E- to Print

I came across this interesting bit of promo on an endcap when I was out shopping at the brick-and-mortar B&N:



I wondered why the flyer was made of cardstock-weight paper, and then saw the preforation line. The end of the flyer can be torn off to use as a bookmark (with helpful bullet reminders of the release dates for each installment.) To tempt buyers who have already read the e-book versions, which I assume were the self-published works that made the author a sensation, there's also the promise of "all-new bonus stories" in each volume.

This is one of those odd marketing experiments in Publishing that I like to observe. I think in certain ways the publisher and the author are thinking outside the box, and it should be interesting to see what happens on the shelf. This could even turn out to be a unique alternative to the traditional submissions process: self-pub first, start earning income, and once you've racked up enough numbers to prove you're marketable use them to negotiate a print contract.

Also, for those of you with a BAM in your area, this week calendars and planners are 50% off; and I think they'll be even cheaper after the new year. I went ahead and got my 2012 fix:

Buying Buzz

While I was getting my monthly magazine fix last night, I noticed on the back cover of one of the latest indy trade issues a single-page ad for an online book marketing service that promises authors will "get more bzzz" with "fewer hassles."

Once I got over my dismay that the ad copywriter couldn't spell the word buzz, I considered the idea of subcontracting self-promotion. It's a relatively new approach to marketing, designed to fill the obvious need for authors who want to promote their books but don't know where to begin, how to put together a plan or which direction to go with it.

I then visited the web site, which is very slick, and tried not to be blinded by all the flashy bits while I hunted down the services price list. There were two moderately low figures mentioned, both prefaced by the words "starting at" (which is a nice synonym for "what the cheapest/lousiest package will cost you.") Two vague paragraphs accompanied the figures, worded so as to insinuate as much as possible while not actually promising anything more than the unspecified attention of a publicist, press kits and releases, and a couple of ads in the trades.

Also, while on the pricing page I noticed that they promise they've helped thousands of writers fulfill their dreams, so I went to see who these fortunate souls were. There were only eleven authors featured in their online portfolio. Worse, I didn't recognize a single name among the eleven, or any of the eleven titles that this site has professionally bzzzed, which as testimonials makes them useless. Then I noticed in the wording of their portfolio banner that they did change the number of dream-fulfilled writers they've helped from thousands to many.

Here's my view: if you're in the author marketing business, your own marketing should definitely showcase the kind of work you're going to do for the author. If it's honest, meticulous, detailed and interesting, you've got my attention. If it's vague, flashy, squicky and non-specific, I'm going to think bottom-feeder and walk away.

The other problem I have with this approach is how effective it is. While I know an author can buy services that promise to provide buzz for your books, I don't think the kind of buzz that sells books is something that can be bought, sold, or artificially generated. We're bombarded every day on the internet by SPAM, press releases, flashy ads and buzz campaigns. I don't know about you guys, but these days I delete the SPAM and press releases unread, I dodge the ads and I actively avoid marketing campaigns. They've all become tiresome and annoying. The only marketing I'm even remotely interested in is something that's free, fun, or highly creative.

If you are considering buying marketing assistance services for your next book, do your homework first. You should shop around and compare pricing first, and see which services offer the most value for your buck. Also, get a list of exactly what services will be provided for your book, and if possible, real stats on how effective said services were for other clients.

One last tip: If you're repeatedly invited to call the author marketing service on the phone, it's usually an indication that you're going to be given a hard-sell pitch by a sales person who has been trained to separate you from as much of your advance money as is possible. Also, everything someone tells you during a phone conversation is not in writing, and until you actually see it in writing, they can't be held accountable for it.

VW #4 -- E-Future Part II

The winners of the VW#2 giveaways are:

BookWish: Big T, whose comment began with Thank you, Lynn. I try to use the train of thought, "Enjoy the journey, not just the destination" but faith is hard to keep.

Goodie Bag: Tamlyn Leigh

Winners, when you have a chance, please send your full name and ship-to address to LynnViehl@aol.com, and I'll get your prizes out to you. Thanks to everyone for joining in.



I. Writers of the E-Future

I often complain here about how tough it is for me to keep up with the current technology. I don't like having to get used to a new operating system every time I blow up a computer (every other year), and I am officially sick to death of having to teach myself Word all over again to cope with the latest version Bill Gates decides to dump in my lap (and hey, Bill, version 2007? It sucks.) Don't even talk to me about the slang for all this stuff; I'm still trying to figure out what the hell RSS is and why someone always wants me to feed it to them.

I'm not apologizing for this, either. I am cranky and I am maxed out on how much technobabble I can absorb at the speed of light. Enough already! Stop changing stuff before I can finish learning how to do the old version.

My frustration is really more with myself than the latest tools of our trade, however. I am an older person, and I didn't grow up immersed in technology. When I was a kid, our video games were pinball machines; if we wanted to see a movie we didn't rent or download it or buy it on DVD, we went to the theater. We didn't do math on calculators, we did it in our brains. Computers were enormous things that took up entire rooms, and belonged to fun people like the CIA and NASA and the IRS. You know what was the big technological breakthrough of my childhood? 8-track tapes (and I promise, I will smack the first one of you who asks what the heck that is.)

The bottom line is I was not born to the computer age -- I didn't actually see a personal computer until I was 26 -- and I don't think I'll ever catch up with those of you who were. That = frustration.

Despite my inadequacies as a technojunkie, I am in awe of this era -- I love living in it and seeing it unfold. I am enchanted with all the amazing things computers can do, and the way the internet has opened up the world and brought it together and interconnected us. Thirty years ago I could never have done what I'm doing right now, talking shop to people all over the world. Just think about it for a second. How many countries are represented here today? How many languages do we speak among us? Without the technology of this era, most of us would probably never have connected in any way -- even those of us who live here in the U.S.

When I was a kid, writers couldn't meet unless they did it in real life, or corresponded by letter. Whatever books I read were those I found at the library, or at the book store. There was no global community of writers. Most of us lived and worked and dreamed apart from each other, sometimes getting together with a few others in the immediate area but otherwise never crossing each others' path.

Right here, at this blog, gathered together at this post, we are the writers of the present. If you think of what the internet has done for our industry and for us just over the last ten years -- e-mail, web sites, blogs, list-servs, forums, communities, workshops, Jesus, even Twitter -- it makes your head spin. We are the first generation of the electronic age writers. Where is that going to take us, and what is it going to demand of us? How are we going to have to change to keep up? How can we play a part in shaping and influencing the E-Future?

I can tell you how we're not going to be a part of it -- by clinging to the past. If we are going to make a place for ourselves in the industry as it evolves, we have to start thinking ahead.

II. The E-book as Income Generator

I think the first instance I remember of the e-book being used as an income generator was when author Stephen King decided to play with the e-book in serial form back in 2000 by releasing The Plant exclusively online. While it didn't quite go the way he wanted it to (I think putting it on the honor system of payment might have been the problem there) it was an interesting experiment.

Today there is a growing trend of writers -- many of them pros -- who are now self-publishing their works in e-book form. In fact, self-publication has never been easier. Kindle's Digital Text Platform allows writers to self-publish for profit, as does Scribd.com with their new online store* and a growing number of other entities involved in acting as distributors for self-published e-books. Unlike King's experiment, there are also fixed price tags attached. * Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I have removed this document, and no longer use or recommend using their service. See my post about this scam here.

Whether it's self-published or published by an e-publisher, the e-book usually does generate a modest but steady income for many new and established writers. The traveling booksigner/Kindle self-pubber J.A. Konrath, has reported on what he's earned, as have e- and print-published authors like Sasha White. While it can't compete with my print sales, my one and only e-book for sale, a joint venture I did last year with my print publisher, also did nicely in the first quarter.

There are plenty of online readers and readers with electronic devices out there, and they're looking for content. Self-published e-books usually have a very reasonable price tag on them, and unlike print books they're readily available and instantly accessible. As more readers come into the E-Future with their gadgets and gizmos, reading preferences are going to change accordingly. Popular authors can use the self-pub e-book platforms to bypass the snail-pace of traditional publishing to round out their income, and new names can build their reps without ever having to endure the industry's laborious and often harrowing submission and acceptance process. What's not to like about the e-book as an income generator?

At the moment I'm sort of on the fence about selling e-books myself. Although the economy has taken its toll, I still make a decent living selling print novels, so right now I don't have the financial pressure to find additional income. E-books are more valuable to me as experimental playgrounds, where I can try out new ideas and see what the readers think, and marketing devices with which I can promote my work in print while not yelling Buy My Freaking Book in everyone's face. I don't see anything wrong with writing and self-publishing e-books for profit, as long as the writer produces a quality product and doesn't set their expectations too high. This new market is exciting, but it's still in its infancy.

III. The E-book as Marketing

After more than ten years of watching the industry, the internet and the development of e-book technology, market share, etc., I still see the e-book as the ultimate in cost-effective marketing. It has several big advantages over every other type of advertising and promotion out there, primarily in that e-books cost little to nothing to produce, and cost absolutely nothing to distribute globally. The e-book also provides the one thing readers always like: free content.

As the number of books people read seems to decrease every year, competition for book sales increases. Publishers throughout the industry are transferring more and more of the marketing responsibility for books squarely onto the authors' shoulders. So anything that can help us promote effectively while not emptying the checking account can be a huge benefit and an enormous relief. It can also give us a competitive edge over writers who are mired in the past and refuse to acknowledge that the E-Future has arrived.

Anyone who looks back over my career can see that a good chunk of my readership discovered me through the e-books I've distributed for free online. I'm not an overnight success, or a fortnight success, or even thousand and one nights success. I'm like every writer who ever got the business and didn't explode with the first novel, or the tenth, or the twentieth (which is pretty much every career writer.) To date, my first and only novel to rank in the coveted top twenty on the NY Times paperback bestseller list happened to be my 40th published novel.

I knew early on that I needed to build a readership, but I soon discovered that I had no talent or tolerance for the traditional ways of doing that. I'm not a pretty person or a gifted speaker. I'm not comfortable talking about my books. I have a terrible voice for reading out loud -- nails-across-a-chalkboard terrible. I did the con circuit for three years and utterly flopped; I never learned how to swim with the sharks or hang with the girlfriends or depend on the kindness of strangers.

What I can do -- maybe the only thing in life that I will ever do well -- is write. I write fast, and I write a lot. I write in a bunch of different genres, and I love doing it. Granted, it's not as cool as being a former beauty pageant contestant, or a 5'10 blond with great legs, or a scholar with a bunch of letters after my name, but readers seem to like it just fine. After failing so miserably at all things self-promo, it was the only thing left that I really wanted to do. I think when it comes to marketing, you should do only those things you feel comfortable doing. For me, writing was never a problem.

Several authors have tried the dandelion fluff approach of simultaneously releasing a free e-book version of their print novels, but while it's daring, I don't see that ever gaining widespread support among publishers (which will be explained two paragraphs down.) Also, it may work very well for an author who already has the most popular web site in the world (and likely makes a very nice living solely from the advertising dollars that weblog earns) but the average writer doesn't have that financial advantage -- they need the income from their work in print.

Offering free teasers and excerpts isn't enough; readers want more than a couple of chapters. What most readers tell me is that they really want something totally for free, and they don't want to jump through hoops to get it. A complete freebie minus the strings: no newsletter to sign up for, no embedded advertising, no limited-time access, no geographical restrictions. They want to be able to read it, back it up, print it out, and pass it around to their friends -- and they don't want to pay for it.

Publishers can't do this, or rather, they won't. The minute you say, "I want to give away this book for free to everyone on the planet with no strings attached" they shut you down or tune you out. I know, I've had that conversation. As it was explained to me by the head of one marketing division, if you want a publisher involved in distributing something to readers, they have to make money on it -- especially if it's available outside the U.S. I've argued until I'm blue in the face, but I've been stonewalled and ignored and told (repeatedly) that it's just the way it is with publishers.

That puts it back on us, the writers. It's not really fair when you compare what a single writer can do on their own to what can be done with the millions major publishing houses spend on marketing (but when was this gig ever fair?) I know how long it takes to write a story, or a novella, or a novel. When you give away your work, you are kissing goodbye the income you might have earned by selling it instead. The first thing we're told as professional writers is that we're paid to write. And that is correct, in the short-term scheme of things -- but not in the long-term.

IV. How the Free E-book Works as Marketing

Every time I post a free story or novella or book for anyone to have, I market directly to those readers with the absolute best advertising for my work that I've got: my work. No, I don't make any money on it. Where I make my money is from the readers who liked that freebie so much that they start purchasing the other stories that I'm not giving away for free. That's where I make my money and build my readership. And since I can't or won't do any of the other types of marketing available for authors, it's really the only place where I do spend money, not by spending it but by trading it for potential sales. I'm investing in myself when I give away original stories; I'm saying that I think my work is that good, that it will generate sales for me.

Look at it another way: how much would you pay to take out a five, ten or even twenty-page ad that shows your work at its best in a popular industry magazine read by many devoted fans of your genre? It's a ridiculous question, I know; no one but the biggest Name authors could afford something like that. Let's try another angle: how much would you pay to advertise directly to seven thousand readers who were interested in your work or your genre (this is assuming you could get their names and valid e-mail addresses for them)? How about mailing a free book to over two thousand of them, assuming again you could get their names and home addresses? I did both and it cost me a dollar.

How: to date, my free 102 page e-book novella Incarnatio has been viewed 7,615 times and downloaded 2,142 times. I wrote it, uploaded it to Scribd*, which hosts it for free, put up a link on my weblog, and that was it. The e-book sits there and attracts readers all on its own. What was the $1 for? I bought a royalty-free photo from Dreasmtime and photoshopped it to make the cover art. For one dollar. * Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I have removed this document, and no longer use or recommend using their service. Incarnatio may be read online or downloaded for free from Google Docs here. See my post about this scam here.

Now show me a traditional form of self-promotion that reaches as many readers without SPAMming them for the same cost, and gives them as much content. I'll save you the trouble: you can't.

It is a risk to use free e-books as marketing tools, and I don't think it will work for everyone. It takes away from the time you could use to write stories to sell, and for writers who need more time to produce quality work, that's a big minus. You can forget about getting any significant support from your publisher; there is no money in it for them. And you can't just throw anything out there. It has to be the real deal; the best you've got to offer the reader. If you're not writing at a professional level, it can even work against you.

My advice is to start with something simple. Write a short story; the best damn story you can produce. Add your backlist, your web site URL and a little bio to the back of it. Post it on your blog, or on your web site, or at a free hosting site like Scribd. Invite readers to send you feedback. See how many hits you get on it, and what the general reaction is. You'll never know how it will work for you until you give it a try.

V. On the Electronic Horizon

Sometimes, especially during snitfests like the most recent e-publishing smackdown, I get depressed. I'm no psychic, but there are times when I can catch glimpses of the future of Publishing in what the next generation of writers are doing. I don't see it as Bradbury did in Fahrenheit 451, a future where books are burned, or Phillip K. Dick did in The Minority Report, where everyone is digitized and retina-scanned. I see storytellers working their craft in innumerable formats: print, electronic, graphic, audio, and even some formats we haven't thought of yet. I see the signs, and dream about the E-Future.

The only time I feel blue is when I watch my colleagues working so desperately to hold it off or discredit any advances toward it. Why does the industry always have to be either/or? Why can't we embrace the future while bringing into it the best of the past? I don't want to give up my print books. Like many of you, for me nothing replaces a book I can hold in my hands. Does that mean there should be no other kind of book, ever? Not at all. Everyone is not me.

Why does such an old-fashioned writer and book collector like me feels so strongly about technology, advancements in Publishing and doing what we can now to help usher in the E-Future? As if in a hundred years, any of this matter. I won't be around to know what will matter, but maybe someone who reads the electronic book version of this post in 2109 will be kind enough to answer that question (alas, the print version will no longer exist.)

I feel that a universe of wonderful things are just around the corner for writers and books. Imagine going shopping and stopping by vending machine where you can select the novel of your choice to be printed and bound, and that book pops out in a few minutes (the machine already exists.) Or turning on a video panel that plays a novel in images and sound, creating virtual, customizable characters from the story's datastream to act out all the parts (maybe the folks who designed The Sims could get in on that.) We might have books someday that we can read in our minds via a neuroprosthesis while we sleep or bathe or fold laundry (my money is on the Australians and their development of the bionic eye for the blind.) Having one book made of real paper that we can program to show us any story we want to read (LiveScribe can download whatever we write on their smart paper into a computer, so why not the reverse?)

In the future, anything is possible. Writers who want to be part of that future can't cling to what Publishing was. We can bring our traditions with us, but we also should be open to making new ones.

Maybe, if we all work together and do it right, in a hundred years someone will still be reading something we wrote today.

VI. Related Links:

For those considering self-publishing, check out Henry Baum's article Why Do People Hate Self-Publishing So Much? and Slushpile.net's post Why People Hate Self-Published Authors.

Two DIYers tell you how to get it done for free: How To Create Your Own E-book For Free by Colin Galbraith and Create Your Own E-Book for Free by Nicholos Gene Poma.

Everyone's dream e-book: Oprah's free download of Suze Orman's Women and Money goes instantly e-platinum.

If you're interested in reader views on book promotions, check out Barbara Vey's advice in her article Author . . . Promote Thyself as well as some of the interesting comments.

Publishers Weekly cites some interesting stats in a report here on the number of on-demand and short run titles published in 2008.

Today's LB&LI giveaways are:

1) A signed set of all eight of my StarDoc novels published to date, plus the ninth, Crystal Healer, my August '09 release.

2) a goodie bag which will include unsigned new copies of:

Just After Sunset by Stephen King (hardcover)

Master of Shadows by Lynn Viehl (author-printed, signed and bound in a three-ring binder)

Halo ~ The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell (trade pb)
Wicked Ways by Donna Hill (trade pb)
The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square by Rosina Lippi (trade pb)
Wicked Hot by Charlene Teglia (trade pb)
The Missing by Shiloh Walker (trade pb)
My Prerogative by Sasha White (trade pb)

Taken by Sin by Jaci Burton
Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti
Hawkspar by Holly Lisle (paperback)
The Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls by Marjorie M. Liu
Nightlife, Moonshine, Madhouse and Deathwish by Rob Thurman

plus signed paperback copies of my novels Evermore and Twilight Fall, as well as some other surprises.

If you'd like to win one of these two giveaways, name something that you think will happen in the future of Publishing, or comment on this workshop before midnight EST on Friday, July 17, 2009. I will draw two names from everyone who participates and send one winner the set of signed StarDoc novels and the other the goodie bag.

Everyone who participates in the giveaways this week will also be automatically entered in my grand prize drawing on July 21st, 2009 for the winner's choice of either a ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-P 10.1" Seashell Netbook or a Sony PRS-700BC Digital Reader.

As always, all LB&LI giveaways are open to anyone on the planet, even if you've won something here at PBW in the past (and if anyone wants a peek at this year's LB&LI goodie room at Casa PBW, and see what's going in those goodie bags, stop by the photoblog today.)

Other LB&LI Workshop Links -- new links are being added every day, so keep checking the list for new workshops (due to different time zones, some of these will go live later in the day):

E-publishing: From Query to Final Edits and Beyond -- Authors Madison Blake, Paris Brandon, Cerise Deland, Fran Lee, Afton Locke and Nina Pierce provide helpful insights and tips on e-publishing. Today's author: Afton Locke

Writing Transformative Sex - Part One by Joely Sue Burkhart -- Any writer who has studied much of the craft at all knows that if a scene doesn’t move the story forward, it should be cut. But have you really thought about what that means for a sex scene?

Birds and Language by Suelder -- second in a series of workshops on birds that will focus on the science as well as how to adapt this information to writing.

Why You're Not Writing by JM Fiction Scribe -- Examining the reasons behind your writing block - because the identifying the 'why' of the problem is the best way of getting past it.

How-To Books that Saved My Life by Alison Kent -- a look at the three how-to books the author can't write without, and why.

Break through your fears and write! by Tamlyn Leigh -- One of the biggest obstacles on a writer's path is their fear. It can be for anything: fear people won't like their stories, fear they aren't good enough. In my workshop I want to offer tools to break through that fear, and get everyone writing!

Writing Prompt Series - Where? by Rosina Lippi -- Pick from the images supplied by Rosina and give your characters a context. You might have to rewrite What? to make it work.

Writing in the Labyrinth by Marjorie M. Liu -- Characters are people, too. And people are the story (second in a series of workshops about different aspects of writing and publishing.)

From Pantser To Plotter: How I Joined The Dark Side by Kait Nolan -- Thursday's topic: What I've Used In My Conversion (Part B)

Writing Sex Scenes That Matter by Jenna Reynolds -- Readers sometimes say they skip over the sex scenes in a book. And usually it's not because they have a problem with the sex. It could, however, be because, other than the sex, nothing else is going on. This workshop provides some suggestions on how to write sex scenes that matter and that readers won't skip over.

What eBook publishers look for: Loose Id by Midnight Spencer –- About Books, Accepted Genre’s, Sending a Proposal, Formatting your Submission, FAQ, and Contract Terms.

Left Behind and Managing Crazy by Charlene Teglia -- Sanity in a crazy business.

Epubs-wondering where to start? by Shiloh Walker -- Info for those curious about epubs and where to start.

Killer Campaigns: Podcasts by Maria Zannini -- Podcast an interview

Odds, Ends

My guy wasn't feeling well last night (pending root canal), so I abandoned my evening session on the computer, closed down the BatCave and spent the evening pampering and commiserating with him. A lover in pain is more important than blogging and editing any day (and, tough guy that he is, he went off to work this morning, still in pain.)

Eva Gale passed along this link in comments yesterday and it blew me away to see the art and the world-building involved. Definitely check it out when you have a chance, and thank you, Eva.

Last week, lightning struck the cable company's equipment nearby, and fried dozens of modems, computers, converters and televisions in our neighborhood. We lost our family room television set, computer modem and two of my towers (fortunately I had everything backed up while switching over to the new system, which is isolated from everything, or I'd be in very big trouble.) The power surge ran through the cable itself, which was hooked directly to everything it fried; our household current surge suppressors didn't stop it. I've voted for replacing the TV with a nice stereo system, which I would use more. You guys who live in storm- or lightning-prone areas, please make sure you're backing up your data regularly.

Via phone I talked with an agency-type publicist who cold-called me to solicit some business. He had a nice, deceitful pitch about what I need to do in order to be a successful author, none of which I actually do. When I asked him why writing was not on his success checklist he thought I was joking and chuckled. Anyway, it turns out that publishing doesn't care about me (say it isn't so!), I am cheating myself and cannot compete unless I "get behind my books." Which will cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty large. I told him I'd rather stay in front of them and focus on the writing (which did not make him happy, so I do hope whoever gave him my private number got their kickback out of him up front.)

My daughter demanded that I read the Stephenie Meyers YA vampire books, and I have; all three of them. Decent stories, although I probably would have appreciated them more about thirty-four years ago. But at least now I can discuss the story with her, and she's thrilled because they're all she wants to talk about these days. Since her least favorite aspect of the books are the "sex parts" (and yeah, that's what she calls the endless dry kissing, hand-holding and hugging) I have suggested she not read my vampire books until she finishes post-graduate school.

What's up with you guys?

The 53% Solution

Last year 400,000 books were published or distributed in the U.S., and some 15 million writers were working on some type of WIP. However, 53% of the Americans surveyed admitted that they did not read a single book in 2007. These NEA stats come courtesy of Rachel Donadio's NYT article, You're An Author? Me Too.*

Now, before you get depressed, according to this UK web page, there are 105+ million active internet surfers and 165+ million people with internet access in the U.S., as well as some 450 million internet surfers in 21 countries around the world.

Why should we be happy about this? To use the internet effectively, you have to be able to read. It's not that there aren't enough readers out there -- it's that they're not in the bookstores. They're on the internet.

As an experiment, and because I needed a reliable hosting service, I started moving my free e-books from my private FTP to Scribd* on January 2nd of this year (Scribd is a free service and hosts everything at no cost to me or the readers.) To date, the 22 freebies I've posted over there have been viewed a total of 9,273 times. That's an average of 78 views per day since I started the project. *Note 9/3/10: Since Scribd.com instituted an access fee scam to charge people for downloading e-books, including those I have provided for free for the last ten years, I have removed my free library from their site, and no longer use or recommend using their service. My free reads may be read online or downloaded for free from Google Docs; go to my freebies and free reads page for the links. See my post about this scam here.

It doesn't sound like a lot, until you consider the cost of mailing out 78 books every day to people all around the world. With Scribd, there's no paper, shipping, packaging or address-hunting involved. Best of all, only readers who are genuinely interested in reading my work view the stories, so there's no harassing advertising or SPAMming going on. On the reader's end, they get 22 free books and stories that they can read online or download, print out, share, use for educational purposes, etc. Win/win.

Scribd readers have been terrific. They've e-mailed me to ask questions and to request more e-books about their favorite characters (surprisingly, the most frequently requested is Holly Noriko of Lunar Marshall.) I've had a few interesting discussions about the biz with other writers who have contacted me via the site. The Scribd readers are also buying my print novels, because I'm getting a lot of questions and feedback about those as well.

I'm able to access visitor maps for each document I post on Scribd that show me where the viewers are located. Most are in the U.S. and Canada, but I've also discovered that I have new readers in places like Russia, Dominica, Japan, Uganda, and Afghanistan. My print books are hard if not impossible to get overseas, so to have this sort of access to so many readers around the globe is an enormous privilege for me.

The internet, Scribd and giving away free e-books are not a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of building a readership during an era when it seems like no one reads. Still, I think it's encouraging, especially for writers who can't afford expensive forms of self-promotion and advertising. I know we can find other creative avenues like Scribd on the internet that can help us reach more readers with our work. We just have to keep thinking in new directions.

*Registration may be required to access the article.

Buyer Incentives

Randy Ingermanson, author and creator of How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, also publishes a free monthly e-zine for writers. In the December '07 issue he has an interesting article on launching your novel by building an e-mail database (includes an interview with indy Christian SF publisher Jeff Gerke.) I have some reservations about the e-mail database approach to novel launching and marketing, as I've been around that block before, but Randy makes a good argument for it.

For an incentive to tempt a book buyer, it has to be effective, personal and yet non-intrusive. To quote from Randy's article: Your goal is get e-mail addresses of people who are genuinely interested in what you are writing and who are willing to receive e-mail from you whenever you write a new book. I can honestly say that I've never bought a book because I received an e-mail from the author, the author's publisher, the author's marketing team, or a chain bookseller. But then, I've never signed up for any that I've received; they came in the form of SPAM which at the most I glanced at before deleting.

As incentives go, I lean more toward providing online free, original content that is available nowhere else. What writers do best is write, so why not use the greatest asset we have? It's also the type of marketing/launching strategy that any writer can afford -- all you have to do is write the story, turn it into an e-book, and park it on the internet. If the content is made available in those arid stretches between novel releases, loyal readers are more likely to click on the download link. Keeping free content available also creates a stock of stories for potential new readers to check out before they make a purchase.

The next hurdle is to find an effective, non-intrusive way to make a writer's free story stock more widely available, and I'm working on that.

What author-generated incentive(s) convinces you to buy a book? If you've got any good examples, tell us about them in comments.

Coming Soon to a Grocery Store Near You

To help celebrate National Children' Book Week, for the sixth year in a row General Mills shipped five million free children's books inside boxes of Cheerios®, one of its most popular and enduring cereal products.

Before you chuckle at the idea, you should know that 25% of the books being sold in the U.S. are bought at grocery stores.

This is the kind of marketing that promotes literacy, puts books instead of cheap plastic toys in the hands of kids, and demonstrates thinking inside and outside the box (not to mention the tax write-off for General Mills.) Imagine being one of the five authors whose books were chosen for this campaign -- in addition to the great honor of being selected for this project, just envision a million copies of your story delivered to the exact people whom you want to buy your books.

It also made me wonder what cereal I'd lobby for to send free copies of my books to the grocery store. I usually have plain oatmeal for breakfast to help keep my cholesterol down, but the Quaker Oats guy would likely have some religious objections to my work. Sometimes I eat Grape Nuts® or Raisin Nut Bran®, and I'm sure some reviewer would probably interpret that as a slur on their character. My daughter loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch®, but she's in that teenage stage where everything I do is a homework conspiracy or simply wrong. She'd see my book and probably groan something like "Geez, Mom, did you HAVE to put a novel in my cereal? I told you, I already did my English homework."

And Shiloh, the witch, would probably grab the rights to Count Chocula® before I could get them. Hmmmmm. I'd rather pick a product that illustrates me the writer. Pop-Tarts®?

You writers out there, if you could convince a breakfast food manufacturer to distribute free copies of your latest story, who would you pick?

September: Blurbs, Endorsements, and Quotes

I. Buy This Book

Like any entertainment industry, Publishing uses endorsements as buyer enticements. An endorsement is basically anything inside quotation marks that casts a favorable light on the title. This can range from glowing quotations in print ads and sales copy to cover blurbs and pages of intro buzz. For the sake of this post, we'll call them all endorsements, because basically that's what they are.

As any author can tell you, the right endorsement by the right person at the right time can change a writer's career. Author Tom Clancy owes a big chunk of his success to an infamous endorsement of his first novel, The Hunt for Red October. It was called a perfect yarn and non-put-downable (is that a word?) Rather casual and not very infamous, as endorsements go, until you consider they were made by then-President Ronald Reagan.

An endorsement should grab some attention, and intrigue the reader as much as the status of the person making it. As personally repulsive as I find endorsements issued by fugitive terrorist butchers, they have some weight with certain mentalities.

Endorsements can also mean big bucks for Publishing. In a time when the winners of the National Book Award can barely move 5,000 copies of their books, Oprah and her on-again off-again reading club have rocketed every book they've endorsed into bestsellerdom. Just say the word Oprah around a bunch of literary writers and watch them go moon-eyed and slack-jawed.

Personally I don't care for the games involved with endorsements, as they're polluted with favoritism, cronyism, and big fat honking liars, but it is part of the biz. If you're looking for endorsements, you might as well do it as painlessly as possible.

II. Who Gets or Gives What?

A few lucky souls among you might never have to worry about endorsements, either -- the overnight successes, trend-setters and other A-listers will generate a ton of them, just by writing great books that a lot of people love (see Ward, J.R.) However, if you're a rookie, or you occupy someplace on the B- through Z-list, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for them to fall out of the sky into your lap.

I'm told most editors make an effort to get at least one decent endorsement for each title under their wing. Alas, I didn't get any of those editors myself, but I know they're out there; plenty of them have asked me to endorse other authors. Talk to your editor and see what they're willing to do to help you with your endorsement quest.

Agents are often great about getting endorsements for their authors. Your agent may have the contacts you don't to get your manuscript into the right hands to be read, so it's also a good idea to ask them for assistance.

When it comes to getting endorsements from writer friends, things get a little sticky. Some folks don't mind asking acquaintances and pals in the industry to endorse them; I try diligently not to impose on my friends that way. I guess it depends on you and your friends and how you feel about it. Third-party requests may be a little easier to handle -- a few times I have contacted writers I didn't know personally and asked them to read a friend's manuscript that I thought was marvelous, and no one took offense.

You can always forward reviews from reputable industry publications, bloggers and reader sites to your editor for use as endorsements, although there are some they probably won't use. Figure if an ellipse has to be inserted after every other word, it's not going to fly.

Endorsing yourself by having one pseudonym blurb another is viewed by some folks as cutesy. I think it makes you look a moron whom I will parody in a heartbeat. Your call.

III. How to Ask

I've retired from the endorsement game now, but back when I was being regarded as Oracle of Paranormal Fiction, I was offered bribes, reciprocal endorsements and other very nice things as incentives to give my endorsement. I also had a couple of folks try to strong-arm me into handing over one. The only approach I ever liked was an upfront, straightforward, just-asking request, preferably from another writer.

When requesting an endorsement, I recommend you make your contact brief, honest, and polite:

Dear Ms. Beegshot:

I'm writing to ask if you would consider reading my dark fantasy novel, Evermore, for a cover quotation. I think you'll enjoy seeing what I've done with the vampire mythology, and I would appreciate any recommendation you would care to make for the readers.

May I send you an advance reading copy? Please let me know when you have a chance.

Thank you,
Lynn Viehl

A couple of other points:

1. I don't think it's necessary to assure the prospective endorser that you know how busy they are (and yet I saw this in almost every endorsement quest that landed on my desk.) It's okay. We're all busy people.

2. Be upbeat and positive in your address. Groveling only works with a dominatrix.

3. If you're writing to a dominatrix, disregard #2.

4. Be professional. Don't offer details about your lousy marriage, your dire financial straits, or that sex-change operation you've been meaning to get. Don't use the endorser's first name unless you are on a first-name basis with them already. Be sure to work a thank-you somewhere in the request.

5. Be graceful if the prospective endorser refuses, and follow-up any response except #7 at all with a simple thank-you note. Even if they're rude, you don't have to be.

6. Don't be surprised if you don't get a response. Asking for an endorsement is probably the hardest thing a writer has to do. Refusing to give one is the second-hardest.

7. If the prospective endorser responds with hostility, abusive language, or any other inappropriate reaction, let it go and don't contact them again.

8. Don't criticize any endorsement you're offered, and don't alter it without permission from the source. If it's badly-worded, simply ask if you can change the wording.

9. If you do get an endorsement, don't send all of your friends to the endorser to ask for one for their books.

10. Be patient. The last endorsement I gave out was one I wanted to think about; I really obsess over my wording. Then I had a lot of other things happen and set it aside. In the end I made the recipient wait for quite a long time -- two or three months -- but I never heard a peep out of her. I genuinely appreciated that courtesy (that said, if you're getting close to the deadline you need endorsements by, drop the endorser a very brief reminder note.)

Related Links:

(Why you shouldn't ask Steve Almond for an endorsement)

Gary A. Braunbeck's On Book Blurbs

Joe Konrath's A Fistful of Blurbs

Self-Promotion That Doesn't Suck

Author Mindy Klasky is running an interesting reader poll on her LJ about what promotional tools prompt people to buy a book. Not surprisingly, the top three responses so far are:

1. Previous familiarity with author's other work
2. Recommendation of friend
3. Reading about book on another person's blog or website

On the other hand, widgets, postcards and SPAM hardly induced anyone to make a purchase. These things are the definition of self-promo that sucks: anything you spend money, time and/or effort on that does not result in sales.

Let's examine the three things that evidently do work:

#1: I can already hear the rookies groaning over "previous familiarity with author's other work" as a no-go for them, as they have no backlist. Well, this is why God created free e-books and posting excerpts and short stories on websites. Offer readers something for free, and some of them will buy your print novels. Author Peter Watts did with his novel Blindsight, and it helped increase his sales of the print version.

#2: Friend recommendations may also seem to writers to be another impossible-to-get self-promo tool. Word of mouth cannot be bought. However, if you politely ask your readers when they enjoy one of your novels to let other people know, they will. I put that request at the top of every bibliography I send out, whether it's for my books or another writer's.

#3: Rosina Lippi's Tied to the Tracks meme contest is a fun example of how, with a little creativity and modest investment, a writer can get the word out about a new release, and readers can hear about the book on another person's blog or website.

Spending a pile of money on widgets no one wants, schmoozing with the right people who could care less about you and your career, or killing yourself doing things you hate is not successful self-promotion. It's what everyone else in the herd is doing, and it's not working for them, so save yourself some grief and don't even go there.

Instead, look at your main strength: you're a writer. If you can convince me that a male stripper and an ex-nun can fall in love, or that the singularity will arrive in the form of a computer-eating toaster, or that fire-breathing dragons can shapeshift into squirrel-chasing kittens, or that your private investigator still gets away with wearing a silk fedora and calling men pals and women broads, you should be able to use that talent to persuade me to buy a book.

Just as a story with a fresh, unique spin stands out in a genre, a writer who tackles self-promotion with an approach that is as individual as they are is bound to grab more attention. Determine a dollar figure for the self-promotion you can afford to do, then sit down with a writer friend and bounce ideas around on how to best spend that money. A single ad in a big industry trade rag may cost you a thousand dollars, but sell an interview or article on writing to that same rag, and you get paid for it.

You don't have to go it alone. Pooling your resources with another writer or group of writers for self-promo gives you more of a budget to work with, and a partner or partners for figuring out the different angles. We've seen how well the group blog works, how about applying the same theory to a group self-promo project?

There's one more thing I harp on quite a bit: the fun factor. Whatever you do self-promotionwise should be something you enjoy. Because if you're not having fun, your resentment is going to end up running the show and giving you an ulcer.

Have you guys any examples of self-promotion that doesn't suck? Let us know in comments.

May: No-Fling Marketing

"...walk around a busy resort town dressed as a character from your novel, handing out promotional postcards."

Don't laugh. I just read this marketing suggestion in a serious article about publicizing a novel. And I can name more than one author who has dressed up as their protag for a book jacket photo. Which always cracks me up, especially when the big namers do it, so I do hope the tradition continues.

Dress Like Your Character and Accost People in the Street isn't a horrible marketing idea. Dressing up in costume at industry functions is an accepted practice. I wouldn't do it, because PBW does not wear costumes unless it's the night when she rings your doorbell and expects to be given candy.

I don't know -- outside industry cons, it seems like it would be counterproductive. In most places, the strangers on the street who usually approach us are proselytizers, pan handlers and muggers. Call me unfriendly, but anyone walking around dressed like a vampire or a bounty hunter is not going to get the chance to postcard me.

As much of the industry has yet to learn, the "fling it out there and see what happens" approach is not an effective marketing strategy. It's a method more suitable for toilet papering trees on that one night a year when it is okay to walk around in a costume.

We're all familiar with the traditional ways to market your work once it's in print: get quotes from more famous authors; send out postcards, fliers, and bookmarks to book sellers; buy ads in industry magazines, send out ARCs to reviewers; go to cons, have signings, and put up a website and/or a weblog. If you have major backing from your publisher, you hire people to do all that and go on book tours, give interviews, go to industry trade shows and sign in certain places to have the optimum chance of getting on certain lists compiled from sales data from those places.

It's not all bad, but there's a lot of auto-fling built into traditional novel marketing. Fling the promo out there, hope for the best. Fling oneself around the con circuit, hope for the best. Fling promo sites onto the internet . . . you get the picture. Flinging anything is popular with writers because 1) most of us are completely clueless about marketing and 2) all the other authors are doing it.

Remember what mom said about doing what everyone else does? She was right.

Think about fling marketing this way: imagine you and fifty other writers standing around a bookseller and throwing postcards at him while he's working. Tomorrow, fifty different writers are going to show up and do the same thing. Then fifty more on the next day, and fifty on the next, and so on. How is your postcard going to stand out from all the other postcards the bookseller gets hit with that day? And how many times do you think he's going to stop working to read postcards?

More than anything, fling marketing wastes time, resources and money. Today the average writer in the U.S. makes around $6,000.00 a year. Around the major publishers, advance pay-outs are presently being split into thirds: a third on contract signing, a third on delivery of the manuscript, and a third on publication of the novel. That means if you accept an offer for a $5,000.00 advance, and your publisher pays you on time, you'll only have $3,333.33 coming in before publication.

If you use 25% of your income for marketing, which is what I do, that gives you $833.00 to spend. That will buy you -- maybe -- one small ad in one issue of an industry magazine, or registration and hotel fees to attend one regional con, or a single mail out to every Barnes & Noble in the U.S. If you do the later, you better have a red-hot postcard or flier -- one friend of mine who manages a big B&N says she fills her office garbage can with reams of useless author-mailed promo materials that she can't use and doesn't read. She does this every day.

Obviously the average writer can't afford an expensive campaign to publicize their book, so it's imperative that whatever they do spend on marketing not be squandered on a fling.

So what is the no-fling approach to marketing?

1. Target your market. If you don't know who/where/what and why of your target market, you're marketing blind. Who is most likely to read your novel? Where can you find them? What will get their attention? Why should they read your book? These are all questions every writer needs to answer, and the answers are specific to the writer's work.

To start you thinking about the question of who is most likely to read your novel, more statistics: the average reader in the U.S. is female (68% of all books are bought by women), a baby Boomer (half of all book buyers are over the age of 45), and probably feels that someday she could write a novel (over 80% of Americans do.) There's a good chance that this woman will represent a big chunk of your readership. And she should, because she also represents the largest segment of the book-buying public.

2. Market efficiently. It's not just the time you devote to marketing, but how efficiently you use that time. You can spend four hours dressed up and sitting at a table in a mall, and talk to maybe a dozen people. Mostly you'll answer questions like "Do you work here?" and "Can you tell me where the restrooms are?" I can spend an hour in my pjs and bunny slippers at home, whenever I like, write, edit and upload a weblog post, talk to no one, and be read by about a thousand people.

Once you and your readers leave the mall, chances are that you'll never see them again. Due to the nature of weblogs, most of my readers will come back again. Some will be other bloggers who link to or discuss the post on my weblog, and their visitors will follow those links and discussions. Unless I delete my post, I'm here for them indefinitely (try to do that at a mall.)

Who has the potential to sell more copies of their book, the mall book signer or the stay-at-home blogger? Statistics vary, but for the sake of argument let's say we will both sell a book to one out of ten people we encounter that day. That means sales of 1.2 copies for you, and 100 copies for me. Plus you're not going to be selling your books at the mall tomorrow, while my weblog is open 24/7 to people all over the world, even when I'm out in the back yard washing the dog or weeding the flowers.

What all that means is, I win.

3. Invest wisely. When considering any type of marketing you have to pay for, look closely at these three things: distribution, value, and investment return. Whatever you buy should have wide distribution (to reach the most people), some value to the recipient (so they don't ignore it or throw it away) and some indication of how well it's going to work (because if it doesn't, you might as well burn the money.)

Everyone has different ideas on how to spend marketing money. My main marketing investment is to give out free books, and you've seen how well it works for me. Giving a reader a free book does a couple of things: it shows you're willing to invest in them first. Unlike a bookmark or postcard, it's something that has the potential of actual value to the recipient. If they enjoy your book, they will buy others that you've written or will write. There isn't a better way to build a readership than with your own work.

On the flip side, you may not win over the reader. People will ignore or trash virtually any other promotional materials you give them, but 99% of them don't throw away books. Even if they don't like your book, they'll probably give it to a friend, donate it to a library or trade it in at a used book store. E-books get passed around even more. A book is the only promotional material that has a real chance to be recycled and possibly grab the attention of another reader down the road.

The biggest scams I see out in novel marketing land are those that cater to the writer's ego. I won't point fingers or name names, but oy. Sadly, it's a very clever marketing strategy on the part of the people who prey on certain authors and their seemingly unquenchable thirst for personal attention. And while these scammers might treat you like a former Miss U.S.A contestant with honey blonde hair, convincing breast implants and an adorable lisp, chances are you're not. Do yourself a favor and always make whatever marketing you do work-focused. You're trying to sell books, not your ass.

I gather most of my marketing information off the internet, which has a surprising amount available out here for anyone to read. I just found something interesting today while researching regional marketing data. Anyone know what are the most literate cities in the U.S. are? As of 2006:

1. Seattle, WA
2. Minneapolis, MN
3. Atlanta, GA
4. Washington, DC
5. St. Paul, MN
6. Pittsburgh, PA
7. Cincinnati, OH
8. Denver, CO
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Portland, OR

Not a huge change from the 2005 rankings, or the 2004 list. Boston and Portland seem to be slugging it out for a top spot. If I were going to do a big marketing campaign for my next novel, these would be the first ten cities on my target list.

It takes time, careful thought and research to develop a no-fling marketing strategy for your novel. I wish I could give you a schematic, but that's like a secret handshake: it doesn't exist. You have to create and refine your own strategy based on what you write and what sort of marketing you're willing to do. Most pros will tell you to do whatever everyone else is doing, and often that's a lot easier and less stressful.

It's just this: after all you've gone through to get your work into print, do you really want to fling it out there and hope for the best?

Related links:

PBW's Bookmarks from Hell, PTC 2 Part 1, PTC 2 Part 2, Ten Things About Odd Self-Promo, and Widgety posts.

Several articles on Niche Marketing.

Where We Read

You all read in some very interesting places outside the home. I think I'm going to try out some of your ideas (I really want to go camping like Ris and read by the fire while I roast marshmallows. That could be the nearest thing to total bliss.)

Anyway, we got out the magic hat, and the winner for yesterday's RW quickie giveaway is BJ Steeves. BJ, when you get a chance, e-mail your ship-to info to LynnViehl@aol.com and I'll get these books out to you.

The comments left yesterday also underlined how individual the reading experience is for the dedicated reader. I found them fascinating. Comfort seems to be a common denominator, as does a certain amount of privacy or anonymity. Some of you like to be outdoors in a park or a pretty spot, while others are fine reading in busier locations.

Knowing where people like to read could help publishing create more effective avenues of marketing. It's common knowledge that many people read while traveling on planes, cruise ships, buses, subways, trains and other forms of mass transit. People on vacation also takes books to read by the pool, on the beach, or while hanging out at the hotel. Then there are the lengthy medical procedures, hospital stays and other health-related incarcerations. What else can you do in a waiting room or hospital bed but read or watch infomercials on whatever three channels the room television picks up?

A book does goes well with any activity that requires you to stay in one place and do nothing for at least an hour, or when you're relaxing but separated from the usual relaxation aids (TV, movies, video games, alcohol, sex, and food.) Pass-the-time reading, when there's little opportunity to do anything else; read or be bored. It seems disheartening -- we want people to read more for pleasure -- but we can still use the knowledge.

If you can't get people into the bookstores, get the books to the people when they're most likely to want to read. I recently mentioned how much I'd like to see a fiction book rack in hotel lobbies. How about putting some gratis books in the back pockets of every seat on an airplane? Provides a nice alternative to reading outdated travel magazines or the laminated belt-buckle-flotation-device-oxygen-mask instructional picture card.

When it comes to where we choose to read outside the home, we seek out places that appeal to us for some reason on personal level (as your comments yesterday illustrated.) Books are just sold as books, though; we rarely pair them with anything else, and I think by doing so that we're missing some marketing opportunities. If I'm going to lounge on the sand, I'd love a tote bag stocked with some sunblock, a big towel, and a hot romance. I go to tea shops all the time, and would snap up a tea-lovers book package in a heartbeat. Mary Balogh, some Irish breakfast tea and a package of scones, how could you go wrong? Maybe by integrating books with products we use during a relaxing activity, we might convince the people who aren't reading out there to associate books with something other than the English class assignment or the colonoscopy.

What do you guys think?

Is That Your Self-Promo in my Face, Or....

Janet Elaine Smith had an interesting piece about her methods of self-marketing in the December issue of Writer's Journal, titled How Bold Are You, Really? I've been pondering it along with some other articles I've gathered on the topic. Janet's enthusiasm for self-promotion led a fellow writer to call her a "brazen hussy," which Janet then promptly turned around and used as a title for a Yahoo group she started on self-promotion.

I like that kind of attitude. It tempts me to rename this place. I can't remember which names that I'm not supposed to know about, though, so I'll save it for the industry expose. In any event, being the reserved, quiet soul that I am -- shut up, Jean -- I couldn't do what Janet does, but I admire her energy and enthusiasm. It takes a lot to get out there and do the self-promo dance. There was one tip she mentioned that bothered me, and I'll quote from the article:

"Don't be afraid to interrupt, politely -- even on the internet. If someone in a thread mentions something that pertains to your book, jump in with a bit of BSP (blatant self-promotion)."

I think interrupting a discussion thread solely for the purpose of self-promo is transparently rude. Working in a mention of your book when it's directly related to a topic of discussion, on the other hand, isn't. The line between the two? Very thin.

I'm not against self-promotion. I avoid it whenever possible. Seriously, writers who maintain blogs solely for the purpose of self-promotion, and never post about anything but themselves, their struggles, their work, their releases, their glowing reviews, their personal appearances, etc. are fine with me. If that's all you care about, or all you have to contribute to the publishing blogosphere, go for it. Your weblog will have huge appeal for your readers, and if it's all about you and your work, you'll be safe. With all the ire directed at the writer who dares express an opinion these days, it's probably the smart thing to do.

That said, when you visit another writer's blog or discussion board, you're a guest. If you went to a party at that writer's house in real life, would you jump in the middle of conversations or derail them to talk about yourself? How about walking away from someone who is talking to you the minute the subject is no longer about you, or you've finished pimping yourself to that group and have moved on to the next?

The internet may seem impersonal because we're not talking face-to-face, but that doesn't mean that it is. Insincerity has a very distinct smell to it, even on the web.

Given all the pressure publishers are putting on us to self-promote, what do we do? Maybe we should stop viewing other writer (or any type) weblogs as self-promo opportunities, and see them more as neighbors. Over the years we've become a very large, diverse online community. Do we really want to be reduced to filtered, programmed, self-absorbed Stepford Bloggers, air-kissing each other in comments? Don't we have enough of that going on already?

If you really get involved in a discussion versus playing your own publicist, chances are some of the other visitors will take an interest in you. People who like what you have to say track down your blog or site, stop in to participate in your blog discussions, and best of all, invest in your books. Or, to put it simply, be sincere, and be yourself, and keep your self-promo in your pocket until it's the right time to share.

What do you guys think?

Cover Me Ten

Ten Things to Do With Your Cover Art

Important Note: Cover art is copyright-protected. Unless you own the art, always obtain permission to use cover art images, especially for any items you intend to resell, like stuff from CafePress.com.

1. If you've got a one-word or short novel or series title, have it embroidered on a baseball cap like this one: Most major malls have a kiosk embroidery service who can do them for under $10 each; you might get them a bit cheaper if you order in bulk from a logo shop (various prices).

2. Blogger will let you add your cover art to your profile page, which also adds it as an icon whenever you make a signed-in comment and on your blog sidebar under "About Me" (free, max image file size 50K).

3. I know someone is going to want this: How to make bookmarks using tables in Word. For people like me, try How to Make a Duct Tape Bookmark (free).

4. Create digital stickers of your cover art in a variety of sizes at places like 123Stickers.com. Stickers can be applied to anything (various prices).

5. Flickr has a neat a magazine cover generator that allows you to custom-design a magazine-style cover. Use your cover art as the image and do anything from producing a nifty newsletter cover to spoofing yourself (free; click on image to see larger version).

6. Also from Flicker, use your cover art or elements from it to create your own motivational poster (I went with more classic art for mine; free).

7. Office Depot will take your cover art and put it on coffee mugs, t-shirts, mouse pads, die-cut puzzles and more (my sister-in-law used them to make some cover-art gifts for me, and I was impressed by the quality of the end product, which is why I'm recommending them).

8. Photo.Stamps.com will create a sheet of customized postage stamps featuring your uploaded image (about $1.00 per stamp; a bit pricey but a nice collectible or gift for your favorite writer).





9. John Pollock's PageResource.com has some interesting web design articles, including one on Resizing Images and How to Promote Your Artwork Online.

10. BellaOnline's Yvonne Russell has an article here with a list of promotional widgets marketing sends out; she suggests authors make -- you guessed it -- bookmarks.

Mary Sue Anonymous

A tall brunette walked to the front of the meeting room and stepped up to the podium. "Hi, everyone. My name's Jane, and I write Mary Sue novels."

"Hi, Jane."

"I've been coming to meetings three times a week for nine months now." Jane toyed with a thread hanging from the end of her sleeve. "I was feeling pretty good, and confident about earning my one-year chip, but this past weekend, I . . . I fell off the wagon."

Most of the audience shifted in their seats.

Jane pushed her shoulders back. "I knew what I was doing. I mean, I knew when I made my protagonist a virgin at twenty-six that I was heading down the wrong road. She's not a Christian fundamentalist, or unmarried and living in Iran. But I just couldn't bring myself to give her a fumbling backseat high school experience or a token bad marriage to an older man with regular erectile dysfunction. It's stupid, but . . . I really thought I could handle it."

Someone snorted loudly. A middle-aged redhead in the second row elbowed the bearded man sitting next to her.

"I kept writing, and made her beautiful and built and brilliant . . ." Jane stopped and covered her face with a trembling hand.

The redhead sighed. "The three killer B's."

Jane dropped her hand and bravely pushed on. "From there, I admit, it snowballed. I gave her a bottle-green Jag, and a job curating an art museum, and a Victorian mansion she bought for a song and renovated single-handedly. The next thing I knew she was gardening, raising hybrid roses and tossing together gourmet dinners for one."

A lanky teenager in a black leather jacket slowly clapped his hands three times. "So what did you name her? Elizabeth? Angelique?"

"Jennifer. Jennifer Jane Fairchild." Jane avoided his eyes. "I knew it was wrong. I knew it spelled the end of my sobriety, but you know . . . God, it felt so good to write it."

A thin, balding man stood up. "Tell us about the dog, Jane."

"I don't know what you mean." Jane's chin lifted. "I didn't write a dog in the story."

Everyone stared at her.

"All right. All right." Jane hung her head. "It was a golden retriever. Never sheds, never pukes or piddles on the carpet. Sleeps on the floor at the foot of Jennifer's antique brass bed. I named him . . .Goldie."

A tattered-looking man with a straggly goatee and a black cigarette planted between his chapped lips entered the meeting room and took a seat in the back row.

"Anyway." Jane paused to sniff a few times. "I did stop. I stopped as soon as Jennifer Jane stumbled across a Neo-Nazi plot to murder the democratic, extremely popular governor of her state. A murder which only she personally could prevent, of course, at great personal risk. I put away the pages in my desk."

"Oh, Jane." The redhead knuckled away a tear.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Jane snapped. "Sure, I know the rules. My protagonist should have been a recovering crack whore hiding from the cops in a flop house room with a sometimes-boyfriend named Wife Beater--"

The man with the goatee interrupted Jane by applauding loudly. One of the women sitting near him leaned over, asked him a question, shook her head and pointed to the door. The man with the goatee rose and walked out.

Jane rubbed some sweat from her face. "It's not like I'm going to publish it. Look, it was just a story. One story."

"That's how it starts, Jane," the balding man in the front row said, not without some sympathy. "One story, and then another, and soon you can justify every aspect of the Mary Sue novel. You join a writer organization, wear pink suits, have your business cards scented and go to luncheons once a month. And you know what the next step is after that."

Jane paled. "That won't happen to me."

"You never think it does," he said, "but then suddenly you're writing the last three words of your novel." He looked around the room. "And they are?"

The audience answered as a group. "Happily. Ever. After."

Jane burst into tears.

"I think we should have a reading now, to remind us all of why we're here." The balding man opened the book in his hands and began to read. "The Twelve Suggested Steps of Mary Sue Anonymous. Step One: We admitted we were powerless over Mary Sues--that our stories had become unrealistic."

As Jane groped in her purse for a tissue, the other people in the meeting echoed the balding man's words. Down the hall, the man with the goatee finally found the correct room for his meeting. He was welcomed by that group, and invited to step up to the podium and introduce himself.

"Howdy." He rubbed his mouth, dishevelling his goatee. "My name is Nick, and I write literary novels."

"Hi, Nick."

Friday 20

I have seen some user-unfriendly promo around the book biz, but the process of learning the title J.K. Rowling picked for her next (and last?) Harry Potter book is so complicated that it has to be explained step-by-step:

"...go to the author's official web site*, click on the eraser and you will be taken to a room — you'll see a window, a door and a mirror.

In the mirror, you'll see a hallway. Click on the farthest doorknob and look for the Christmas tree. Then click on the center of the door next to the mirror and a wreath appears. Then click on the top of the mirror and you'll see a garland.

Look for a cobweb next to the door. Click on it, and it will disappear. Now, look at the chimes in the window. Click on the second chime to the right, and hold it down. The chime will turn into the key, which opens the door. Click on the wrapped gift behind the door, then click on it again and figure out the title yourself by playing a game of hangman." -- (instructions swiped from Yahoo.com)

I only got it to work as far as clicking on the second chime to the right, but I freely admit that I'm hopeless at these gamer things. If you are, too, get a kid to do it; they'll probably have the title in under a minute.

Here at Casa PBW, we've wrapped up 99.9% of the prep for Christmas. The kids and I are baking the last of the cookies for our Christmas Eve party today, but that's about it. Santa, bring it on.

Other than what the heck was J.K. thinking, any questions out there for me this week?

*Added: Enter the UK version of the web site in order to get this game to work -- and thanks to Alphabeter for the tip.

100 Huhs

The New York Times has released its annual list of 100 Notable Books of the Year, one I usually peer at to see if there's anything on it that I read and/or liked. Hold onto your hats; I've actually read two on the list: one I loved, and one I loathed -- but other than that, zilch.

After last year's mess, I was hoping that someone in the editorial department would have said, "Hey, guys, maybe we should write blurbs that HELP sell more copies of these books." Something happened; they've reverted from babelesque hip-speak of last year to their standard snot-speak, which of course has made the New York Times the veritable stanchion of unimaginative elitism.

Honestly, I don't think you could drive the average book buyer away from these books any faster than if you jumped in front of the shelves and waved an open vial of anthrax. For example:

1. "....unsettling and blackly funny vignettes" -- Last time I checked, unsettling was not funny, even blackly. Vignette must be the latest trope, whatever the hell a trope is.

2. ".... A hefty, brilliant volume" -- Does no one at the Times listen to Clapton anymore? With a story, like a penis, it's not about size but in the way that you use it. Although (call me psychic) I'm sure this one holds open the laundry room door with no problem.

3. "....Old grievances drive the plot of this novel" -- That's the answer to Literary Meanings for $500. The question: "What is a transparent ax-grinder, Alex?"

4. "....A structurally experimental road-trip novel" -- Experiment on your own dime, pal. Better yet, use it to hire a therapist and get over writing badly-disguised Kerouac fanfic.

5. "....two exquisitely shaped novellas" -- So, shouldn't that make this list 101 Notable Books of the Year, then? Or 99 Notable Books and 2 Novellas?

6. "....this dark-humored novel" -- Since they already used blackly funny and don't want to repeat themselves. Up next: Murkily mirthsome, duskily tittery and low-light laughable.

7. "....The third volume, remarkable for its breadth and detail" -- I'm betting the writer for #6 had to read it for a quote, right? That's what put her into the bad mood.

8. "....a schoolboy's story." -- I'm sorry, but maybe you boys in editorial didn't get that memo from the Author's Gild. We only use "schoolboy's story" as a deadly insult to another writer, i.e.: I cannot believe they actually paid money for this stupid little schoolboy's story.

9. "....a moral framework" -- I have no idea what this means. The original outline for the ten commandments? Ted Haggard's ministry? Catholic scaffolding? What? (Also, why are we using the word "moral" so much? If you want to lure the hard red right into the stores, try substituting purpose-driven or inspirational and decorate it with little doves and burning Bushes. Well, okay, that last part was for my personal amusement, but still.)

10. "....The Nobel laureate tells her life story" -- I won't listen to this from drunks at writer conferences, so why would I pay $26.95 for it?

11. "....complicated sexual algebra" -- No. I know you guys are trying to be clever, but NO. You are not allowed to pair something as wonderful as sex with freaking algebra.

12. "....How to read with writerly sensitivity" -- Obviously, not written by me.

13. "....An artful journalist cross-dresses" -- but still can't get her pretend domestic partner on her medical insurance plan. Then she takes off the penis suit and mourns the life she never lived. Oh, the suffering. (Waitress? Check please.)

14. "....A panoramic moral analysis" -- Panoramic immediately makes me think of those 4" tall 48" wide photos of Grand Canyon vacations that camera nuts are always giving you. "Look, you can see the entire Snake River from start to finish!" Please. I've faked orgasms that were more thrilling. And there's that moral word again. Why not tag it as immoral? I'd buy an immoral analysis in a heartbeat, wouldn't you?

15. "....In her effectively elliptical novel" -- Does that mean...the novel is...filled with...these stupid...things...? Or is it shaped like this: ()

16. "....this parablelike novel" -- Excuse me, parablelike? You're the New York Times, for God's sake. Stop using words that don't exist.

17. "....Stories of understated realism" -- As story collections went, it was sort of real, but not so you'd notice. It was, you see, many brave paddles secretly angled to propel literature's fine boat up the mighty river of How It Should Be into LaLaLand, where the upstanding overly-educated people run things, because they alone know that physical objects are impermanent representations of unchanging ideas, and that ideas alone give true knowledge. And we the inferior dumbasses, being so caught up with playing with our physical objects and doing the actual gruntwork in the world and all, should let them. Uh-huh.

17a. Somebody IM Matt Cheney, he'll want to be all over this one.

18. ".... in this debut novel of global misunderstanding." -- So who is going to understand it? Extra-terrestrials?

19. ".... this nimble, satirically chiding novel." -- Only the Brits are allowed to use the words like nimble and chiding, as they're the only ones who can say them without sounding like effete dorks.

20. "....This novel's hero, a ghost, looks back ruefully on his suicide" -- Suggested subtitle: The Lovely Slitted Wrists. Oooooo, how original.

20a. It's also now official: I am tired of dead protagonists.

20b. I mean it. No more of this Sebolderdash. You want me to purchase your book, it has to have a living, breathing protagonist in it. Or a vampire protagonist. Undead okay, dead not okay.

20c. This is non-negotiable.

and finally, the ultimate in boring blurbs:

"A nameless protagonist grapples with aging, physical decline and impending death in this slender, elegant novel.": The Old Man and Medicare Part C!

Anyway, I will recommend one novel from this esteemed list as deserving of the recognition: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. That's the one I loved, and may it nab the author another NBA.

What's Your Line?

You have a magical business card that will appear in the hand of every editor in publishing tomorrow. It lists your name or pseudonym and your contact information. There is also just enough room for a single sentence of fifteen words or less, i.e.:

                     Paperback Writer

      Diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

So what's the line on your magical business card say?

PTC #2, Part II

2. Staying Pro: I'd like to see more on how to KEEP selling, or how to organize my time (and) Once you start selling the plan is to keep selling and have a nice long career. Pointers?

Last night I talked about the popular propaganda about how to keep selling and have a nice long career. Let me emphasize again that the traditional play-it-safe-and-join-the-herd advice, which is handed out to nearly all of us when we join the pro ranks, is solid, blue-chip wisdom that you should seriously consider following. When in the herd, do as the herd does, and you'll be okay.

If you want more, you have to give up the herd, the guarantees and the tried-and-true methods, and go solo. Here are some of my ideas on how to do that, along with the amount of risk to the safety of your career:

1. Lose the herd mentality. Your writer organization's name isn't on your book, your name is. Publishing isn't a club or a bake sale or a night out with the girls. This is your job, and it's a very rare and much-desired job. At this moment there are a hundred thousand people competing with you for it, and those are just the professionals. We won't think about how many unpublished writers are wanting your spot. All the time you spent on your writer organization you can then use for doing some actual writing. Note: this doesn't mean you have to tell everyone in the herd to piss off; you can still be nice to your colleagues without blindly following in their footsteps. (low risk)

2. Be an entrepreneur, not an assembly line worker. Don't write in imitation of another author, no matter how much you admire him or her. Find out who you are as a writer, and capitalize on your individuality. Give your readers fresh, new, market-savvy novels that showcase your voice, your talent and your storytelling style. (moderate risk)

3. Break new ground. The writer who gets noticed is the writer who does something no one else is doing. Chances are best seized wisely, so before you try something daring with your writing or your career, think it through first. Be sure you're willing to accept any consequences, good or bad, that might result from it. (high risk)

4. Ditch the well-trodden road and take a different direction. Nearly every author takes the same approach to making a career in publishing: Sell the book, join the writer's group, do the promo, sell the next book, go to the con, do the promo, etc. It's like lather, rinse, repeat; I could do it in my sleep. Do you really want to sleepwalk through this gig? If you don't use your individuality, your strengths, and your creativity to navigate and enhance your career, how are you going to stand out from the rest of us and get noticed? (moderate to high risk)

5. Experiment, challenge yourself, and try new things with your work. Widen your range as a writer as often as you can. Write short stories, flash fiction, and promotional e-books. Take a writer for hire job. Write some magazine articles, or do a series of interviews with other folks in publishing on your weblog. Well-rounded writers are much more employable than single genre writers. (low risk)

5. When your career stalls, don't freeze. Don't lock yourself in a genre dungeon. If you can't sell a romantic suspense, pitch a paranormal. If you can't sell a cozy, pitch a thriller. If you can't sell a historical, pitch an alternate historical, etc. etc. Be flexible, inventive, and never give up. (low to moderate risk)

6. If after five years of trying you still can't sell that damn book of your heart, which you've rewritten three or four hundred times, for God's sake, bury it in the backyard and write something else. Better yet, burn it so you're not tempted to dig it up and rewrite it again. Make a vow never to write another one. (low risk)

7. Make the work the first priority. I know I keep harping on this, but the writing has to come first. When you're not writing, someone else is. When you're not pitching, someone else is. When you're off getting drunk in the Tiki bar at Paradise Con, someone else is at home mailing out a submission to your editor, or querying your agent. P.S. Some of them are better writers than you. (low risk)

8. Be frugal, pay off your debts and credit cards, and save your money and/or invest in yourself. Rather than financing your writing org's next big con luncheon, save your money or spend it on your writing needs. That $1000.00 you waste on airline tickets, con fees, widgets to hand out to other writers and your hotel room at the national conference could be spent on a better web site, or new computer and printer, or postage for the next year of submissions. If you've got all you need, put that money in the bank and save it for a dry spell. (moderate risk)

9. Find a healthy outlet for your negative emotions that has nothing to do with publishing, and use it as needed. Cooking, working out at a gym, gardening, going on power walks, sewing, playing raquetball, or anything like these things can help channel your frustrations so you're not tempted to get online and post something imprudent, like Ten Things I Totally Despise About My Editor, the Bitch, or worse, call her and tell her over the phone. (low risk)

10. Employ your sense of humor. Someone very wise once told me that if you can laugh at something, it has no power over you. That little saying has saved my ass as a writer more times than I can count. (moderate risk)

Related Links (including some on organizing yourself):

Chip Scalan's Organizing the Writing Life

Courage and Good Decision Makers are Successful People by S. Manikandan

Ten Things for Marketing & Planning

Find More Time by Organizing Your Writing Space by Michelle Jean Hoppe

Writers-Editors.com's The Business End of Writing

Got copy?

I have great respect for good cover copy. Even if the cover art is less than appealing, one or two well-written paragraphs on the back can induce me to buy your novel. Naturally good copy is a bitch to write well.

Novel copy needs to snag the reader's attention, develop his or her interest in the story, and give compelling reason(s) to invest in the book. I prefer brief, simply worded copy because it appeals to anyone versus the kind of copy you have to acquire a PhD to fathom. The most common problems I see with novel copy are that it's too long, too busy with info dumpage, too hard-sell, or doesn't provide any information about the story.

Take this example: "From [previous title] to [previous title] to [previoustitle], [author] has written one explosive thriller after another featuring [previous title's protagonist]. Now, in an electrifying departure, [author] presents a novel that breaks all the rules and will keep your heart racing and your mind guessing until the very last page."

Title dropping is a waste of copy space, particularly if the new novel has absolutely no connection with previous work, which this one evidently hasn't. What would an electrifying depature from explosive thrillers be, exactly? A dull thriller? A silly one? A chick-lit thriller? I need some details here. Predicting my stupidity and upcoming cardiac episode is a nice psychic trick, but mind telling me what this story is about?

And this little gem: "The master's first novel in 10 years is an erotic tale about a 90-year-old who discovers the transforming power of uncorrupted love."

This tells me that the master is lazy, ninety year olds are erotic? and I can expect uncorrupted love from the book, which btw has the word whores in the title. So did someone drink their lunch before they wrote this?

We are none of us safe from lame copy. My first published novel had a spelling error on the cover copy (I was not allowed to see it until it was too late to correct.) Flats for one of my 2005 novels went out with the wrong name for the heroine (I caught it in time to correct the final edition.) Another of my books starts off with "The circus is in town, and all the citizens are eager to attend the show" and, trust me, just gets worse from there.

Other than composition, I think the most common problems with copy for authors are spelling, name, place, and other errors. I find an error with copy about every three to four novels. If you get a chance to proof yours, read it carefully. On one of my novels, the copy included the hero's name, the heroine's name, and a different hero's name. Turned out that the copy writer had arbitrarily renamed my hero in mid-copy.

There is great copy out there, though. This has to be the funniest and most fetching paranormal romance copy I've read in a while:

IF YOU THINK LIFE IS COMPLICATED, TRY IMMORTALITY. Justine Bennett is cursing her life. She’s the Guardian of the Goblet of Eternal Youth, she hasn’t left the house in ages, and it’s been over 200 years since she’s had sex. Oh, and the Goblet has shape-shifted into an espresso machine named Mona. Not exactly the stuff grand destiny is made of... Derek LaValle is worried. Due to a family curse, he’ll be dead in the space of a week unless he finds the Guardian of the Goblet of Eternal Youth and beheads her. Which wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t so sexy, smart... and ready to behead him right back.

The novel it belongs to: Date Me Baby, One More Time by Stephanie Rowe*, coming in May 2006 from Warner Forever. And God, I hope they put this on the back cover, because it's hilarious.

Effective copy hooks your interest immediately, and the first line of Stephanie's copy does that in a wry tone without the usual hard-sell push that sounds so fake. Investing the body of the copy with humor (or drama, angst, mystery, etc. as applicable to the story) draws the reader along (I love the goblet shape-shifting into an expresso machine.) The copy delivers a lot of information about the story with just 111 words. Stephanie's also got a beautiful wrap-up with delivering conflict as a punchline -- that's a neat teaser.

As with cover art, most authors are not consulted about copy for their novels, so how yours is written may be beyond your control. Always offer to help out writing and/or proofing copy whenever possible, though, and you just might be able to head off a minor to major copy nightmare.

*(Stephanie & book discovered via me link-hopping over at Vanessa's place)