Tag Archives: Ideas

James A. Owen: Artwork and a Winner!

Guest Posts Joshua Essoe No Comments

In conclusion to our book give-away, we have procured a very large, metaphorical hat. It is black and felty and often has rabbits in it. And those are Raisinetes. Everybody loves Raisinetes. No rabbits today, however. Today we find only a name:

Michelle Beal

Congratulations, Michelle! You’re the winner of one of the LAST of the limited-edition hardcover copies of “Drawing out the Dragons,” personally signed by James A. Owen.
Michelle, please send your mailing address to colette@fictorians.com.

We promised some big James Owen news today, but publishing and deadlines being what they are, we can’t say anything yet. However, when a big deadline is looming, it is a fantastic time to post art.

A portrait of an author contemplating a looming deadline.
A portrait of an author contemplating the next deadline.

 

Concluding point: he just made a deadline. News to come!

 

James A. Owen is the author of the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series, the creator of the critically acclaimed Starchild graphic novel series, and the author of the Mythworld series of novels. He is also founder and executive director of Coppervale International, a comic book company that also publishes magazines and develops and produces television and film projects. He lives in Arizona. Visit him at HereThereBeDragons.net

Book Trailers

Frank Morin Publishing The Writing Life 4 Comments

I recently attended the LTUE (Life, The Universe, and Everything) conference in Orem, Utah at the UVU campus.  I sat in on the book trailers class more out of curiosity than any real expectation to learn anything useful.  After all, I had never heard of book trailers.

This turned out to be an extremely insightful session.

Book trailers are a growing phenomenon.  Just like movie trailers, some authors and publishers are now developing book trailers.  This was news to me.  I had never considered making a trailer for a book.  But as was stated in the panel, today’s world is a video-centric world so a book trailer could draw a very wide audience.

What a brilliant idea.

Who doesn’t love a good movie trailer?  When done right, they can drive moviegoers into a frenzy to see the movie.  Book trailers can do the same thing.

Then again, a bad book trailer can be the stake through the heart of your book.

My first thought was, “Book trailers?  That’s great for publishers with a marketing department and deep pockets to pay for expensive graphics design or live actors.”

But, book trailers can be more affordable than you may think.  The panel at LTUE gave us some useful tips.

First, for the do-it-yourselfers, there are some great sites to download photos, music, and even video clips royalty-free for very reasonable prices, like iStockPhoto.  With a little work, you may be able to piece together an excellent trailer with very little cost.  Please remember, no matter where you find your material, make sure you have permission to use it.  One author mentioned that they produced a book trailer independently.  When they signed with a publisher, they were forced to take the trailer down because they could not guarantee that all of the images they used were royalty free or used with permission.

A couple of points were stressed repeatedly:

  1. Find the right music.  Great music can make your trailer.  Bad music will kill it.  Again, there are lots of resources online for royalty-free music.  Or, if you know a musician, they might just let you use their music for free as a way to increase their own presence on the web.
  2. Don’t underestimate the importance of asking.  If you want a piece of music, or a photo, or even live actors, ask them.  Many people will give permission for their work to be used, or will offer to help free of charge because they see your trailer as a way to highlight their talents.

Another idea is to check with local colleges, or with any college students you might know, particularly those involved in film production or any related field, including acting or modeling.  You may be able to get high-quality assistance from students looking for a good project.  Again, they want their names out on the net, and this provides a way.

One example of a good book trailer is the one for Dan Wells’ new book, Partials.  You can view the trailer here.  It had only been out a month when I watched it, and the YouTube link had already received almost 3000 hits, plus all the hits on the official web page.

I also found this one for Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters,  that was very well done.

Other links of interest:

On Darcy Pattison’s web page, she lists a Book Trailer Manual for sale as well as many links to other resources on book trailers.

Book-Trailers.net shows some existing book trailers

BlazingTrailers also has existing trailers to watch.

From the little research I’ve done to date into book trailers, I don’t find a ton of trailers yet.  I find that encouraging because a good trailer might just get a lot of attention.  The sobering flip-side is that of those trailers I’ve watched so far, many of them weren’t very good.

So if you’re going to do a trailer, make a good one or don’t bother releasing it.  You don’t want to hurt your sales.  If you can develop a really good trailer, it might play a major role in your marketing plan, especially if you e-publish your own novels.

This is an idea too powerful to ignore.  I know I’m going to look into it this year.

Does anyone know of any good trailers to recommend?  Do you know any authors who have successfully developed trailers?  Are you planning to release your own trailers with your books?

Take Note of Inspiration

Character Clancy Metzger Craft & Skills Writing Tools 5 Comments

Have you ever been out and about and something, could be anything, makes you think -ooh, that’s a cool story idea?  Did you write it down, note it in your phone, leave yourself a voicemail about it… anything… so you don’t forget?

You should.

I was in my local used book store and the clerk looked perfect for a romance hero.  I told him and he let me take a picture that I can now use that for inspiration.  I love that.  Sometimes, my boyfriend actually tells me things I think are perfect for a romance hero to say.  Yes – I write them down and save them.  They’re gems.  It could be a piece of dialogue you overhear, a character (literally and figuratively), an outfit, a setting, a feeling, a mood, a reaction, a hairstyle, a building, a show, or any of a million other things.

I hear a lot that ideas are cheap and this is true.  I wrote about it in my post Ideas are Cheap and Everywhere.  Now, I’m telling you… write them down!

We’re writers… it shouldn’t be difficult  🙂    

Take note because you never know when that idea will inspire something great.  Someone told me they only wrote them down if the idea wouldn’t go away.  I can see that.  If it’s persistent, then maybe it’s really good.

BUT, what if that tiny little nugget of an idea – like the enormous icicle hanging on the tree outside my window falling on someone’s head and creating a seemingly weaponless crime once it melts – is interesting to me today but when I look at it in a year, it inspires my next book?  You just don’t know.

I think if you have a fleeting idea, picture, scene, character – whatever – jot it down and every so often pull those notes out and look at them.  You just never know when a random little seed idea will spawn a complete freakin’ tree.

You have nothing lose, Fictorians, and everything to gain.  Write it down and see what happens.  Anyone already had this happen?  I’d love to hear.

Ideas are Cheap”¦ and Everywhere

Clancy Metzger The Writing Life 3 Comments

“Ideas are cheap.” I heard this once from a panel of successful authors at a seminar, and I thought to myself  –  ‘No, that can’t be right. If I have a genius idea, it’s priceless.’ Right? Wrong.

     Then said panel proved it. Take any idea and give it to someone and their spin on it will be completely different than the next person’s and the next’s. So, any idea has an unlimited number of incarnations. Cheap. All our experiences create our perspective and that all plays a role in how we would tackle a topic. Cool. Cheap.

Whenever me and my CP are talking about something that happened to me, or I did, or I lived in the past, she says, ‘that’d make a great story.’ And, I think, DUH, why didn’t I think of that. Everywhere.

Really absorb these concepts, fellow Fictorians – anything, everything is an idea for a story and no two people will tell that story the same. Cheap and Everywhere.

How many of us have watched the TV show, Angel? Me? I own it, love it, discuss it… you get the idea. Yet I never had this moment of brilliance. What if you took the characters of Angel and Wesley and made them gay lovers with a BDSM slant to their relationship? No one have that idea? Wrong. At least one person did. When I found out the book I was reading was inspired by that very idea – I thought that’s freakin’ genius. The names are different and there’s a lot changed… because it’s through this author’s filter. But, knowing the characters that were the source inspiration, there were moments reading the book where I could picture them. I recognized some character traits. The author had an idea and explored it.

The point is that ideas are everywhere if you ‘get it.’  Tap into your inspiration and run with it. Ideas are cheap… and everywhere.

I challenge you – use the following idea, process it through the filter of your experiences, and where do you take that story? Share if you want.

IDEA: You just had several huge flower boxes built in your yard, and they’re big enough to hold a body or two…