated, elated, etc.) For me, my most focused creative time tends to be from 7 a.m. to 12 noon daily. I get occasional spurts between 3 and 7 at night as well. But mornings are the times I can get the most done, so they are sacred for writing. Additionally, I edit well during the 3-7 window, post-nap and 1 mile walk with my dogs. So that is a time when I can concentrate well enough to take on editing, if my writing time was needed for wordcount that day. Experiment. Find your ideal times and guard them zealously. Plan appropriately so your copyediting will be most effective.
6 ) If It’s Not Obvious, Make A Note — There’s nothing worse than having an editor or publisher ask you questions about your copyedits and not being able to remember what you were thinking at the time. Some edits are obvious on the page. Others are not. Don’t count on your memory to keep it straight. There may be a delay before your editor or publisher has time to go through them, and if you’ve moved all your focus on to another project, you may not remember why you did what you did. If the change is not self-evident at the time you make it, write a note for future reference.
7 ) It’s Called CopyEdits Not ReWrites — All writers have a tendency to be their own worst critics. Typos, grammar, etc. are obvious copyedits. So are repetitive words and unclear passages. But what if you suddenly decide your writing is subpar and get an urge to start fixing a lot more? Your editor and copyeditor have put a lot of time into this, and your manuscript has been approved for moving through the final stages. It costs money and time. They are not going to be enthusiastic about having to start over from scratch. In fact, they have other projects and deadlines and probably don’t have the time. Turning in a copyedited manuscript that’s so marked up it’s practically a new draft does not impress them with your diligence. Instead, it may piss them off. So remember, it’s a copyedit, not a rewrite. If something really bothers you and it’s a complicated change, include it in your notes and inquire about it later. They will happily change anything that you validly point out is worth fixing. But copyedits are for tweaking, not page by page redrafts.
8 ) Take Pride In Your Accomplishment — You, more than anyone, know the work that’s gone in to get you to this moment. So many people can only dream of sitting there looking at galleys of their about to be published work. It may not be perfect, but that doesn’t negate the significance of the accomplishment, so it’s okay to enjoy it. Allow the butterflies to dance in your stomach and enjoy seeing your work looking like real book at last. It’s come a long way, so don’t forget to enjoy the moment and be proud of yourself. You deserve it.
Well, those are 8 Tips for Self-Copyediting which I’ve picked up through trial and error as both author and editor. I hope they help you be more effective in the process. Have I left any out? What do you do that I haven’t mention? I’d love to have you mention them in comments so we can all learn from each other. Writers helping writers is what my Write Tips series is all about. For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, andThe Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories featured in anthologies and magazines. His children’s book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing along with the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which he edited for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novels and nonfiction. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.
I recently commented on a post by Mike Duran, an author friend, who got slammed by self-publishing fans for the gall to suggest one might actually want to have patience and explore options before rushing into self-publishing. HOW DARE HE?! You’d have thought he was talking about abortion or gay marriage from the vehemence of the responses. Most seemed not very thoughtful (not all) and very knee jerk reactions.
Ask yourself this right now writers: Do you want a writing career or do you want a writing hobby?
By writing career, I don’t necessarily mean full time. That’s a pipe dream for the majority of writers. But you can publish a lot of books while holding down a day job and be quite successful as well. That’s a writing career.
By writing hobby, I mean someone who just wings it. You write, you throw it out there, repeat.
It does not matter if you are an outliner or pantser, if you want some kind of career arc with longevity, you must consider strategy and planning for how to approach your career. Yes, those plans will evolve over time. Things will happen you never expected. That doesn’t negate the need for careful thought. And one of the most important considerations you can make is which publishers to work with and why.
FACT: The market is flooded with self-published books.
FACT: There is a lot of stuff that’s self-published because no professional publisher, small or large, in their right minds would pay money to publish it.
FACT: When you self-publish, people will look at you as if you might have written crap. It’s up to you to get them to discover differently and it’s a hard road.
So why is it so offensive, then, to suggest that people exercise patience? Hey! I know how hard it is to be patient when it comes to your passions. I have ADHD and patience is something I never pray for, fearing God will actually test me. But the advantages I’ve found to the reactions for my novel, published through a small traditional press, and my self-published short story collection are significant. The novel gets taken far more seriously by reviewers, readers, etc. It’s easier to sell. It’s easier to promote. It lent a sense of legitimacy to my career as a writer that the collection just didn’t. Now, I’ll admit the novel’s better. But even so, the collection was carefully prepared, beta read, and edited by others before I put it out there. I did approach it like a professional rather than just throwing it out there. But the stigma of self-publishing is a fact.
I walk into bookstores with my novel or sit at tables and the first thing people ask is “self-published?” People are inundated. And people are wary. They actually look relieved when I tell them it was published by a professional publisher.
These are just observations I’ve made from the past five months as an author out promoting his book. So it amazes me that so many people will jump down the throat of someone who suggests the common sense to think before you act in regards to self-publishing. It seems plain and simple to me. In fact, it seems stupid not to think it through.
The difference between those who want to be professional writers and those who are hobbyists is some thoughtful consideration of what to write, how you’d like to see it published, whether to have an agent, etc. It involves consideration of craft and growth, constant educating and reeducating of one’s self to stay on top of not just prose issues but the industry and genres. It involves being a harder critic on yourself than anyone else can be and approaching your work like a pro: seeking gatekeepers to help vet it and make sure it’s polished. The difference between a self-published novel where the author hired editors and made sure it was polished and one where the author just threw it on the market is huge. Do people occasionally get lucky? Sure. But luck is no foundation on which to build your career. Most of career building comes from hard work. It’s surely a symptom of our cultural addiction to instant gratification that people ignore that. There’s been plenty of evidence to prove it.
If you want to play Russian roulette with your career, you do have the right, of course. But if you don’t, attacking someone with common sense for daring to suggest you use some yourself is foolish and ignorant. It shows a lack of seriousness about yourself and your work. It shows the lack of a pro attitude.
I approach my writing as a career I’d like to make a significant portion of my income from. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was but a young child. It finally seems possible. After years of struggle, rejection and heart ache, I am finally getting success. I want more success, greedy bastard that I am, not less. So every move I make in regards to contracts signed, publishers I submit to, etc. is very carefully considered. I ask friends. I do research. I pray. I’d like to get to the goal of three novels a year. So far I am at two written. I’d like to have an agent. And I’d definitely like to make a profit as a novelist. Not there yet. So before I consider self-publishing, I think long and hard about my decisions. I can’t afford to be casual. I can’t afford to be careless. If you’re serious about your writing career, neither can you.
Let’s be clear. I am not saying all self-publishing is crap. Read this again if you think that. Never said it. But I am saying the stigma is real. And cannot/should not be ignored. What if your work gets lost in the shuffle? Are you okay with that? What if it’s not ready and you realize that after it’s out there associated with your name? Could it scare off future readers? Yes it could. Can your work be rejected without being read just because of the stigma? Yes. So give it careful consideration. Self-publishing may be right for you. But the stats speak for themselves. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. And above all, it’s no reason to attack a man suggesting patience as good sense in your approach to publishing.
If you’re serious about writing, it should be approached like a business. And most successful businesses have strategies and plans beyond an hour from now. Think about how you spend your money, where you spend it and why. How do you present yourself? What’s your audience? Are you a long form writing? A short fiction writer? A nonfiction writer? Or all three? What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? How do you need to improve and what are things you can do to make that growth happen? Set goals. Most of all, write. Every day. It does take patience to succeed, especially in the writing business. It also takes smarts, not just passion, but wise thinking and strategizing with every move. How will the decision you’re making right now advance your career? If it doesn’t advance your career, is it worth doing? Where do you want to be in six months? A year? Five years?
Have a strategy. Have a plan. Know what you want. Go for it thoughtfully. That’s my two cents.
For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelsThe Worker Prince—which received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Best Science Fiction Releases of 2011—and The Returning, both from the space opera series Saga Of Davi Rhii. He also wrote the collection The North Star Serial, and short stories published in Tales Of The Talisman and the anthologies Of Fur And Fire and Wandering Weeds: Tales Of Rabid Vegetation, amongst others. A freelance professional editor and proofreader, he’s edited books for authors like Leon C. Metz, David Brown and Ellen C. Maze. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Twitter (#sffwrtcht), where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, A.C. Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website: www.bryanthomasschmidt.net. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
Okay, it’s an old topic, I know, but discipline is so vital to your writing success. And if I’ve learned anything about discipline over the years, it’s that to be disciplined in any area of life, you need good discipline in all areas of life.
There’s nothing that bleeds from one area of life into others faster than lack of discipline. If you want to succeed at your work as a writer, you have to dedicate time to it regularly. Whether it’s an hour a day, fifteen minutes a day or five hours a day, you have to set aside time and do the writing. If you miss a day, it’s easier to miss another day and so on. If you’re only going to write five days a week, okay, fine, if that works for you. But don’t take off an extra day. It’ll be that much harder to get back to your regular schedule after.
When you diet, you can’t have a cheat day. One cheat can blow the whole week’s diet. When I lost 66 pounds in ten months on Weight Watchers in 2003, I didn’t have cheat days. I couldn’t. I counted calories every day and if I wanted a special treat, I just had to compensate with low calorie foods for the other meals that day or the next two days, period. Cheat days just made it harder to get back into the discipline, and, early on, I discovered without that discipline, my diet wouldn’t succeed.
For me, this is true in other areas of life.
The times I’ve been successful with exercise have been times when I’ve made it routine. Four to five days a week, forty-five minutes to an hour every day, period. No excuses. Once I start skipping days, pretty soon I just stop exercising. It’s happened time and time again. I find a similar thing with writing. One reason blogging helps me so much is that I am forcing myself to make content daily. I am doing my warm ups for other writing, in essence. I blog twice a week at least for my blog, but then I do guest posts for other sites on other days. Sometimes I blog in advance and save them up (Saturday I wrote my Valentines Day post), but by blogging almost every day (I skipped Friday for example), I get my writing chops working automatically and it’s easier to do other writing I need to do for the day. Similar perhaps to warming up before a jog or a game.
I do the same thing with my reading time for SFFWRTCHT, dividing a book into daily goals by page count to make sure I get the books read. Sometimes I fail because I often have more than one book to read at a time. And some books are longer than others. But I still push myself to meet the goal, and most weeks I succeed. It’s why I’ve read so many books in the past year, per my 2011 reading post.
When it comes to writing, I have to set clear goals. Without goals my discipline waivers. For me it’s a word count of 1200-3000 words a day, when I’m working on other jobs and 3-5000 words a day when I’m not. I also set goals to do a certain number of scenes or a chapter each day. Sticking to it, the work gets done. Not sticking to it, and pretty soon I’ve gone weeks with no output.
It’s ironic that the fun part of writing isn’t the task of putting words to paper. Editing and polishing is a lot more fun for me, but the really joyful part is the daydreaming when I think up ideas. I could sit and do that all day, couldn’t you? But making those daydreams work on the page is tough sometimes. Yet in 2008 I decided to write a novel and by the end of 2009 I’d written two. By the end of 2011, I had my first published novel and I already know that by the end of 2012 I’ll have two more published. Imagine what will come in 2013 if I keep working?
Right now I have two half manuscripts to complete and one that is ready for second draft. If I get all of those done this year, and that’s a goal, I will have three more books to sell for 2013 but in addition, I need to write the finale to my Davi Rhii saga which is due to be published in 2013. So I could end up with as many as four books coming out in 2013. That would be doubling my publication output every year. Pretty cool, huh? Even if it doesn’t happen, what a worthy goal, right?
In 2012 I have Davi Rhii book 2, The Returning, coming out, along with 102 More Dinosaur Jokes For Kids, the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales 6, which I edited for Flying Pen Press, and the episodic novel based on a flash fiction series The North Star. I have stories coming out in Tales Of The Talisman and the anthologies Space Battles and Wandering Weeds: Tales Of Rabid Vegetation.
None of this would be possible without the discipline of regularly sitting down to write.
Am I rich yet? No. But in 2010 and 2011 I spent more on writing than I made. In 2012, I have already made 50% of what I spent on writing last year and I still have a bunch of stuff to come out and advances, etc. to receive with only a month gone in the year. That’s what I call progress, the good kind. It can only get better.
This year I am disciplining myself to eat better regularly and exercise at least four days a week. I am getting a used elliptical machine to make sure I have no excuse to not do it. It’ll be staring me in the face and with my e-reader, I can read while I do it. I am reorganizing my grocery shopping to plan healthier meals. Cutting out some of my unhealthy snacking and replacing it with healthier choices. All of this discipline will help me keep discipline high in my writing and other areas of my life. I’m sure my reading goals will be easier met, too. And I’ll bet I can meet that 2013 goal.
So when you think about your writing, ask yourself about your discipline. How does your discipline or lack of it contribute to your writing success? In what ways can you do better? In what ways are you already doing well? Where have you made progress? Where does progress need to occur? Adjust your goals and discipline accordingly. Don’t forget to look at other areas of your life.
I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t started disciplining myself, but I know I can do better. What about you? How’s your discipline? For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SF Signal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.
By now most writers are realizing that in the face of the changes in the publishing business, marketing is an area which falls more and more on their shoulders. For newer writers with untested track records, this is especially true. I’ve had writers tell me they don’t believe in self-promotion. Not only is this foolish (sorry but it is denial of reality) but it’s often based on being overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin or how to promote one’s self without being obnoxious or coming off arrogant. I could speak volumes on those topics and probably will sometime but first, let me demonstrate some easy ways to promote which don’t cost anything and are abundant. All you have to do is pay attention to what other writers are doing and do a few simple web searches to find them. Then just follow simple instructions, send a few emails, and you’re good to go.
1 ) Author Site/Blogs — I’ve already blogged about how important these are in previous Write Tips, but for the modern author your website is your number one most important marketing tool. No one can keep readers up to date like you can and readers want to connect and get to know the author behind the books. Blogs are often free on sites like Blogger and WordPress. Websites may cost more, although mine is set up using WordPress with the help of a friend. I pay for hosting and domain names, something I also suggest in my prior post, but if you can’t afford that just yet, you can probably do it simple on your own. Check my article for the essentials but the most important is to offer insight into yourself, your books and regular updates. Even if it’s once a month, giving them something new to keep them coming back is so important.
2 ) Author Profiles/Blog Interviews — There are tons of bloggers looking for authors to profile and interview. Some are authors themselves, some are not. Some interview specific genres and some cover anyone and everyone of interest. To find them, see where authors you admire are being interviewed. Look at what authors you know from Twitter and Facebook post. Do web searches on terms like “author profiles, author interviews, blog profiles, writing blogs, etc.” You’ll find more than you know what to do with. Many/most have guidelines posted. Read them. Follow the instructions. They’re usually fairly simple. Most provide a list of questions to answer in advance and an email to send them to. Fill them out, keep a list and do them one by one until you’re done. Then make a new list. Don’t get overwhelmed by doing them all at once. Try and change the wording in your answers a bit. Don’t just cut and paste. It makes each interview feel unique and keeps the bloggers feeling like they got an exclusive. I just answer them from scratch each time. I may say the same things but it always comes out differently.
3 ) Goodreads/Library Thing — There are other sites but these are arguably the biggies. Joining is free, so it becoming an author and building your profile. You can enter your own books and list them. Then you can join book clubs, interest groups, vote in polls, etc. You can review books you’ve read or are reading and you can interact with tons of readers and authors who love writing and books as much as you do. This is a no brainer and can take as little or much time as you’re willing to put into it. You can do giveaways, interviews, connect your blog, do Q&As, etc. The audience is already focused. It’s truly a nobrainer.
4 ) Press Releases — There may be an art to writing them but there are plenty of examples online and frankly, plenty of newspapers, magazines and sites which allow you to upload them for free. My latest is posted on the Kansas City Star, the biggest newspaper in my local region, and all I had to do was upload it on their webform. Within 48 hours, it was searchable for all to see. You used to have to work a lot harder and pay a lot more money for publicity like that. Asking around or simple web searches can find not only tons of examples but tons of outlets for them. Don’t miss this opportunity to let people know what you’re doing and when: every book release, every award, every signing or appearance, every new contract–put out a release and let people know. It builds your reputation, name recognition and audience. It might even get you interviews in newspapers on Tv, radio or blogs.
5 ) PSAs — Public Service Announcements are offered free by radio and TV stations to organizations and individuals and businesses announcing events of benefit to the community. Writers talking about writing should qualify, even if you’re paid. As long as you can convince them you’re running an event with public benefit and which doesn’t charge for tickets, PSAs should be available. You have to write them up yourself, per the station’s standards, and submit according to their deadlines. But they will announce several times on the air and get your event a lot more notice. Free advertising is priceless.
6 ) Signings — The average number of books sold at signings: four to seven for non-celebrities, according to a recent survey. The average number of books sold after signings? Immensely more due to word of mouth from bookstore employees and customers who attended the signing. In fact, the friendlier and more supportive of staff you are, the more you pay attention to other people, i.e. the more fun you are to have around, the more successful you’ll be, and they’ll invite you back again and again. The more signings before the same crowd means what? Increased sales and recognition. Recognition always builds word of mouth. See what I’m going for? They may sometimes seem a lot of effort for little return, but I think signings are very important. Anywhere and anytime you can appear in public is.
7 ) Appearances — So appearances: readings, book clubs, libraries, literary festivals, conventions, schools, you name it, are key to your success and marketing. If people like you, if you seem knowledgeable and like a friend they’d enjoy spending time with, they’ll want to read your book. They’ll want to know you better through your words. You can’t do enough appearances and most will not cost as much money as a con or fesitval. Most will be free. Be creative in coming up with ideas. Work with local nonprofits, schools, etc. There’s automatic prestige wo writing a book. Often you won’t have to work hard to convince people to invite you…as long as you’re not a jerk.
8 ) Book Clubs — Book Clubs, online and off, are a great resource. Offer them a discount for quantity, send them your sell sheets, send them arcs, send them press releases. Smooze them like old friends. You get in with them, you have a ready made word of mouth machine to sell a lot more books because Book Club people are book people and book people know other book people. And what do book people talk about with each other? Books. Books they like. And if they’ve met the author, all the cooler. Not everyone gets to do that. Built in free word of mouth sales.
9 ) Reading Group Guides — Yes, you can get a lot of sales and word of mouth by networking with Book Clubs and other Reading Groups. Not only can you use your Book Sell Sheet to get them interested but you can make reading guides to offer free as well all by yourself. Penguin Group has examples on their website here: http://booksellers.penguin.com/static/html/pop.html The basic idea is to assemble questions and examine themes which prompt discussion about your book, its characters, meaning, etc. Fairly simple to put together for most authors. After all, who knows your book better than you?
Well, there’s 9 free ways to get started with marketing your books. I’m sure there are more. Which can you suggest? Please add them in the comments so we all can learn from each other.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SF Signal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.
Twice now I have explicitly told my publisher no 99 cent pricing. My book is worth more. And I don’t say it with arrogance. My book is not a self-published book. 4 editors worked on it. Two independent editors I paid before it sold at considerable cost and two at the publisher. I don’t want people lumping it in with the non-vetted crap that’s out there. While there are good books at .99, there’s also a ton of junk. My book is higher quality and we need to distinguish it. But at the same time, I’m still pretty unknown and new and people don’t know my work. They won’t pay the $9.99 or $16.99 major trade houses want for ebooks (which to me is asking a bit much even) so we’re at $3.99. We will do a one week $.99 sale to launch the new year but I feel comfortable with my position. And I think it’s dangerous to all of us in publishing who are professionals to allow our work to become devalued to the point where $.99 is the norm (if it hasn’t happened already) because that makes it really hard to make a living.
To me it smacks of a certain desperation. “Oh it’s working for some people. I can’t compete if I don’t do it.” But that’s ridiculous. There are plenty of proven cases of authors making money on ebooks at much higher prices. The harder reality is you have to sell a lot of books at $.99 with publishers or others taking a cut to make a decent living. You really have to have multiple successful books. And can you sustain that long term is a much more important question. Seriously. Tobias Buckell and others have done surveys and studiesshowing that books do sell at higher price points. In fact, Buckell convinced me $4.99 is a really good price point for novels. Mainstream publishers still can’t afford to price books that low but for those small presses and others who can, it’s not asking a whole lot. It’s close to half the price of a mass market paperback. We are, after all, talking about hours, months, years of someone’s labor most of the time. If you’re not spending that kind of time writing books, you’re in a different category and may well be writing stuff of the quality deserving of this low price point but most of of us labor hard and long through many drafts to get our work done and sell it and that has value. And people do consider price, quality of cover art, reputation, etc. when making buying decisions. I don’t feel uncomfortable at all with saying my work is of a certain quality and the price reflects that.
It worries me that we are letting the wrong motives control pricing. The music industry did that while fighting Napster and resisting ITunes and lost the battle. If we are more reasonable from the start but yet all work together to set fair prices, not greedy ones but fair ones, we will all be better off in the long run. And in the long run, we won’t lose sales. The market won’t go away. Trust me. If all people could find at $.99 was books of a lower quality or a few on special sales, they would jump to buy our $4.99 novels. It would not be an issue. They would not hesitate. People want to know they got something of value, even for $.99 and they prefer to be pleased rather than disappointed with what they get. If every author, self-published or not, priced books in the same range, the market would follow. There might be some resistance at first but people would get over it. And the people resisting are not the ones who really value your work anyway. Not the people you want to have controlling the cost of your labor. It’s really important to think about it.
Are we driving ourselves out of business if we let this pattern continue? Is it really worth it to have a sales boost now when you can never afford to live the real dream of writing full time? To me, it absolutely is not. And so I eschew such pricing schemes. If my book sells slower, which it is, so be it. My novel has gotten great reviews and some pretty high praise. I have yet to hear from a single person who read it and didn’t enjoy it. That is value. Doesn’t make me Mark Twain. Doesn’t make me an expert but I do feel professional. I am not Joe Blow offering you whatever rolled off my fingers into the keyboard that day. Neither are many authors who’ve surrender to this and I think that’s sad. It’s why we all really need to think about what’s going on and where we want to go with it and what it means. I wonder how many of those $.99 wonders are getting long term repeat business. How many are selling crap and having buyers never return? There’s also a little thing called value by association. It happens in real estate. People perceive a neighboring property to be of lower value and low and behold your property value decreases. The same thing happens with book pricing, believe me.
Another issue. Publishers are more and more counting on writers to do the legwork of promotion. I have spent 16 times my advance (which was admittedly a token) promoting my debut novel. The results are worth it: I got Honorable Mention on B&N Book Club’s Best SF Of 2011 and listed on Suvudu a few times, etc. But I will have a hard time recouping that, a fact I used to my advantage in negotiating my contract. Meanwhile, my publisher had authors lining up to sign with them because of the publicity I generated. So I bought them value. At 99 cents, I would be screwed at ever hoping to recover it. And that is becoming more a norm. Things like Cons, book fairs, etc. which you need to do to get out and meet readers, often don’t pay your way unless you’re invited and an elite pick. You pay those out of pocket and they are expensive. And then there’s the independent editors I hired before selling my novel whom I used to help me whip it into shape. Those don’t come cheap either. Add to that other costs of writing, time, etc. and it’s quite an investment. If we continue to underprice our labor and our costs, we will bankrupt ourselves.
In any case, I continue to be vehemently opposed to this model. I wish more people came alongside me on it, because I think a book which has been professionally edited and vetted by knowledgeable people has more value than a book someone did alone at home and threw on the market. I don’t appreciate it when I get a book that is not professional quality–filled with typos, bad prose, bad plotting, bad characterization, etc. I feel cheated. And I never want my readers to feel that way. It doesn’t mean my work is perfect or that there isn’t plenty of room to grow. It just means I am approaching it with a concern for delivering the best I can with people who help me achieve it. And that costs money to do. And it deserves to have a certain price. Period.
That’s my take on the whole phenomenon. For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
Okay, I know. It sounds crazy to some of you already. Preparing for a book blog tour when my book’s not even done? Insane! Arrogant! A distraction I don’t need! But wait. Let me explain please.
Book Blog Tours are a great way to promote your book. I had 32 stops on my book blog tour, stretching from interviews to podcasts, to short story prequels, to dialogues, to excerpts, and more, and I can tell you it’s hard work. It takes a lot of time to prepare so many posts, even if all you’re doing is answering someone’s interview questions. And here’s the thing. Your blog tour posts are supposed to be unique, interesting and keep people coming back daily for the next one. And they should relate to you and your book in some way.
Do I have to tell you it’s easy to run out of ideas?
When you’re writing your book, however, there’s often nothing you’re thinking about more. You’re always analyzing what you’re writing, why, how, etc. It’s the perfect time to capture this process in little snippets you can use later for those book tour blog posts. I am not talking about writing whole blog posts necessarily, although let the muse lead where he/she will, okay? But what if you jot down a paragraph or two of the various craft processes you’re going through as you go through them to give you something to build a blog post around later?
Seriously.
I do 18-20 blog posts a month. Two a week for this blog, at a minimum, and 1-2 for sffwrtcht’s blog. Then I do the other 10 for guest posts on other blogs. I have 4 a month for Grasping For The Wind as a column. I do one a month for SFSignal. That makes 15. So I do 4-5 others for other blogs. Yes, it’s time consuming. Yes, it’s a lot of work. Yes, it’s worth it. The result is that my name and my book’s name are never far from people’s minds. I may not reach the same audience every week, but I’m out there and name recognition of me and my book is growing daily. It’s so important to book sales, not just of the present book but future ones, too.
Doing all of this, as I think about my next blog tours which will be next Spring and Summer, I get overwhelmed. How in the world will I continue all this posting and write 31 more blog posts?
And here you are thinking, I’m fine. I don’t have all those commitments, Bryan. So I don’t need to worry about it.
But the catch is, since most books are written a year or even longer before they actually hit shelves, your blog tour posts will be written 12-18 months after you’re done writing the book. You will have moved on to something else. Your thought processes on writing THAT book will be dominant and remembering what you thought when writing the PRIOR book will be frustrating and difficult at times.
But not if you have little thoughtful notes written during the writing of the book to capture your frame of thought at the time, jolt your memory and help you frame blog posts.
Do you see what I’m getting at? And we’re talking something that takes less than 5 minutes for most of us. It doesn’t have to be polished or even formal. Just stream of thought and you’re done. You fix it later when you make the post.
Does anyone not see how helpful this could be?
As the world of publishing continues to change, writers become more and more responsible for our own publicity and marketing. And PR/marketing is something people do for a living. That means it’ll be almost a full time job for authors as well. If you’re not a full time author, or even if you are, you have a lot going on already. Making time for all this marketing is a push. Some people can’t do it well. Some don’t even try. And they’re missing out on a great opportunity as a result.
My suggestion is to help yourself by setting yourself up with some possible prompts as you go. It will not only make things easier, your blog posts will be richer. You’ll capture the feeling and thoughts behind your book and readers will be fascinated. The result will be a better blog tour and more interest for everyone, including you. Writing a book is a big accomplishment. Going back to it can be very encouraging for you, not only in reliving the experience as an accomplishment but in seeing how far you’ve come.
Readers always want insight on their favorite author’s writing processes and lives as books come out. So do fellow writers. And the more personally meaningful and detailed a blog post is, as far as giving real insight, the better it tends to be received. So preparing for your book blog tour as you write the book itself can make a lot of sense and save a lot of later stress. It shouldn’t get in the way of the writing itself, of course. But it can be a valuable part of the analysis you’re already doing as you write. It isn’t a distraction if you are just documenting what’s already going on in your head.
And it’s not arrogant. You’re not blowing your own horn. You’re explaining why you do what you do. Leave it up to others to decide if you did it all wrong or if it’s of any quality or other value. Those are not things you can worry about. You can only do the best you can.
So there’s a write tip I hope gives you something to think about. You can prepare for marketing your book even as you write it. And that can be a real blessing. For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, the collection The North Star Serial, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
KINDLEGRAPH is new. You may not have heard of it, but it’s a MUST DO for published authors. Here’s why:
1) It’s free
2) You can do this, in less than 15 seconds from your laptop at home at any reader’s request:
Yep, they buy your ebook.
Then they request an autograph.
You type a message which comes out in handwriting as shown.
You sign with the mouse. (I’m sure my signature and yours will improve with practice.)
You send it.
Costs you nothing.
Gives them the chance to have what before only hard copy owners could.
It’s a win-win for everyone and if you’re a published author, it’s a no brainer, you need to sign up. Go to http://www.kindlegraph.com/ and click Author’s Sign-up here!
Any questions? Seriously? Why wouldn’t you do this?
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, the collection The North Star Serial, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
Two of the most valuable skills one must cultivate as a writer are being hypersensitive to write passionate, powerful, emotion-filled prose, and having a thick skin to handle criticism. Ironically, these two skills are often diametrically opposed. How can you be thick skinned and sensitive at the same time? In truth, I don’t know anyone who can.
Criticism hurts, no matter who’s giving it or what it says. No one who puts themselves out there, especially artistically–pouring their emotions, thoughts, ideas, and heart into their work–enjoys it when people criticize that work. It’s just hard to hear. Some may claim to be immune, but being used to it and being immune are not the same thing. One can certainly learn to accept that criticism is often a daily, or at least weekly, part of the life of an artist, especially when work is newly released. But I don’t honestly know how one can ever totally get to the point where it doesn’t sting. After all, any serious artist, of whatever medium, works hard to do their best at what they do. From studying craft, learning tools, and experimenting to long hours conceptualizing and planning, serious art takes work.
Having my first novel out there for seven weeks, it’s been hard to hear that I didn’t do it perfectly. The human side of me, which knows all of us are imperfect and that I still have lots of room to grow as a writer (always will), knows that people will find fault with my work. But the artist side of me cringes and feels a jab in the heart region every time they do. Mostly I have learned to bite my tongue and just keep it to myself. Occasionally my publisher and I discuss it. It’s hard sometimes to keep your mouth shut when you feel the criticisms are unfair (which is not every time). I’ve made a mistake a time or two but, in every case, I made sure to learn anything I could to apply in future novels so I won’t have to hear the same criticisms again. My goal is to make them work hard to find faults. It may be difficult to reach that point, but that’s what I’m shooting for.
I think it was especially hard with the first novel because it was, for me, my legitimization as a serious professional writer. Not self-published, not a free zine, this was someone paying me an advance against earnings for something I wrote, spending money on editing, printing, cover art, etc. Serious professional writers were writing blurbs and reading it to do so. For me, this book sent a message: Bryan Thomas Schmidt is for real about being a professional writer. He’s a peer.
It’s hard to explain that feeling to someone who hasn’t gone through it or isn’t preparing to, but, in part, it’s a sense of not wanting to let anyone down. People have supported and helped and encouraged me, and I wanted those efforts to have been worthy of the work I put out in the world. Of course, even name writers like Stephen King and Orson Scott Card and Mike Resnick get bad reviews. We all get criticized but if my book is sharing the shelf space, I just want to feel like I belong there. Do you know what I mean? Shelf space in bookstores and on bookseller tables is in high demand and all the more so as stores like Borders go bankrupt. It’s a competition just to get your book on the shelves, so if I ask someone to carry my book, I want them to get some income to make it worth their while. If not, why should they ever support me again?
Also, publishing a book feels so permanent. This is something which may one day make it into collections or library shelves. People may hold on to it and pass it down to kids, grandkids, pass it to friends, etc. My name and my picture will forever be associated with it. So I want that association to be a good thing, not one I or anyone else regrets. No frowns. Smiles. That’s what I want when people think of Bryan Thomas Schmidt and fiction. And when they criticize it for faults, I feel like I failed in that.
It’s best, of course, to remember that opinions are subjective. What’s the old saying? “Opinions are like buttholes. Everyone has one.” That’s crass, yes, but it’s true. And the reality is not everyone is going to like your work. Taste is a huge factor. Some people just don’t get science fiction or fantasy. Some people won’t like anything without serious, hard researched science involved. Some people won’t like your book because the characters aren’t like them. Some won’t like it because you had a male antagonist and not a female. The list of reasons can go on eternally. But in the end, those are just opinions. Your target audience will rarely be “everyone.” There are always specifics. So if you aim to please those people and yourself, I think you can find satisfaction.
For example, I knew when it went out that my book wasn’t perfect. I knew that from the first agent query rejection and publisher rejection. Not everyone liked my book or thought it was perfect. Okay. But I knew that would never be the case. I could never please everyone. It’s that way with everything in life. Instead, I focused my attention on how to make the book the best it could possibly be right up until the final deadline. If I wrote The Worker Prince today, I’d do things differently. In many cases, I’d do things better. Writing book 2, The Returning, was so much easier for a reason: I learned craft in the past two years I didn’t have when I wrote book 1. Every book has lessons learned which you automatically apply to future works, so every book should be easier and better, in theory. So my goal was to release the best book I could at that point in my writer’s journey and to know I had to be satisfied that I did my best. It’s all I can ask of myself.
How do you be sensitive enough to write characters who come alive with emotion and touch readers and still have a thick skin for criticism? I don’t have the answer. The best advice I have is to focus on what you can change and let the rest go. If you can find tips to improve your writing in the criticisms, use it. If you can’t, let it go. If you can do that, you can’t ask much more of yourself. Sorry if you were looking for easy answers. I don’t have them. But as long as you remember that writing is a journey and a process that never ends and stay on the road of discovery, I think you can recognize you’re growing and so will your works and that makes it easier to accept the bad with the good in critics. At least, that’s my approach.
For what it’s worth…
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novelThe Worker Prince, the collection The North Star Serial, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
I respect interviewers. In case you don’t realize, I am one. I have a lot of experience with it. Weekly. Sometimes daily, as an interviewer, not just interviewee. But there’s a practice that’s becoming more and more prevalent these days and which I really abhor of people preying on hopeful authors’ dreams and offering big exposure if they’ll just pay a fee for the privilege. And often this takes the form of interviews. And I find that pretty insulting. Exceptions might be a few cases where you’re guaranteed exposure like national television or radio, but even then, you shouldn’t have to pay and here’s why: They need content.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, and The Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories featured in anthologies and magazines. He edited the new anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. His children’s book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novels and nonfiction. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.
