Category Archives: Craft & Skills

I hope everyone had fun with our themes this month. “Two aliens walked into a bar…” has certainly turned out some interesting pieces. Same prompt, yet every single person wrote with different voice, pov, concepts, and the list goes on. The most wonderful thing about pov, in my opinion, is that every perspective is different. It’s those differences that keep the stories interesting.

I’ve been amazed this month, as I’ve come down to the final wire with publishing my first novel, at how much my personal perspectives on publishing have changed. Formatting isn’t so hard, but formatting to the acceptance of multiple retailers is a near-nightmare. Kobo and Ingram Spark were easier than expected, while Smashwords and B&N had some unexpected curves in the road. Amazon was easiest, as expected. Getting a venue for a launch party…no sweat. Getting the word out and getting everything ready, way more time-consuming than I thought. I could go on, but you get the idea. Perspectives change in life and so should the perspectives of our characters. In my newly released novel, Noble Ark, the main protagonist hates all aliens, is head over heels for the handsome man in her life, and thinks she knows the goals that matter most. As circumstances challenge her beliefs, her perspective changes, and she grows as a person. We’ve all experienced this in some way, and we continue to do so on a daily/monthly/yearly basis. We must make sure our characters resonate with that same experience–a changing perspective.

We’ve received some great tips in that regard from our Fictorians as they covered topics like: multiple pov, YA, scene-setting, controlling characters, secondary characters, voice, showing through pov, unfamiliar pov, extraordinary characters, fan etiquette, author-to-fan etiquette, and we’d like to welcome our newest Fictorians member, Kim May, and thank her for fabulous information about selling to small bookstores.

I’d like to also make a special shout out of thanks to our amazing guests this month. Such variety!

Randy McCharles runs some of the conventions we love: How do they choose their guests? Find out.

The librarian perspective was shared by Shelley Reddy.

How does a book review show up on NPR? Ann Cummins knows all about it.

Heidi Berthiaume and Victoria Morris joined forces to explain the essential role of the Book Babe.

Ever wondered about those elusive publishers and editors with the magazines?Joseph Thompson, publisher of Isotropic Fiction, talked to us about the editing, rejection, and acceptance process.

Author of the Ronan Trilogy, Travis Heermann, took us into the reasons to love all types and sources of literature.

The talented Suzanne Helmigh agreed to give us an inside look at the artist’s point of view, telling us,”An artist only needs three things.”

And hanker up a down-home accent, y’all, while you read Guy de Marco’s post about how to understand the crazy stuff we write (and when not to write it).

Now I will close by saying, all of the aliens, in all their varied states, have left the building. Time to shut down the glittering disco ball, turn off the lights, and go home for a good night’s sleep. Join us next month (tomorrow) as Gregory D. Little introduces the hidden gems of the publishing world.

Space bars and Literary heroin

April 29, 2014

Kim May

Business Craft & Skills Kim May 3 Comments

Two aliens walk into a bar and are completely baffled by the selection. There’s row after row of Terran libations, a fine selection of Neptunian beers, rums from Raxacoricofallapatorius, and an entire shelf devoted to Ionian moonshine. So many liquors, so little time.How could anyone choose from such a massive selection?

Walking into a bookstore is much the same. I’ve been an independant bookseller for sixteen years. Our customers are often so dazzled and intimidated by the literary labyrinth that they can’t remember what they came in for. Granted, that’s if they knew in the first place. (Seriously, if you want to piss off a bookseller, say “I can’t remember the title or the author but it has a blue cover and they talked about it on NPR two weeks ago.) Sometimes we’ll even get someone that hasn’t picked up a book in years. Even though there’s a lot of pressure to find the perfect series, because we’ve sampled, savored, devoured, and researched our wares we can satisfy any craving.

It’s in this capacity where we become an author’s best friend. Not because we’re selling vast quantities — we’re not — but the copies we do sell go to the people who will appreciate that work the most. Handselling may not seem like a sound business philosophy and if our goal was to only sell copies of that one perfect title, the naysayers would be right. However, we know that once they’ve read that one perfect title they’ll be back to buy the rest of the author’s works. It also establishes trust so when we recommend another author they’re a lot more likely to buy it.

So how does an author get the support of America’s indie booksellers? Well the first step is to write and publish the best stories you can. It doesn’t matter if it’s published traditionally or independently. If it’s not in print, a brick and mortar store can’t stock it. There are only a handful of stores dabbling in e-book sales (that I know of) so if you’re work is only available as an e-book you’ll be severely limited but don’t let that stop you.

A good pitch isn’t just for editors and agents. They work on booksellers too. So do free samples. Back in ’08 Devon Monk sent us a packet that contained a lovely letter explaining that she was a local author whose first novel was releasing soon. It also had a chap book with the first two or three chapters, a poster of the book cover, bookmarks, and hypercolor pens. You don’t have to go to the expense of ordering custom swag. The introduction letter and sample are enough to get our attention since most indie stores don’t get that kind of consideration from traditional publishers. That said, if you have cool swag, send it. It worked for Devon. The swag made us more eager to read the sample — which we loved. We’ve kept her work in stock ever since.

If you don’t want to produce a chap book and your publisher isn’t printing an ARC (advance reader copy, also known as a galley) you can print it like you would a submission, offer to e-mail it to the store, or if you’re tech savvy you can put it in a locked post on your website or blog and give the store the access code. You also don’t have to mail it. If the store is local, by all means give it to us in person. We like meeting authors. Especially when they’re polite and professional. (When you work with the public all day those two things go a long way.)

My final caveat is if the store has a staff member that specializes in your genre, make sure to get their attention. That person is your drug lord. Gain their favor and they will sell your literary heroin to every word addict in the city.

You may have noticed that I’ve emphasized giving a sample. While we love our job, we don’t get rich doing it. And since we’re also word addicts we have our favorite fixes to purchase and consume. That’s what you’re competing against and that’s why the sample is key. If we like your pitch, we’ll probably add you to the “I’ll read it someday” list. Hook us with your sample and suddenly you’re on the “I must buy this now!” list. Once you’re on that list and the rest will take care of itself.

If this method doesn’t work, don’t fret. Your work may not have been right for that store’s clientele but there are other stores where your work will be right at home. Keep trying. It’s a deductible expense and even if the store doesn’t add your titles to their next order they’ve at least heard your name and that counts for something.

How do Conventions Choose Their Guests?

April 24, 2014

fictorians

Author's Perspective Conventions Craft & Skills Guest Posts Marketing The Writing Life 3 Comments

A guest post by Randy McCharles.

Have you ever wondered why some of your favorite authors appear frequently as convention guests while others are so scarce you sometimes wonder if they are even real people? Well, there are two main factors. The first one is simple. Some authors enjoy and see business benefits of convention appearances and make themselves available. Other do not. You almost have to kidnap them to make an appearance. The second factor is much trickier. Every convention is fairly unique in its goals and finances. The cost of bringing in guests is usually the most expensive line item in the budget, but even more important, each convention has a unique vision of the experience it wishes to provide its attendees. While there is no official breakdown, I have defined six conference models that provide different mixes of content for ‘craft’ (craft development opportunities for writers) VS ‘commercial’ (content readers enjoy such as meeting their favorite authors, hearing them speak, and getting autographs). Most literary events with guests will fall near one of these categories.

Chart

I use “Literary Festival” to describe events that are generally open market bookstores. Readers drop in for a fee of $0 (or near $0) to buy books from vendors and get them signed by authors. Many of these events bring in a few big name authors as a means of promoting the event and drawing more readers. The costs are paid for by selling the tables to vendors. Usually, guests do not provide presentations, though this has been an increasing phenomena. Often such presentations have a separate fee.

The “Trade Show” is similar to the Literary Festival in that it is mostly vendor tables, but they have a larger emphasis on guest presentations and panel discussions. While historically such trade shows deal solely with visual media (film and comics), they are increasingly including authors and books. Unlike Literary Festivals, these generally cost as much as $100 to attend.

The “Fan Convention” is fairly unique in that, unlike most other models, it is not run as a business. Instead, volunteers run it from the top down, with no paid staff. Guests also volunteer, having their travel and accommodations paid for, but generally donating their time, much of which is spent in presentations and panel discussion. Attending these events usually costs around $50.

The “Reader/Writer Festival” is an offshoot of the Fan Convention, or perhaps a return to what many Fan Conventions were in the 70’s. While today’s Fan Conventions often focus on visual media, including film, costuming, and anime, the Reader/Writer festival focuses on books and provides content for readers as well as writers. Like Fan Conventions, these are usually volunteer run, guests donate their time on presentations and panels, and attending costs around $50.

The “Writers Conference” is focused on craft development and is of little interest to non-writers. Guests do receive a substantial honorarium, but are also required to be successful instructors as well as successful writers. They generally offer some books sales and autographs that are open to the public. Cost of attending is in the several hundred dollar range.

The “Writers Workshop” is a more participatory version of the Writers Conference, usually much smaller, and requires attendees to work like university students. The guest instructors, as well, must work like university instructors. Cost of attending is generally much higher than a Writers Conference, and many workshops vet their attendees.

You may have noticed a correlation between guest honorariums and cost of attending. As I mentioned earlier, the cost of bringing in guests is usually the most expensive cost for any convention. Those that offer higher honorariums must find the funds somewhere, usually by charging their attendees a higher ticket price. Conversely, those that offer their guests higher honorariums usually also demand more from their guests, which brings me back to guest availability.

The business of authors is not attending conventions. It is writing books. Taking time out of your writing schedule to attend a convention as a guest is time not spent writing. Some authors do not wish to lose this writing time. Some are willing to sell their time. However, not all convention models can afford to buy it. eg. If Fan Conventions began providing high honorariums like Writers Conferences, they would cost more to attend ($75 instead of $50) and have to make other changes. That price tag doesn’t work for their model and can lead to bankruptcy. Fan Conventions exist, however, because many authors opt to volunteer their time, either as pay-it-forward for help they received earlier in their careers, as part of their brand marketing, or as simply an opportunity to meet their readers. Often all three.

Some authors do make attending conventions part of their business. Especially if teaching craft becomes part of their brand. Many authors love to teach craft. Some even write books about it. You will find such authors as guests at Writers Workshops, Writers Conferences, and Reader/Writer festivals.

So picture yourself as an organizer for a convention. It doesn’t matter which model you choose. You have a guest budget. It may be $5,000 (a small Fan Convention) or $50,000 (A large Writer’s Conference). What kind of guests do you need? Best-selling authors to autograph books? Authors who are not shy and love to talk with their readers? Authors who can give great presentations on craft development? Authors who can help writers with their manuscripts? All of the above? How much can you afford to spend on guest travel? Can you bring someone from the UK or Australia to North America? Or must you limit yourself to $500 flights? Can you afford to bring in your guest’s spouse? (Double the airfare.) Sticking with a budget is tricky, especially when a wide range of factors can impact the cost of bringing in any particular guest.

Let’s say you’ve identified the perfect guests. Are they available? Do they receive 100 guest invitations a year and can only accept 2? Do they even do conventions? Is your convention on their radar?

I’ve been organizing conventions since 2001. I’ve worked on a local fan convention, a regional fan convention (Westercon), an international writers convention (World Fantasy), and currently chair the When Words Collide Readers/Writers festival. After 13 years it is still difficult to identify the perfect guest — someone who delivers on the convention’s vision, is affordable and, most important, is available. It usually takes nine months to secure five guests. Sound like fun? Well, it is, actually. And you do get to meet a lot of really interesting authors.

As a final note I’ll list a few reasons why authors I’ve invited in the past have turned down the invitation (all perfectly valid, especially if they travel a lot):

Air travel is a pain. I only travel to conventions that have a direct flight from my city.
Air travel is a pain. I only travel business class. (This was from the UK and severely broke the budget)
I won’t leave the country. (This was from the US invited to Canada).
I don’t do conventions that time of year; I spend it with my family.
I am already booked that weekend.

There have also been some success stories:

Someone who doesn’t fly came to Calgary by train. From Texas!
Someone who is very busy was finally available after being invited 4 years in a row.
Many authors who are very busy had the stars align and were able to accept their invitation within days of receiving it.

All that said, having inviting innumerable guests to conventions over the years, I have a long list of people I would love to see as guests at some point. I often travel to distant conventions to see them. There is a wealth of terrific authors out there. Reading their books is a pleasure. Meeting them in person, doubly so.

BTW Two aliens walk into a bar and spot their favorite author sitting at a table having a drink. One alien turns to the other and says, “I wonder if she traveled as far to get here as we did?”

Randy McCharles Bio:Randy McCharles is an award-winning author of speculative short fiction, and was included in Year’s Best Fantasy 9. In January 2014, he left his day job to write full time and focus his attention on novel length works. When not making up tall tales, Randy organizes literary events, including chairing the When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers. You can find out more about Randy on his web site: http://randymccharles.com

Take Me to Your Weeder

April 23, 2014

fictorians

Author's Perspective Craft & Skills Guest Posts Marketing Reading No Comments

A guest post by Shelley Reddy.

Two aliens walked into a library, and approached the front desk. “Hewwo, Wibrary Wand. Take us to your Weeder.”

I love that libraries are offering new ways for people to encounter stories and content. The library district where I work offers four online libraries, free music downloads, video streaming, language learning programs, virtual magazines, and over 300 free online classes –including courses on writing and publishing. Furthermore, the branches host workshops, e-publication seminars, author visits, as well as other programs. Those are a lot of opportunities for writers to improve their skills or connect with readers.

As a book lover and writer myself, I feel supremely lucky to be in such an environment. However, I’ve found that there are two great challenges to working in a public library.

I will never read all the stories that are out there –nor even all the great stories.
Libraries do not have enough room on the shelves or in the budgets for all the material which is being released into the world.

While the first is frustrating fact of life, the second creates a fundamental problem for libraries and their staff.

Like any reader, library staffs love stories, engaging characters, and the way writers spin worlds from varying combinations of a mere twenty six letters. We firmly believe that there is a book for every reader, and a reader for every book. The archivist in us treasures the ability to preserve the stories and match their authors with readers. However, when the books keep coming in and circulation slumps, the books sit, waiting like the residents of the Island of Misfit Toys.

Eight months ago, we had this problem in our large-print section. The books – built up over years of healthy budgets- were so numerous, and packed so tightly together, that it was nearly impossible to pull a title off the shelf. Many popular items were on the lowest shelves, forcing our most elderly patrons to bend or kneel to find them. The shelves themselves were located in the darkest portion of the building –which hadn’t been a problem when half-empty shelving allowed sunlight to filter through. We didn’t have a way to showcase the amazing titles and authors in our collection. For our readers, the wonderful adventures they wanted to experience were lost –buried amongst the blurred, shadowed mass of text and color.

Something had to change. In library land, we call the process of choosing what not to keep “weeding”, and it is a battle for the soul as much as for inches of clear territory. If you ever had holes seared into your jeans in an Arizona July while crouched on burning gravel engaging in tug-of-war with mutant dandelion roots that may well survive nuclear holocaust and overtake the planet… you understand. For the beginning library professional, weeding is an alien, uncomfortable process. The Archivist in our soul battles with the Grim Reaper’s devotion to the big picture.

“It won an award,” the Archivist begs. “It changed the way we view prosaic noun development.”

“No one’s read it in twelve years. There’s more dust on it than King Tut’s tomb. Let it go.”

“But it won the Nobel! The movie was adored by critics, and it’s only eleven months until the Oscars. It could be in a display…”

“The movie came out five years ago, the critics were the only ones to embrace it, and you have two copies that haven’t been touched. Let it go.”

And -unless we want to appear on a future spin-off of Hoarders- the Archivist usually must acquiesce. In time, we learn to merge those different personalities –Archivist, Entertainer, Promoter, Reaper, Teacher- into one vision and one voice. Even so, each time I go out to the shelves, I am girding myself for battle -with the collection, and with myself.

As hard as weeding can be, however, I’ve found it to be one of the most essential skills a librarian –and a writer- can possess. The ability to step back and take a look at the larger picture, analyze the weakest points, and either strengthen those struggling elements or –if necessary- remove them, is essential to presenting a stronger, more tailored and unified whole.

In writing, extraneous characters appear from the ether and run off with the plot just when the action is building. We are introduced to a mass of characters that all have similar, strange names, forcing us to stop in the middle of the climactic battle and ask “Wait… Is Oleo the alien prince, or Ollea? Or Olyvan?” We struggle to find the critical message of the piece amongst the bright, bubbling, endless –and ultimately circular- analysis of the main character’s daughter’s friend’s shoes.

We all have scenes and sentences we love. We birth them, shelter them, dote on them and sing their accomplishments to the world. Sometimes, however, as the story grows and changes, that scene or character or bit of dialogue that we love just doesn’t work the way we expect. It drags the pacing, weakens our characters, and provides irreconcilable plot challenges. We scold it, shift it, stare at it in consternation, and wonder why it just won’t play with the rest of the group.

Sometimes, as hard as it can be, we must accept those story elements for what they are and stop trying to force them into our vision of how we want them to sing in our magnum opus. Adopt the eyes of the alien –the outsider, the foreigner, the expert critic. Look at your creation and analyze what does and doesn’t work. Ask yourself why it isn’t working. Then change it.

In the library, we recently overhauled our struggling collection. We removed the underperforming, the damaged, and the extraneous. We reorganized the structure so readers didn’t have to stand on their heads to identify the gems. Amazing stories and characters created by wonderful authors now had space in which to shine. Our readers loved it. Yours will, too.

In the library, and in my own writing, the weeding process continues. There may be a mutant dandelion or two, but fortunately I work in a library. I’m sure there’s a cookbook around here with a recipe for dandelion stew…

Two aliens walked into a library… it sounds like the start of an interesting journey.

Shelley Reddy Bio:
Like many authors, Shelley Reddy has been a bibliophile and library lover since a young age. A paraprofessional with the Queen Creek library in Arizona, she currently is working on her next book.