The End of a Book by Elizabeth Goddard

My son recently finished reading Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. He loved the story but he said it made him feel sad that the book had ended. Funny that we continue to read when we’re immersed in a story—to pull from Maureen’s earlier post—only to rush to the end. It comes all too soon, especially if we love the story.

Many times I feel a little down like my son because I finished a great novel, and I wanted to spend more time in that world.

Too often when I finish a novel, I’m not sad but rather frustrated because the ending was rushed. As one friend put it, she wants a long, savory ending. Reviewers and readers alike complain when there isn’t an adequate and lengthy ending, but often the ending can’t fade out like music because of the word count limits or requirements of the publisher. There are ways around this, of course, and that is to cut words elsewhere in the story to give more breathing room at the end. But most of the time cutting back on another element isn’t a good solution either.

Have you read books where you felt the ending was a little rushed? Or are you the type of reader that’s ready to put the novel down as soon as the mystery is solved?

 

Social Media and Writing: What? Why? By Julie Arduini

One aspect of therapy on my wrist that I didn’t anticipate was talking about my writing life. The therapist admitted she crafted a story and wanted to have it published, but didn’t want “everything else that comes with it.”

That everything else was social media. She admitted she was on Twitter but had no plans to ever send a Tweet. Facebook? No. Pinterest? Instagram? She didn’t even know what they were. Her hope was that a publisher would see her story, publish it, market it, and everyone lived happily ever after.

I think that is every writer’s dream, but reality is a different story.

The economy hit publishing outlets as hard as anyone else. When budgets are strapped, marketing departments get the squeeze. It is now more of the author’s burden to market their work than ever before. Social media is an easy and cost-effective way to get the job done.

What’s out there these days?

Facebook–Yes, it keeps changing, and it can be a time consumer. For me, it’s been a great way to promote my writing and gain an audience before my publishing goal comes to pass. I have a writing page where once a day I tend to ask a question with some aspect of surrender to it that will engage conversation. When someone new becomes my personal Facebook friend, I thank them and invite them to like my writing page. I have my blog auto-feed to both pages. If that was all I did, and yes, I tend to spend too much time on FB, I could be done in 10 minutes or less.

Twitter–This is similar to FB’s status updates, except you are limited to 140 characters per update, AKA a tweet. It’s important to be personal on Twitter, not always sharing links to your Amazon page, etc…It takes discernment, but it is possible to build a following that truly cares about your work and will interact with you. I use Tweetdeck, a grid of sorts with different categories I created to keep track of my followers. Forwarding or Re-Tweeting (RT) is a great way to be friendly and not spend a lot of time. Those few seconds it takes will pay itself back when you do have news that needs to be spread.

Google+–I think this is another fast, easy way to share your work. Each day I share a link to my blog. I scan and give a + to other posts by friends I like. It isn’t a time waster. It isn’t very social in my opinion, but for marketing, a breeze.

Pinterest–Think of a virtual bulletin board where you decide what goes on your boards. That’s Pinterest. This should be an author’s dream because you can have a board where you pin your book covers, website, Amazon page, etc…Pinterest gives the flexibility to create as many boards as you want with as many “pins.” A pin is anything on the Internet (except FB) that you canput on your board after adding a bookmarklet. Anyone visiting your board can click on the pin and it will take them directly to the website where the pin originated. My boards are close to my brand–things that are good, bad, chocolate, or about surrender.

Instagram–This is fairly new to me and if I understand correctly, a product of smartphone apps. Again, created out of FB’s creativity, you take pictures and add them with a caption instead of writing a status update. This doesn’t seem to be straight marketing, at least not what I’ve seen. I added pictures from books where my work is featured, but most pictures I’ve seen are of nature, random moments, and loved ones. It’s a great way for potential readers to get a glimpse of you without constantly telling them where to find your writing. It’s another audience to find, and again, the time commitment is minimal. Like Pinterest, I suggest using FB as a means to find followers, etc…Saves time, and you know who potential followers are if they are current FB friends. Find me as JulieArduini.

LinkedIn–It’s a resume, as far as basic definitions go. I think in other fields LinkedIn is a must, and I’m on it, but I don’t use it for marketing beyond making sure my blog and Twitter accounts auto-feed.

And that’s the best advice I can give: Make sure you auto-feed your blog to your social media accounts. It’s an easy way to gain an audience and be that marketing department your book needs.

We’ve Never Done It This Way Before….

A pastor once told me there were seven words that could kill a church’s growth: “We’ve never done it this way before.” I think those seven deadly words can apply to writing too.

I started in this book writing/publishing business about thirty years ago, although I was doing newspaper and magazine writing even before that. (Yeah, okay, I’m old. That’s the point of this post.) Anyway, I got my foot in the book publishing door by accepting an entry-level, low-paying, part-time, no-benefits position at Gospel Light Publishing. My job title was editorial assistant in the adult curriculum department. But as I said, it was a foot in the door, leading to other positions and jobs and even book contracts. It was also my first experience at writing/editing on a computer. I didn’t have one at home yet, but I got to learn some basics at work, and that convinced me to trade in my IBM Selectric typewriter (which, when I first got it, seemed to be top-of-the-line technology!) for my very first PC. And believe me, I asked a lot of questions and did a lot of research before I invested in one, but I sure was glad to have it when I tackled my first full-length book project. (I can’t even imagine writing one on a typewriter, can you? But I knew people who did and who swore they’d never switch to a computer. Wish I could interview them now!)

Within a few years I was getting my books published fairly regularly, thanks in part to my switch from stone-age typewriter to modern-day computer. But the publishing world was still very different then. For one thing, the vast majority of us Christian authors never dreamed of having an agent or publicist or speakers’ bureau. That smacked of promoting oneself, a definite no-no among us humble believers. Hence, we were free to write our book, turn it in, and move on to the next one. It was glorious!

But somewhere along the line I missed the signs that warned I was fast becoming a publishing dinosaur. Oh sure, I’d upgraded my computer/printer set-up and had even begun to find my way around the Internet. But the fact that Christian authors were now expected not only to have agents but to partner with their publishers in marketing and promoting their books had completely slipped past me. It didn’t even occur to me that there was a problem until I suddenly found my proposals being rejected faster than I could snail-mail them out. I could only surmise that I wasn’t polishing my proposals enough or hitting on the right topics, so I tried harder. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. To say I was getting depressed would be an understatement at best.

Then one day, as I was prowling around at ICRS (still called CBA then), an editor friend sat me down and said, “Kathi, no one in the business doubts that you can write; what we want to know now is, can you sell?” Those words rocked my world! All I could think of was, Christians aren’t supposed to promote themselves…are they? We never did before… (Can you hear those seven deadly words echoing in my brain???)

And so, after thinking and rethinking–and yes, even praying–about what my friend told me, I went home with a mission: learn how to market. Being a firstborn, type-A personality, that meant jumping in with both feet and never looking back. I recently did a podcast for Active Christian Media on why many people in the industry now refer to me as the “marketing maven.” Hilarious!

But you know something? It shows that we “old dogs” are never too old to learn new tricks–not so long as we are convinced of the necessity of doing so. I realized that day at ICRS that what my friend was telling me had a lot of truth in it. The industry had changed, but I hadn’t changed with it. Like the church that dies on the vine because they’re not willing to switch from singing Hymn #87 at the close of every service to trying out an occasional new worship chorus now and then, I was going down for the count. And it was completely unnecessary. It wasn’t as if I were being asked to do something immoral or illegal (though I had to work through that in my head first); I was simply being asked to get on board with the program if I wanted to continue to be an active part of it.

How about you? Whether you’re a writer or a reader, a plumber or a psychiatrist, a truck driver or an NFL quarterback (can anyone say “Peyton Manning” or “Tim Tebow”?), how have changes affected you? Have you ever found yourself in a similar position to mine, challenged to make what might seem a painful change? If so, what did you do, and what was the outcome? I’d love to hear about it!

Let There Be Apps by Elizabeth Goddard

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. Genesis 1: 14-19

Imagine how the universe changed when God turned on the lights!

I’ve written characters in my books that are astronomy geeks and that’s because I’d love to be an astronomy geek myself. But I’ve never had the time or opportunity. Until now.  We recently got a nice telescope, but that requires reading instructions and setting it up. It’s on my to do list.

With today’s technology I have no excuses. I discovered STAR WALK—a  nifty app for iPad that had me and all the kiddoes  outside, staring at the stars. The best part–now we know what we’re looking at. In fact, I learned that I’ve spent my entire life looking at what I thought was the Little Dipper and Big Dipper only to discover that I was looking at Orion. Ha!

Thanks to Star Walk. Thanks to the iPad. Thanks to digital technology turning on the lights for me.  I’m old. I hate change. I love books that I can hold. But I have to admit, technology is changing my mind about many things.

Changing our lives in many ways.  The publishing world is in upheaval over digital books. Since receiving my Keurig for Christmas, I’ve wondered if the coffee world is also in an upheaval, trying to supply the right coffee in k-cups. How many customers still want regular coffee makers, etc? There are innumerable changes happening so fast.

A light has been turned on, illuminating knowledge in greater and faster ways.

One of the biggest changes I see goes hand in hand with the way we read–it’s the way we learn.

I especially see this at home when teaching my children.  I have a big library of children’s books but in addition to those books, I’ve added a library of digital books that either read  to my kids or allows them to read to themselves.  When a child has trouble with a subject I can often find a quick and easy explanation—an explanation they’re more willing to hear—from Brainpop.

Let there be light. . let there be apps. What is the biggest way technology is changing your life?

Blessings!

Beth

Elizabeth Goddard is the award-winning author of Freezing Point and Oregon Outback. You can find out more about Elizabeth at her website, or joint her fan page on Facebook.

Weekend Writer: Relevance and the Math Business by Vicki Hinze

WARNING:  This is a no-edit zone…

 

Relevance and the Math Business

© 2011, Vicki Hinze

 

Most writers aren’t fond of math.  We’re into words.  And yet in our industry many are all about the math.  Math over content often decides what gets published, and that simple truth makes it imperative that writers start getting into the math business whether or not they’re fond of it.  Why?  Because it isn’t just publishers and agents who need to stay relevant, authors do too.

 

The industry is in the middle of a revolution.  Ebooks have come into their own and turned the “normal” paradigms on their ears just as a few years ago electronically tracking sales turned the selections for publication process on its ear.

 

There was a time when the decision on whether or not to buy a book was a subjective, gut-instinct editorial decision.  Both the author and the editor were made or broken depending on the outcome in actual sales.  Because the sales tracking took a good six months to get a firm handle on a project’s performance and even longer to know for fact, publishers took chances on authors.  Built authors over three or four books provided the author’s sales showed progression.

 

When the electronic reporting went active things changed.  Gut instinct was balanced with reporting and marketing decisions.  More publishers began buying by committee rather than on editorial instinct.  And now hearing that the editor loved and wanted to buy an author or a project and couldn’t get it through committee is a common refrain uttered by many across genres, across the market.

 

A similar thing is happening now with publishers on ebooks.  And because authors have the option of becoming publishers, publishers are put into the position of determining relevance.  For the first time, authors are asking, “What can you do for me that I can’t do for me?”

 

Publishers can do things that authors can’t—at least, today they do.  Tomorrow?  Who knows?  Things are changing on nearly every front with lightning speed. 

 

A few years ago an agent saw this coming and started an ebook arm that helped his clients get their rights/backlist up in ebook format.  I’ve spoken to a few of those authors and found none who were not happy with the way the arrangement has worked out for them.  But back then the agent took a lot of heat from other industry professionals, including other agents.   Now some of those agents who gave the visionary heat are also setting up similar programs.

 

What that first agent saw that the others didn’t or elected not to act on until now was that as more avenues opened for authors to become independent publishers, like publishers, agents need to stay relevant in the process or lose the income for not staying relevant to the process.

 

Now some will say authors, acting as their own publishers, don’t need agents.  Some will say agents are needed more than ever because agreements and licenses and secondary licenses are still there and are global and they require trained eyes and comprehension.  That a literary attorney might review and comprehend and explain but if the author isn’t trained to comprehend and implement, challenges to the author can occur.  That there are retail programs within retailing programs agents can access for their authors that aren’t accessible to authors on their own, or aren’t as readily assessable to authors on their own.  Same holds true for publishers. 

 

A case can be made either way—with or without an agent/publisher.  A critical consideration in the assessment should be the author’s skill level and awareness/familiarity of licenses and opportunities.  The lower the author’s skill level, the greater the author’s need for a skilled agent and/or publisher.  Another critical consideration is time.  It’s an investment. Time spent competently meeting business end requirements is time spent not writing.  Not writing produces no product.  No product equals nothing to sell. So there are different things to look at in making your personal call.

 

In the future, I expect that agents will become more like business managers and brokers.  Aiding and assisting in licensing but also in areas physically impacting publishing.  Coordinating a core group of associates who do specific things that need doing to take a book from manuscript to print/eformat.   People like editors, copyeditors, cover artists and those who code the work for specific formats.  Perhaps publicists and marketing professionals also because making readers aware of works is going to be the name of the game that next to content most impacts sales.  There’s that math again!

 

In the future, I expect that publishers will become more like marketers and publicists.  Their primary job, aside from getting the book “out there” will be making sure readers and industry pros know the work is out there.  In other words, to elevate awareness.  Why?  Again, next to content, awareness will most impact sales.  And again, there’s the math.

 

Authors can get the books to market in eform and in print.  But unless readers of that type work know the works are available and buys them, the works are not going to sell.  It is true that selling direct requires the author to sell far fewer copies to earn the same money as with an agent/publisher.  It is also true that in an author selling direct there are no advances and there are upfront expenditures.  Look for more retailers to develop their own programs where they do offer advances and/or to cover initial prepublication expenses.  That’s happening already and I believe it will become more widespread.  In these expectations are pros and cons that are directly relatable to the individual author and impact decisions on what the author will do and how s/he will elect to do it.  Authors and their specific situations are independent.  One size doesn’t fit all.

 

So an author must do a full-scale assessment of his/her specific situation and goals, and then do the math.  Not just for a body of work, but perhaps also on specific projects within the body of work.  And based on that assessment, the author then must decide what route s/he wants to take based on the specifics revealed in thorough, practical and realistic evaluation (both personal and relative to the work or body of work).

 

One thing I have not touched on that I probably should.  I didn’t speak to it before now because it was rumor.  But it’s happened in multiple places with multiple people now and authors should be aware of it because it can have a direct impact on them. 

 

Before now few authors had the luxury of publishing their own work.  They were more or less at the mercy of the publishers or they had to put a ton of money and effort into forming their own traditional publishing company.  That gave authors far fewer options and alternatives.   The author wrote, submitted, and then prayed.  A lot and often.   Much of the division of power in the strategic business alliance—whether it was agent/author or publisher/author—was weighted in the agent or publisher’s favor.

 

The downside for the agent:  Time is money.  Every author acquired required time.  With every submission, an agent risks his/her reputation.  The upside for the agent:  S/he has other clients, so the risk factor is diffused more so than the author’s.  The author has all his/her eggs in one basket—the agent’s.

 

The downside for the publisher:  It risks its reputation in taking on an author/work.  If the author/work doesn’t perform well, it reflects and impacts the publisher’s credibility and fiscal stability.  The editor who acquired non-performing author/work risks current and future employment prospects.  The publisher takes risks, putting its resources and reputation behind the author/work.  The upside for the publisher is that it has many authors and many works and that diffuses its risks.  If one project tanks and other exceeds expectations, the publisher’s version of income-averaging investing comes to its rescue and aids the health of the publisher overall. 

 

The author’s risks are not diffused.  If the project tanks, the author tanks and that’s that on that project and beyond.  Numbers and sell-through follow an author, so the next book becomes more difficult to sell.  Bear in mind that the author takes these risks with no idea what s/he will earn, how his/her work will be packaged, marketed or distributed.  Most authors don’t even know in what form a work will be sold. (That’s often the case for most new authors.  Those authors higher up the chain get consultation rights and input and can split and define formats and such in the contract.  But while the author has input, the final decisions are still the publisher’s, including even titles of the works.  It’s rare that this is not the case.  Publishers feel they take the lion’s share of risks so it’s fair and right that they retain the lion’s share of say.  Some are reluctant to even tell the author what the print run will be on a project.  (There’s that math again.)  I’ve never understood that beyond the obvious of a publisher not wanting to announce to its competition its numbers so therefore considers it proprietary information on that basis.  But withholding that information from the author creates challenges for the author.  Math challenges.

 

The author can’t budget or do the most basic math projections without specific expectations.  While more and more publishers expect the author to promote and market, the author can’t do either rationally because s/he doesn’t have essential information to make the best or wisest decisions.  That hurts both author and publisher—agent, too, for that matter.  Yet this is how things have are/were/have been. And again, this strategic alliance has benefits and risks for both publisher and author.  The publisher’s risks are more diffused.  The author’s got all her eggs and reputation and next-work potential in that one basket.

 

Do note that none of this, or the other tangents applicable in the author/agent or author/publisher relationship, make the relationships adversarial ones.  Far from it.  In these strategic business alliances all parties have a vested interest and a common goal:  to make each work the most successful work possible.  Each party has to do the math.

 

So to stay relevant or establish your relevance, should you go the traditional route for publishing your work?  Do it with or without an agent?  Do both?  Publish both?  I can’t answer that for you.  There are too many variables in every single author’s case/work(s) to make a simple deduction.  Oh, I could line up authors, say:  “You, yes.  You, no.  You do a hybrid.  You need an agent.  You don’t.”  But that’d irresponsible because it’d be based only on my subjective opinion.  It’d be arrogant and I’d certainly be wrong.  Since you and not I will live with the results, it should be your decision, not mine.  You make it.  You’ll be accountable for it and you’ll enjoy the success and failure.  Remember, we all have different definitions for success and failure.  Mine are likely different than yours.  The author’s bottom line:  Use your math, make your call. 

 

What I can say responsibly is this:  In today’s publishing climate, authors need to look at all options and then weigh and consider those options as they relate to the specific author and the specific project at this specific time and under the author’s specific current circumstances, and then make the call for him/herself. 

 

Any decision made by the author most impacts the author.  It should be based not on another’s opinion but on the author’s assessment of his/her relevance, and to determine that, s/he must do the math.

 

Blessings,

 

Vicki