Found: Useful Writing & Twitter Ideas

For someone who writes short stuff, I read precious little short fiction. Tried to remedy that when I bought Warriors Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers. The collection had some stories with great twists on fantasy tropes though I skimmed through a fair share of the stories.

Sad part. I had never encountered many of writers before and don't think I'll go searching for them. Part of it is because I like more depth to my characters. But the stories just didn't hook me into their worlds.

As a writer, the collection offered me some great lessons on using the three-act structure for stories: introduce your characters and setting, throw the characters to the wolves or other evil-doers, and then, let the MC win or lose. [Since this was genre fiction, the good guys usually won, and the bad guys lost.] You've probably heard that saw repeated so much you consider it a cliche. But it's a useful one.

I've been struggling the last couple of weeks with the two short stories I've been trying to write while doing the final, endless edits on The Ghostcrow. [Thanks to my beta readers, the whole focus changed by adding deeper MC motivation. The story's more complicated than Dumdie just escaping from a demon now. She's going to walk away with a better understanding of her ability to see ghosts.]

Oh, I have nice little outlines for both the Cassy Mae and Highgrim stories. But they just weren't jelling. At the moment, both consist of a hodgepodge of disjointed scenes. Further problem: I couldn't decided what details to put in and which to leave out. Result: I've two unorganized messes in my computer.

Yeah, the light bulb went on while reading the last few stories in the book. Locate your projected word limit and divide: 2000 words for intro, 2000 words for complications, and 2000 words for solutions. If I add any deeper motivations, the story can grow. One thing about self-publishing; I don't have to fit my story into a word-box.

As for Warriors Fantastic, it was a pleasant read, what I read of it. [The editors led off with the best story,[an original take on Valkyries by Alan Dean Foster, which is why I bought the book in the first place. Have decided most of my dissatisfaction with the stories was the lack of character depth. But I'm also thinking these were mostly guy stories about people who like to fight. As such, there are some interesting takes on fantasy paradigms that make the book worthwhile. I'm giving it a hemming & hawing recommendation.

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Interesting & Useful #Twitter Blogs

In the early days of my critique group, one of our most common comments was "You're Telling". Just as I use my crit group to improve my writing, I've been reading blogs on improving your #Twitter presence. One of the most pertinent: a blog by MMJaye on Google+: "Show, Don't Tell, on Twitter" If you despair of anyone looking at your Tweets, you might take a look.

One of the best of the commentaries on making your tweets more effective was Richard Stephenson summery on points to use and habits to avoid. Take a look at The Indie Author's Guide to Twitter.

  Then, if you are compulsive enough to want to measure your results, you might look at Peg Fitzpatrick's blog on The Philosophy of Hastags .

  No, I don't measure my results other than checking my click-throughs on the the url-shorteners. But, Fitzpatrick gives lots of info on how you can better market with Twitter. With those automatic retweeter services, I pay less attention to retweeters though I always follow them. Thanks to the notifications I can scan the names and check out the new ones.

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   Anyone else reading the comic book Mercedes Thompson story, Hopcross Jilly, put out by Dynamite? It's now in the fourth issue with Jesse, Mercy's step-daughter, being featured in a parallel story line to Mercy's involvement with some gruesome burials. Jesse's  getting bullied in school while a witch stalks the bad kids... again. The overall arcing mystery is the discovery of strange graves with the kids skeleton's lined up with their heads in the cardinal directions. Oh, and their fingers and toes are missing. How's that for a premise to work against the cliche of high school mean girls?

My take? The artwork is dark, which is okay, but all too often the panels are murky rather than sharp.  My other quibble is the advertising. No, the 90-pound weakling hasn't returned to haunt us. But the garb they've put on the revived Red Sonja must be uncomfortable to the extreme. Guess I'm getting old or, maybe, I'm not a day-dreaming adolescent boy.

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Miracles of miracles. I've actually been writing in the mornings ... after I read my three comics and check my most important emails. Perhaps the most liberating change in attitude: I've decided since I'm not selling anything ... just giving my stories away ... so why am I wasting time checking stats? Then, someone on Barnes & Nobel bought four of my books at once. Or, at least, I sold four different estories there on the same day. That was a nice, warm fuzzy for a pipsqueak writer.

Hey, what's not to like?

My cut from a Nook is bigger than a sale on a Kindle.

Have also been taking time to learn how to build my own banners for #marketing. Have tried a couple tools, but PicMonkey seems to work for this computer klutz. Here're a couple banners I've created all by myself. I won't tell you how many attempts and redos it took to get to the finished product.

Yeah, they still some editing. But they say adding pics to tweets helps them get noticed. I'll be converting my reviews snippits to banners as I have free time.

Taming Twitter

My opinion: Social media, including Twitter, are a time-suck. Almost as big a suck as playing games when you should be writing. Have you heard that bitch before? I know I've grumbled and snarled about it ... and I read about it a lot too.

The big question is: What have I done about it?

At this point, I have two Twitter places: my normal one [@kaytheod] and the advertising/promo one. I set up the second one because I got a little tired of sifting through the "Buy-my-book" ones. They've both been up since at least 2010 and have over 2,000 followers. My guess is I engage with only about 50 of them regularly. -- I can beg people to buy my book with the worst of them.

I spend about 30-45 minutes a day on Twitter ... readng, following back, replying, and retweeting

So what good has all the time I've spent done for me?

1) Attracts People to my Websites. This is a flawed measure since the Go Daddy counters go spastic every once in a while, but I do notice an increase in visits when I promote my websites. One of my main enticements are the free short stories I offer. Visit my author website to learn more.

2) "Sells" A Few Free Short Stories. If I promote a lot using hashtags, I get a large increase in the number of people who download my free short stories. My base line comes from my epub The Foiling of Gorsfeld which I only publicize on my websites.

I also promote the links to buy my e-novellas, Troublesome Neighbors and Taking Vengeance. I'm not a stellar seller, but I don't do too badly for a self-published writer with only a few listings. My rank yo-yos worse than a chronic dieter's, but I have risen to the 30,000s in author rank a couple of times. I'm always amazed at how high one sale lifts the ranking of one of my novellas ... for a day.

3) Drives People to My Blog. This is where Twitter shines. If I come up with a catchy title my numbers soar. I post maybe once a day at both of my Twitter accounts. Usually my blogs get over a hundred reads in a week or so. My highest number of views for a blog so far is 600.

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Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be a writer, so what have I written. I did get the package for The Noticed One, a soft horror short story, ready to send off -- if Kindle Singles accepts it for publication -- though I'm still agonizing over the blurb. [Have I ever mentioned I'm lousy at doing promo c**p?

Cover

Current Blurb:

Plain Cassy Mae goes to live with her grandmother in the mountains after her mother died, in spite of GrammyJo’s working juju. But worse dangers lurk in the hills than her grandmother’s herb lore.

To Market to Market -- All to Sell a Fine Book

I commented on a recent blog about always running out of social media time to actively participate at Goodreads. 

Then, on LinkedIn I ran into a The Business of Books blog on How to Use Your Goodreads account to build your author platform.
 -- Nothing like rubbing my nose in my marketing failings. The blog had me thinking I should make a bigger effort to include the site in my routine. 
-- Which I find amusing since I've been cutting back on my Twitter time.
-- Does anyone have any great suggestions? I'll retweet them if you do and give me your Twitter link.

Of course, to get a review to sell your book you need to get someone to buy your book, hopefully in great numbers. Found this blog by Brian Feinblum at BookMarketingBuzzBlog on what triggers book sales. He makes some good points that almost reduced me to despair. I'm almost immune to sales pitches, ie: I don't have any easy triggers ... other than maybe a host of favorite authors.

Feinblum's blog also sneaks in one very crucial ingredient to the marketing blend -- the importance of a log line. If you can't state your book/story's purpose in one or two succinct, intriguing sentences, you're going to have problems with selling your book. This applies to both agents and readers. -- Now you see where the despair might come in ... if I really cared ... though selling a bunch of "books" would be nice on several levels.

Then, there's the bain of my existence ... marketing.  Ugh. Aaargh. Cuss words. Now that my temper tantrum's over, I found a very interesting link to a list of the "Ten Money Saving Resources for Every Author" posted by Self-publishing Resources, I think. I immediately jumped to the link on publicizing your website. Found my not collecting email addresses was a greater sin than I thought. -- Whatever, there's some good points here even if you don't use the services listed. Like a timeline of when you should use the various techniques.

The above commented upon, I need to make a pitch for LinkedIn. I find I'm spending a lot more time there ... reading primary postings. There's some wonderful information lurking in their forums if you don't get caught up in the chattiness of it all ... which I don't because I'm not necessarily wanting a gajillion likes-followers-connections-etc.

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Then, there's my writing ... where I all too often hang my head in shame as people talking about their 1000+ word goals. I feel good when I get 250 new words added in a day ... though I really try for 500 words a day. ... Sometimes, I even make it.

Did suffer one set back.

My Hag Stone Magic MG story was going well ... until my  critique group savaged me. [Not really, but we're a tough group with long red pencils. Definitely not for the faint hearted.] Anyway my story line was mostly telling and had all sorts of verb problems. Good points all ... but it was a rough draft in the attempt to get a novel off the ground.

Even I could see the back story was overwhelming the story flow without them telling me. Solution: Write a prequel type book. Am doing that now and the world building is much easier and not so overwhelming for the reader, I hope. Result: I have seven chapters written of the middle book in a trilogy.

How to Start a Novel

Got slapped up the side of the head again; this time while I was reading for the fun-of-it. While my thumbs were recovering from NaNoWriMo, I decided to read through all three books of L. L. Foster's [aka Lori Foster] Servant trilogy: Servant, The Awakening - Servant, The Acceptance - and Servant, The Kindred. Decided I really like the way the Foster developed the main character with a different life-goal in each book. Liked her decision not to turn Gaby into a series, even better. [My surmise from Foster's website]

So, what did I learn? Perhaps a solution for my main writing problem: never starting at the beginning of my story. My critique partners are always saying I don't give enough information for them to have an idea of where my story is going. Result is that I'm always tacking chapters on at the beginning -- after I think I'm in the middle of the book. This time, when I re-read the Servant novels, I think I may have found a solution. I noticed how Foster introduced her characters.

Yeah, she showed her characters in action. She's a modern, professional author, after all. That's the easy part. The hard part is to indicate the "problem" while the action's flowing.

First chapter: Foster took care of that by showing the villain first, without naming him/her. "POV break" Then, she showed Gaby, God's paladin to destroy evil in her city, in the throes of her need to save someone from evil and her ambivalence towards that compulsion along with enough back story to understand a bit of what Gaby is. We also get introduced to a major side-kick in a confrontation that demonstrates Gaby's perpetual bad mood. 

[The bad mood is one of the reasons I like this character so much.]

The next two chapters are much the same except they introduce Luther, the love interest and main support character who also offers a strong conflict situation since he's a cop. As God's paladin, Gaby is a freelancer on the street. The conflict continues for three books, until it's resolved. Foster sells lots of books because she tells a good sotry, so she's well  worth studying.

Money,

something, maybe, too many writers forget.

A quote from Janet Reid, my wish-for agent 
but I don't write  what she represents

[and I probably don't write well enough for her to be interested any way].

"This is a for-profit business and I spend my time doing what I think is going to make me boatloads of money. Shiploads would be better. Helping you figure out why your book doesn't work is not going to make me any money. It makes you feel better. Those are NOT the same things."

[Yeah, there's a similarity in attitude between Janet Reid and Gaby.]

I'll sum up Reid's comment:

Agents are in the business to make money.
If they don't think you can make them money, 
they aren't interested in your story. 

You probably want to make money writing too. That means PROMOTION: 

While procrastinating instead of writing, I discovered a neat list of promotion sites that Mimi Barbour used to promote her book. Doesn't say much about how to use them, but The 13 Steps I took to Promote My Work gives a good check lists of the ones that seem effective. Her list may very well tip the balance of my signing up for a couple of them -- even though I can't keep the ones I'm doing updated regularly.

I'll close with a link to Allison Pang's blog for a sensible approach to Twitter.

Bad Haiku Monday & Grumblings

Comment alert:
I seem to have hit a nerve on my comments about shrinking toilet paper last week.

Then Jon Ray at Big Burrito Media who did my trailer for  
Taking Vengeance
keeps telling me the book trailer will do wonders for my ebook
when I questioned the usefulness of trailers.
He thinks I'm too skeptical about the results [ie. sales].
His actual comment is somewhere in the comments,
but I couldn't find it in the two minutes I allotted to the search.
Yeah, I've started to time the amount of time I spend doing stuff online.
 

 My Grumbling:

Oh, the pain of it.  I'm trying to be organized in drafting my new Half-Elven story, like knowing where it's going before I write it.  *hangs head*  At the moment, I'm trying to figure how to work description and motivation into the action.  Maybe I won't have to revise as much when I reach the end. -- Of course, I first have to find time to write something new.

The Half-Elven world bible is slowing me down though.  I know so much more now than when I started it ... both about the world and how to craft a story.

Social Networking Links:

Is your Twitter account useful?  I know I spend more time there than other social networking sites.  The place is especially useful in keeping up with blogs of people I know or interact with frequently.  -- Which reminds me of something I should mention.  I've got a link to my Twitter address here.  So, if you are a follower or I follow your blog ... follow me on Twitter and let me know about it.  That way I can follow you back plus find your blog updates for sure.  My blog roll is getting longer and longer as I find more interesting people.

So, the question: how to get the most out of your Twitter account.  Jason Boog discusses Five Twitter Mistakes you shouldn't make in your Twitter profile on Galley Cat.

Need a pulse on the business side of writing?  Robin Sullivan who blogs at Write to Publish has an article of five blogs you should follow.  She includes Joe Konrath who recently mentioned a service that can help you get reviews for your books.

Oh, on Book Reviews.

Anyone out there know bloggers that review novellas?

WolfSinger Press gave me a pdf file I can give the reviewer for free.

I trying to steel my nerves to ask people to review a short piece rather than a full novel.

Time spent social networking is a worry according to writers I interact with personally. I'm throwing hubris to the winds and writing a guest blog on how I contain the time-slurper.  [a nice word for "such"] 

The Next Chapter of Quest

[More of my Bad Haiku story]

False King Attacks Again

5

King’s men circle trees.

Beaters narrow circle. Burn

Huts. Kill all young boys.

Heir jumps tree to tree,

Watching death’s bite through the leaves.

King’s men don’t look up.

Old king’s guards find boat,

Convince heir to leave the land,

Row across the sea.

Trivia: 

Got tricked at the farmer's market.  Needed "real" tortilla chips made from tortillas rather than paste.  Bought them without looking carefully and discovered they were flour ... harina.  While I don't have celiac [knock on my head], I do limit the amount of wheat I eat because it makes my nose drip.  [How's that for an unappetizing detail?]

Hooking Your Readers

The Read:  Well, growl-ly Luna and Caitlin Kittredge finally hooked me for the final third of Pure Blood.   But, the need to see how Kittredge tied all the loose ends together kept me going -- not any particular involvement with the characters.  They remained too simply drawn to tie up my interest against all the other distractions in my life.

Kittredge had all the major secondary characters sunk up to their necks in danger, including Luna.  She did end up with the love interest she preferred,  discovered the supposed "partner" was planted to build a case for firing her, and managed to destroy the nasty magical talisman that was causing all the trouble in an interesting fashion.  More important, as a foreshadowing for the sequels, Kittredge suggests that Luna isn't the magical null Luna and her family of witches thinks she is.  --  However, I won't go looking for the next book in the series.  [The plot's more complicated so this paragraph isn't quite the spoiler you might think.]

The True Blood DVDs still absorb my after-the-news reading time -- until midnight.  I can get two episodes in if I don't do anything else.  Am thinking of getting one of the later books in the series and comparing the two.  While the acting in the TV series is good over all, I think some of the actors for the secondary characters -- like Jason and Tara -- often go over the top and make caricatures of their characters.

Web Notes:  The momentus things one learns on Twitter:  Colleen Lindsay (agent at Fine Print) was out of coffee beans.  Yasmine Galenorn ( the creator of the D'Artigo sisters though I prefer Emerald O'Brien) needs coffee to write sex scenes. 

Galenorn also recommends that you never play on the web drunk.  What you say might come back and bite you.

Maybe, this is an example of why I spend so much time on the web?  No, I seldom visit Twitter.  As for Facebook, I mostly check for family and personal friends.

So much for building a platform ... though I still think you need an audience in mind before you can do it.

Progress:   None.  Struggling.  Can't even get a query draft for Emma done.

Trivia:  The Dark Wyrm [book review site, http://darkwyrmreads.blogspot.com ]  sabotaged my to-read pile.  She held a contest with Strange Brew, a collection of short stories by the likes of Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, and would you believe, Caitlin Kittredge.  Something strange happened; I won.  Do you think I can't keep my hands off it? 

Since I can't write short  fiction, I won't be commenting on any of the stories.  Though liked the twist on who was messing with Harry Dresden's favorite beer.