Working the Convention Circuit

Conventions Marketing Publishing Quincy Allen Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life Writing Tools 4 Comments

This is one of those “you should” blogs that, if you know me, you know I generally hate. But I’m going to do it anyway because I’m willing to take the heat for being a hypocrite for a topic I believe is worth the sacrifice. So here goes, and it’s a bit of a daisy chain, so bear with me.

If you’re a new writer, with at least a handful of published short stories to your name or even a novel or two, then you should give serious consideration to working the convention circuit.

Back in July of 2009, I got laid off from an IT gig and decided to chase a writing career. The first thing I did was write some short stories and submit them. I also wrote a novel—the less-than-well-known Chemical Burn. Over the past four years, these efforts have borne fruit. However, if they were all I accomplished in that time, the odds are I wouldn’t be writing this blog right now for the simple reason that the folks at The Fictorians wouldn’t know who I am.

Let me explain.

In October of 2009, I attended MileHiCon, a local and well-established genre and writing convention with a strong author-track. As a result of my participation, a number of wheels were set in motion. MileHiCon is where I met Kronda Seibert and the “heart” of the local steampunk population. As a result of that meeting, I was able to write three episodes of a steampunk Internet radio show and laid the foundation for the Penny Dread Tales anthology series. I wouldn’t be writing steampunk if it weren’t for that convention.

At MileHiCon I also met Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency (which had benefits later) as well as David Boop who has introduced me to much of the Front Range writing community in one way or another. This also led to my involvement with the Broadway Book Mall.

At a convention in 2010 I met Peter J. Wacks, which opened the door to a contract for Steampelstiltskin with Fairy Punk Studios and laid the groundwork for a relationship with an international best-selling author (more on that later). I also started picking up a fan-base and found a home with the steampunk community. As a result of that, I established a recurring attendance invite with AnomalyCon and locked in “premiering” each new Penny Dread Tales (PDT) anthology at the convention. PDT has now become a staple at the con, with a growing list of “bigger-name” contributors as a result of its growing exposure. It was in this cycle of cons that I also met Guy De Marco for the first time, and that relationship opened up even more doors.

2011 was more of the same, and in 2012, I extended my reach a little and—thanks to Guy—hit OsFest in Omaha Nebraska. That’s where I met Travis Heermann. It was also in the 2012 con season that I met Angie Hodapp (also of the Nelson Literary Agency), and that opened doors to making a proposal to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Board of Directors  as well as teaching a seminar on writing action scenes (with Travis Heermann) at the Colorado Gold Conference this year.

2013 saw my reach deepen into the writing community. I’ve met writers, agents and publishers. I’ve got a growing list of contacts, fans, and even editors asking for my work. My relationship with Angie Hodapp and Sara Megibow over at the Nelson Agency opened the door for me to submit a query directly to Sara, and while she didn’t accept that manuscript, the door is open for me to submit directly to her when I finish my next manuscript.

On top of it all, at CoSine in Colorado Springs this year, I met for the first time Kevin J. Anderson. You may know that name. As a result, I now do book designs and eBook conversions for Word Fire Press, and as a result of that chain of events, I’ve been able to work on books by authors like Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson and, coming soon, Alan Drury. I even did a WordFire Press version of the eBook for Clockwork Angels. My work with Anderson also got me into Superstars, which led to me being invited to become a Fictorian.

The daisy chain goes on and on, so what’s the message here?

That if you’re planning a career in the writing biz, you should start meeting, greeting, and carousing with people in the writing biz. That’s how you make contacts. It’s how you open doors. That’s how you create opportunities for your writing projects.

Most people think the writing business is all about getting “picked up”… about writing  a manuscript in solitude, submitting a query, and finding out six months later that you’ve been offered a contract by an agent or even one of the “Big 5.” I won’t deny that this method works… but you’d have as much a chance trying to get struck by lightning in a thunderstorm.

The odds are against you, so how do you up the odds?

You hit the convention circuit, plain and simple.

 

Q

Kicking out a Kickstarter

Business Colette Black Interacting With Fans Marketing Publishing 2 Comments

NobleArk_Left ThumbnailKickstarter is crowd-funding, right? Not promotion. It’s more than both of those things. Let me explain.

So, you have a finished novel and you want it to see the light of day. You have some options: get an agent to love it and leave it in their hands, go directly to a publisher, or publish it yourself.  My book, Noble Ark, had gained interest from agents and then found a wonderful one. She was putting the book out to the different publishers, but I pulled the book before I’d given it enough time to sell, deciding to self-publish. I loved my agent, but she’d told me herself that she wasn’t a Young Adult agent and everything else I had written, and was writing, was YA. So I decided to seek traditional publishing for my YA material. My New Adult book, Noble Ark, I would self-publish.

This is where Kickstarter comes in. It’s crowd-funding to help make artistic projects happen while giving back to those who contribute. I particularly like this explanation from the About Kickstarter page, “Mozart, Beethoven, Whitman, Twain, and other artists funded works in similar ways — not just with help from large patrons, but by soliciting money from smaller patrons, often called subscribers. In return for their support, these subscribers might have received an early copy or special edition of the work. Kickstarter is an extension of this model, turbocharged by the web.”

Why take this route?

1) Funding: Who can afford the costs that publishing companies put out for a book? And trust me, you WANT to compete with these publishing companies. With Kickstarter, everyone comes together to supply that funding, while everyone gains something from the process. It’s a win-win.

2) Promotion: What better way to get friends, family, and fans involved with what you’re doing. They have a stake in it, because they’re making it happen. This is exciting stuff, people! And getting everyone involved is what we’re always doing as writers, and what we’re talking about for the month. This is the essence of promotion.

3) Connections: As I let people know about my project, I’m connecting with friends and fans that I’ve been too busy to stay in contact with. They have busy lives, I spend all my free time writing, and we understand how that happens, but those good intentions to talk or get together have continued to fall by the wayside. Kickstarter has given me an opportunity to reconnect. It’s also given me a topic of conversation to create new friendships. Who knew that the receptionist at my car repair shop is an artist? She asked about my weekend, I mentioned putting together a Kickstarter, and now we both have new fans. Her work is edgy and interesting and I wish I’d known about it sooner. (Find her on Instagram at: thee_empress23)

Since this is promotion month, let me make some suggestions on promoting a Kickstarter. Many of these come from Kickstarter guru, Heidi Berthiaume, who will be putting a book together–via Kickstarter, of course—on how to run and promote a Kickstarter. Her help has been invaluable. (Full Discolosure: some of these suggestions come from Kickstarter and many are my own opinion.)

  • When you get close to release, let your fans know that a Kickstarter is on the way. Take this opportunity to introduce them to the concept.
  • Don’t think you can put up a post on fb or twitter and be done. This project is professional, but also personal. Send personal notes, email or IM, to everyone who might be interested. Make sure they understand the basic points: they pay nothing unless the funding goal is reached, there are pledge amounts to fit any budget (make sure that’s true when creating pledge amounts), full funding is required in order for your project to go forward.
  • Don’t ask for help, ask for participation in your great project. Focus on rewards they earn in the process of bringing your art to life.
  • Ask for help. Contradictory, I know, but this means go to the professionals you’re friends with, who already have marketing venues: the people with blogs, podcasts, etc., and ask them for suggestions. They’re familiar with getting the word out and may be able to help you find other avenues for promotion.
  • Don’t overwhelm, but don’t neglect. You don’t want every word people hear out of your mouth, or read on fb, to be Kickstarter. Put up regular content, but don’t harp on the cause. At the same time, people need to be reminded. Add something to the Kickstarter and let people know it’s there. I’m considering lengthening my video, and/or adding some bloopers. Throw out the occasional progress report. Get a short video from your editor or artist, talking about why they’re excited about your project and post it. Remind people in interesting ways that aren’t annoying. Remember, you still want these people to be your friends, whether they participate or not.
  • As it gets close to the ending date, build momentum. This is when the posts might come a little closer together, as you encourage everyone to reach a little farther to get the goal, or to attain a stretch goal. This is where you might put in add-ons, individual rewards people can add to what they’re already getting, in order to build interest. The perfect example of this is Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Sojourner Tales Kickstarter. It finished with over 200% funding, but in the last couple of weeks they were putting in add-ons, offering video chats with the authors participating in upcoming stretch goals (like Kevin J. Anderson), and put up a you-tube game play sampler. And they made sure everyone knows they can still join in by going to their website.
  • Almost forgot this last important bit—timing. Don’t start a Kickstarter in the middle of a government shutdown. A lot of people who would have contributed, have told me they’re waiting for the shutdown to end so they have a paycheck to work with. December is also usually not a good time for a Kickstarter, as everyone is thinking about Christmas. So think about what is going on in people’s lives and time your Kickstarter better than I did.

I hope this helps some of you understand Kickstarter a little better and be prepared to make a success of it. Another suggestion the Kickstarter team makes on their website is to participate in funding a Kickstarter before you start one. I volunteer mine, because I’m nice that way.

  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/203246974/noble-ark-how-it-should-end.

If you want to know more about my Kickstarter process, you can go to my blog, Black Space, where that will be my focus for the month.

Five Hundred of One, Half a Thousand of the Other

The Writing Life No Comments

I’m one of the newest members here at Fictorians, so it seemed fitting that after David’s “Back to Basics” 500th post, I should be the one to kick off our next 500.  But how does one do a second “first” post for a blog like this?  As it happens, our very first post ever covers the exact topic that I think makes this blog special. On March 30th, 2011, Nancy DiMauro published the inaugural Fictorians post entitled “The Benefits of Holding Hands.” It’s not a long post, just 376 words, but I think it perfectly encapsulates the core of what we’re about here at Fictorians. Go check it out for yourself. Nancy knocked it out of the park on the first try. Fictorians was founded on the premise of writers helping other writers. We have to; it’s how we were taught. We support one another, challenge one another, inspire one another. And that’s how it should be. To every writer out there: we’re all in this together and we’ll continue to grow the most as writers together.

It’s a neat group of people that make up the Fictorians.  We met one another at various installments of Superstars Writing Seminar. But as David touched on yesterday, in lots of ways we couldn’t be more different. In fact, if there’s one thing that surprised me when I attended Superstars, it’s that there’s no one “type” when it comes to a writer. We have different backgrounds, different beliefs, different interests. We come from different countries, we have different skills and we bring different things to the table. But there’s one thing that binds us together not just as writers but as Fictorians: we are bound and determined to succeed in writing and we are both eager and excited to share the things we learn, either on our own or from one another, with anyone who will listen. We plan to grow our ranks further in the coming months and bring even more content to our readers.  It means a lot to us to be able to share what we’ve learned, and we hope it helps other writers overcome the hurdles we all face from time to time.

I’d like to close this post by extending our thanks. Each month we are assisted by a group of very talented guest bloggers, from fellow aspiring writers all the way up to big names in the writing world. These guest posts provide us with a valuable injection of fresh ideas and perspectives as well as new areas of expertise. They make sure we don’t become too insular or set in our ways (and the fact that they shoulder some of the load of generating content is nice too). The bottom line is they are a tremendous boon to the site and we are very thankful for their time and their enthusiasm. Take a bow, guest bloggers! And finally, like the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest, this blog could not exist without its readers, the people who check in with us day after day and hopefully take something valuable away when they go. A great big thank you goes out to everyone who reads this blog! You are ultimately what makes this all possible, and if you keep reading, we’ll keep writing! Here’s to another 500 posts and beyond! Come, hear us roar!

Post 500: Back to Basics

Craft & Skills Motivation The Writing Life The Writing Process 4 Comments

This is the 500th blog post on Fictorians.  That’s a pretty amazing statistic, in some ways.  I mean, the fact that a sizable group of disparate and diverse people scattered around the globe has hung together for years and remained focused on and dedicated to blogging about the craft and art and business of writing for this long says good things about the vision, commitment, and perseverance of the Fictorians.  Kudos to my fellow Fictorians.

So, since I volunteered for this slot, I guess I’d best be about it.  As it is a special post, I’m stepping outside the October theme.

What is the one indispensable trait of a writer?  What one characteristic does every good writer possess?

He or she writes.

That is, after all, the first of Heinlein’s Rules for Writing:

Rule One: You Must Write.

I can hear the “Duh!” comments as you read that last statement.  Yes, it’s kind of self-obvious that you can’t be a writer if you don’t write.  And there have been multiple discussions that touched on that thought in the Fictorians pages over the last few years.  But tonight I want to take that thought in a slightly different direction.

You may or may not have heard of a book entitled Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.  You have probably heard of the premise of the book, though:  it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.

Now I know that there are those who question that statement.  For myself, the more I think about it, and the more I encounter other masters of various crafts and arts, the more I think it’s generally valid.  But for the purposes of this post, let’s assume it’s a valid statement.

Ten thousand hours to mastery.  10,000 hours.

Have you ever applied that thought to writing—that it might take 10,000 hours of practice to attain mastery over your craft?

Just how long is 10,000 hours?  Well, let’s try to quantify it.  If you write one hour a day, 10,000 hours would be reached in 27.397 years.  Not months—years.  (I was so surprised at that answer I did the calculation three times on two different calculators just to verify it.  Believe it.)

Staggering, isn’t it?

And who wants to spend twenty-seven years learning how to do something?  (Not me.)

So how do you shorten the time frame?  Obviously, write more every day.  So if you write two hours a day, you drop the required time down to not quite fourteen years.  And if you write four hours a day, you’re now down inside seven years.  And seven years, my friends, is a manageable number, an attainable goal.

“But that’s so long!” I hear someone mutter.

Is it?  To attain your goal of being a professional writer, to reach out and grasp your life’s dream, is it really too long?

Ask Joshua Bell how many hours of practice he had before he became a famous violinist.  Ask Emmanuel Ax how many hours of practice he put in before he became a world-famous pianist.  Ask Paul McCartney how many hours of performing, how many concerts the Beatles played in their early years in Hamburg’s oblivion before they became an overnight success.

I can’t find a cite for this story, so it may be apocryphal, but knowing what I know about musicians, I believe that something like it happened.  As I heard it, after a very well-known pianist gave a concert one evening, a girl walked up to him and said, “That was wonderful.  The music was beautiful.  I wish I could play like you do.”  To which the pianist, after looking at her for a moment, replied with, “No, what you wish is that you could play like I do, without having to practice like I do.”

There is no substitute for practice.  There is no substitute for learning the craft, for drilling it into your head and your hands until it evolves into mastery.

Rule One: You Must Write.

Everything else comes after that.