Category Archives: Books

Marketing and Writing

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How much time do you spend writing vs marketing? I would imagine it depends on what you are writing. Say you’re writing a novel, a non-fiction book or a mystery. It takes a considerable amount of time to write these. But if you’re writing short stories, it takes much less time, so you can do more ‘marketing’ (I.e. getting your stories published.)

Short stories are different from full-length manuscripts. First, you don’t need an agent. Second, the first step is to get the story published. Lastly, once you’ve completed your book, then you can start marketing it.

In the days before Internet, writers would get fan mail in the post, actual physical letters, (some still do) and they would answer those letters. There are some great pictures of Hemingway standing up at his typewriter answering his letters every afternoon.

When people would do interviews, they would go on physical tours, to bookstores, or to fairs or different venues. Charles Dickens used to go around speaking. I believe people still go on physical tours to market their book.

Try and think of how you can integrate marketing in a sustainable way for you that’s creative and also meets the goals of what you want for your writing. Do you want to sell more books? Or do you want to become famous? It’s rare for an author to be come famous. So set your goal to sell more books. (By the way, I once had a student who wanted a formula to become famous author!)

Publishers rarely market their books other than putting them on their website. So it’s up to the author to market her book. The exception is Windy City Publishers. They’re a hybrid publisher that does the marketing for you. Of course they’re rather expensive, but if you are fed up trying to publish your book the traditional way, this may be the way to go.

There are other ways to self-publish. BookBaby is one of them. BookBaby offers print, e-books or print and ebooks. Plus it’s an affordable e-book self-publisher with no sales commission, plus your book gets an ISBN number through them. There’s also Amazon who publishes your book on Kindle.

I’m sure there are other self-publishing companies. Investigate and get back to me.

Managing Stress as a Writer

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Do you feel guilty because you haven’t written anything this week? You’re tired, you’re burnt out, you can’t work and write at the same time, and your husband/lover takes precedence over your writing. And instead of writing, you’re working out or playing games, or shopping, cooking and cleaning out your closets. Anything but writing.

I’ve written 12 stories and one micro-fiction (a short story under 50 words) since I’ve retired, but I suddenly stopped writing. I stopped writing because I stopped reading. Reading is inspirational. But I haven’t found a book I like or can even recommend, causing me stress. How to deal with this? See a therapist? A therapist isn’t going to cure my writer’s block – if such a thing even exists.

We all like to think we’re super-human, but we can’t do everything. So sit down and write out what you want in your life. Think about what suits your personality. Think about the rhythms of your life. You need to allow for seasonal shifts in your energy (creative or otherwise) and how much your projects mean to you. Writing these things out will keep your mind active. And who knows? These writings may become a short story, an essay or a piece of creative non-fiction. ‘Guilty Pleasures.’ ‘Anxiety For All.’ ‘Creative Jumps.’ Well, not great titles, but you get the idea.

So…. what is stressing you right now?
• Do you recognize any physical or mental symptoms of anxiety or even burnout? Write them all down even if they are not specifically related to your writing life. It’s often the cumulative effect of everything that results in stress.
• What action can you take right now to reduce some of your stress or anxiety? Will listening to music help? Playing word games? Reading a good book? Traveling?
• Are you allowing for the seasonal shifts of the day, week, time of year? How can you factor that in effectively so that it will enhance your creative mind?

I suggest you keep reading (I assume you do) and take a vacation from writing. New surroundings may open up your creative juices. Walk through a forest. Go to the beach. Visit friends. Listen to music. Go somewhere locally, go out of the country. But go. Your writer’s mind needs fresh inspiration that a new local might provide.

Sue Powers has won some awards, and has published 18 stories. She’s now working on her book of linked stories, entitled A Surprising Measure of Subliminal Sadness. She will also be teaching Writing the Short Story, September 5 – October 17th from 7-9 p.m. at Hershey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

How to be a Writer

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What do you need to be a writer?

No matter what kind writing you want to do, you must read the kind of writing you plan to write. This is the maxim of every writer I know.

You also need an imagination. Now where does your imagination live? I imagine it comes from somewhere inside of you. The gut? The unconscious? Your heart? Your brain? It’s really difficult to say but I do know how to access it.

First you put away your editor. Your editor will always get in your way. Second, put a pen in your hand and piece of paper in front of you. Then start writing. Don’t think, don’t stop, let your imagination run wild. It doesn’t matter if what you write stinks. It’s the accessing of your imagination that counts. If you happen to write something good, go to your computer and enter the text you’ve written then keep on writing. You can edit later. The point is, get it down and keep on writing.

Next is craft. I know many don’t want to take the time or effort it takes to improve their craft. But if you want to be a successful writer, you must improve your craft. One way to do this is to join a writing group. You also must continue to read. Reading provides inspiration and education.

It provides education through the way the writer writes. There are also many books out there that are instructional. One of the books I’d recommend is 1,001 Tips for Writers by William A. Gordon.

If you have to mimic this author’s prose, go ahead. But don’t leave it there. Try to write your own way. A successful writer has his or hers unique style. Mimicking other writers is only a way to begin to craft your own style. This might take weeks or even years, so a writer needs tenacity.

Doesn’t matter what you write, you need to access your brain, your imagination and create your own style. You also need to dig deep inside of you and pull out memories, secrets and things you don’t want to remember.

So start accessing your memories and your imagination, beginning now….

Sue Powers has a dazzling array of publishing credits. Among her favorites are New Millennium Writings, StoryQuarterly, Another Chicago Magazine, Happy, Facets, The Writer’s Place and Samizdada. She’s won some writing awards and been nominated for others. She now has 15 published stories.

It’s the Bomb (worth reposting)

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I’m clearly an addict. First it was reading, then cigarettes, then alcohol, then cars, then men, then writing, then fast cars, then fast men, then women, then fast women, then more reading, writing…. Ok, I embellish some. Ok, maybe a lot. Sorry. It’s the fiction writer in me. But I have always been a reader and a writer, in love with words.

Now my addictions have reached new heights: to the FB word game, Lexulous. Which like my other addictions, got me the first time out, now totaling more than 2200 games. I can’t seem to turn away from it, though why I would want to is beyond me.

See, this word game has got a UK dictionary, which is the bomb. Ever hear of Ch? Qi? Qa? Ky? All perfectly wonderful UK words! Which is a big deal to me, because when I was addicted to board games, I was always swearing something like these were words, and the U.S. dictionary was always disagreeing. Now that I’m playing a word game with a UK dictionary, well what can I say but oh joy!

Of course Lex isn’t perfect. First, you can only play this game with your FB friends, so if you don’t join the ‘club,’ you can’t play. Which is very junior high, a place I don’t care to go back to. Second, it’s quite temperamental and changeable (for the simple sake of change, no less), and when it’s totally out of sorts, might be unavailable for the entire day!

But I’ll say this, unlike some of my other addictions, it’s not harmful to me or to others (unless I’m playing Lex while driving – not!), nor is it selfish or jealous. If I want to play a little Wordscraper, Lex or Words with Friends, for instance, it doesn’t get angry and shut down. Plus I have friends who like Lex as much, or nearly as much, as I do. Which makes life a little easier than if they scorned it, ya know?

Plus it’s free. No upkeep. No ashes. No cleaning up after. No arguments. No woozy head. No rejections, proofreading, or revisions— just pure word play!

Best of all, Lex has tiles the cats can’t walk across or place their little butts on. Ah, heaven!

So…game on!

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We can be FB friends if you want to play Lex with me. You can also find me at https://www.facebook.com/sjpstories. (Yes, the shameless promoting begins – ugh!)

Here’s Where I’m At

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 woman writing 

I’ve stopped writing the mystery. It wasn’t working so I’ve taken a break. I was going to take a Private Investigation course so that I could get inside the head of a P.I., but I chickened out. Well not exactly chickened out. I will take it. But something happened that made me stop and work on each story in my collection.

I’ve been shopping my book around for years – since 2009! I’ve made many edits since then and recently my collection made it into the 2nd round of judging and finished in the top 10% in the New Millennium Writing Sunshot Awards. I’d say that was pretty darn good! They didn’t do Honorable Mentions, but if they had, my story collection, A Surprising Measure of Subliminal Sadness, would have been on the list.

So that’s where I’m at, working on my stories. Wish me luck –I’m going to need it!

Practice, practice!

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Red reading small 2

After many drafts, I can finally say I’ve written a mystery book and it’s done. Done, but I dumped it. Hang in with me. I’ll tell you why.

I’ve been a short story writer since the day I could write. Then I suddenly found I had the time to try something longer. Having always wanted to write a mystery, I decided why not write one? I’ve the got time, I’ve got writing skills, what could wrong?

Well just about everything. The first draft was terrible. I forgot to follow the rules of a mystery where one clue leads to another. But the narrator had a voice that some in my writing group actually liked. Good omen, I thought.

So for the following next drafts, I concentrated on the rules of mystery writing, but the narrator’s voice got lost. It was dull, flat, uninteresting. Even I thought so.

Despite my best efforts, the following draft did not improve all that much. I began to feel mystery writing was simply not my genre.

So during a break from it to gain some perspective, I decided not to let my writing group read the final draft. I mean, really: How many times could I ask them to read the same thing over again? I wished to remain in the group, not bore them to death. But they said they were invested in it. So I had to give in and let them read my last draft.

The feedback was this: Neither the characters nor the plot were interesting enough to keep readers reading! Needless to say, they were right. That clinched it. Into the garbage it went. (Not really – I just set it aside.)

So I bought a book on how to write a mystery. Read it cover to cover. And now that I’ve gotten the hang of it and know my characters better, I’m thinking I may start writing a new mystery.

And that’s where I’m at now. It really does take practice to perfect one’s craft if you want to write something worthwhile. So I’m plugging along. Learning the mystery writing craft, i.e. perfecting my plot, my pacing, my characters.

Wish me luck. I get the feeling I’m going to need it.

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S.J. Powers (aka Sue Powers) has a dazzling array of publishing credits and she’s also won a few awards, such an Illinois Arts Council fellowship in Prose.. Despite some very nice rejections, she is still searching for a publisher for her collection of stories, A Surprising Measure of Subliminal Sadness. 

She lives in a Chicago suburb with her partner, two cats, one bird and a snake (the snake is on loan) and can be reached at firegut@sbcglobal.net.

Mystery Writing—Oh Dear!

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Bored woman writing immensely long essay.

 

 

I’ve been doing something I’ve always wanted to do: writing a mystery.

Sounds easy, right? Especially if you’re an accomplished writer. Think of a premise and the book should practically write itself. Well not exactly.

If you’ve been a literary short story writer all your life, you might want to create something more than just a good plot.

So I’ve created these goals for myself:

First, add a main character who develops as the plot develops. Which is what I’ve tried to do. But this has turned out to be more challenging than I ever thought.

Second, create 200+ pages. This is definitely a challenge for me. I’ve never even written a novel. In fact, I think the longest story I ever wrote was only 20 pages. Now to write ten times that and make it engaging.

Still, I’m plunging ahead.

But I’m back to being a beginner again. I will admit as a beginning story writer, I once wrote a story from the point of view of a grape. Yes, a grape. You’d think it would have been all downhill after that. But apparently there was enough going for the story that I got encouragement to keep writing from an editor at the New Yorker.

Needless to say I continued. Through my marriage, through the raising of my kids, through going back to school for my master’s degree, and through various jobs. It was hard not to listen to the characters’ voices roaming in my mind, even with toddlers yelling in my ears. So I kept writing. But perfecting my craft took years.

Now I have a book of stories, still waiting to be published…. Should I give up on finding a publisher and self-publish? At what point should I consider this? At the point of despair? I’m nearing that point.

But I’m not giving up. Instead, I’ve switched genres and am now writing a whole book, not a single short story, or a series of stories. An entire book based on a mystery.

But writing a mystery book is totally different from writing a short story. It’s a whole new genre. A whole new beast. Like going from being a water creature to now having to acclimate yourself to living on land. And that’s where I’m at, still acclimating myself.

Except I don’t have thousands of years to adapt. I have to finish the book, fully acclimated or not. And along the way, I have had to ask myself: Is the book interesting? Is the pacing right? What about the narrator? Is she engaging? Do I have too many sentences that begin with “I”?

My writing group thinks it still needs more work, and so do I. So I’m going to keep at it. After all, isn’t an author just an amateur writer who perseveres?

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Sue Powers, aka.S. J. Powers, has received a Prose fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and praise from her writing group. Her story, 13 Rules, won first place in the fine literary magazine, New Millennium Writings. She is now working on a mystery entitled She’s Not There.

 

Blog Your Book

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Guest blog by The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

Woman at desk thinking

Writers write to share their story with readers. That’s it in a nutshell. Of course, getting paid is nice, but don’t count on it. Getting your writing out in the universe is the objective.

Writing your book can take a really long time, sometimes years. And all this time you are likely floundering along, rewriting and editing, stuck in a bubble that lacks feedback or motivation. But finally, you deem the book done.

Now your choices are traditional publishing, self-publishing, or sticking your masterpiece in a drawer….

What about blogging your book?

  • Set up your blog.
  • Post short installments of your book weekly. This will build a following on Facebook or other social media sites.
  • Encourage constructive comments, the operative word “constructive” i.e. useful and insightful.

Maybe you’ve already established a following by blogging funny stories about your children or pets. Collect them and publish them in book form. You already have your audience.

If your genre is fiction:

  • Finish each post with a cliffhanger, and never miss an opportunity to market your book-in-progress everywhere you can.
  • Develop an enticing tagline.
  • Publish a weekly or monthly e-newsletter to your followers with side notes about your book.

Make it short, and make it frequent, the keys to effective blogging. When you finish your book, you will already have readers and feedback.

Postscript from Sue Powers:

Pat Childers, the Oldest Living Middle-Age Writer, is writing a mystery, working title You Name It, and I’m writing a mystery [as S.J. Powers] called Twist.

Stay tuned…..

Shopping the Book

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woman_man_thruhoopsBeen jumping through hoops and knocking my head against the wall since the day I finished my book of stories and began the publisher hunt. They call this phase “shopping” your book. And frankly, it sucks. Here’s why:

Saturday, Day 1: Finish Book

9 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Finish going through manuscript proofed with track changes by my very good writing friend, Kevin, who is an awesome editor.

11:00 a.m. to Noon Figure how to save manuscript so track changes don’t appear anymore. Which involved a Google search, a couple of head knockings, etc.

Rest of the day/night: Go about having a life outside of the book, pretending not to think about it.

Sunday, Day 2:  Find Publishers

8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Search through Poets & Writers extensive online database of small press publishers, stopping only for the necessities. Like bathroom breaks.

Why small press publishers, you may ask. Well, many are well-respected universities and presses, plus they’re best-suited for literary manuscripts. In fact, some of the best writers have been published by small press publishers. So, the reasoning goes, If they’re good enough for them, they’re good enough for me.

Monday – Friday, Days 3 – 7: Continue to find Publishers

8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Think about self-publishing while working the day job. Think about the cost, the self-marketing, the decision on which self-publisher to choose. Think maybe…..

6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Home. Continue search through Poets & Writers extensive online database of small press publishers for appropriate publishers for my book.

My Criteria for Appropriate Book Publishers:

  • Publishers who publish short story collections.
  • Publishers with current submission reading dates.
  • Publishers whose submission guidelines you can meet.

Which brings more head-banging and hoop-jumping.

For one thing, finding an appropriate publisher is more challenging than you’d think.There’s a whole lot of small press publishers out there, but finding ones that don’t publish only poetry, or only novels, or only memoirs, or sci-fi, or mystery, or romance, or only want historical fiction.. well, as you can see, this subject deserves a whole other blog post.

For another, not all submission guidelines are alike. Each publisher has its own, very specific guidelines. Still, I’ve been through the submission process hundreds of times getting individual stories published, how hard could following a few book submission guidelines be? I soon found out.

Sample Book Submission Guidelines  (underlining mine)

Publisher X:

1.IN “SUBJECT” LINE please type: LAST NAME / FIRST NAME / FIRST 2 WORDS OF MANUSCRIPT TITLE {What if your book title is only one word?}

2. COVER LETTER should include your bio.  {Ok I have one of these.}

3. AESTHETICS STATEMENT must be attached to your email. This is NOT a synopsis or a summary of your plot, although you may include that. It’s a statement discussing your creative process and/or conceptual intent. It’s a description of why your manuscript is innovative, why you made the choices you made, how you expect the project to be read or viewed, what you were exploring, etc. REMEMBER: We’re interested in your creative process as much as (perhaps more than) the consumer product that results from it.   {Really? So your book can suck, but if your process doesn’t….}

4. CONVERT manuscript to PDF. If the PDF is larger than 8MG, please send email requesting submission instructions.  {Why not just say, DropBox?}

5.IMPORTANT: Our Publishing Contract requires that you have read, understood and agree with our Business Model. Please read it before submitting your manuscript. {They have a Business Model?}

Publisher Y:

Steps to Publishing With Us   
1. Prospective author is interviewed by publishing representative regarding his or her work, interview typically runs 30-45 minutes, and during the interview we ask a series of questions to ensure that your work is a good fit for our publishing model.  {Yikes, I thought my job hunting days were over.}

2. After the phone interview prospective author receives an e-mail to submit the work for review. {How nice of them not to say, “Or not.”}

Publisher Z:

1. We prefer to receive hard copies of submissions via snail mail. {Wait – you mean actual PAPER?} 

Well that’s just a sampling. I could give dozens upon dozens more, but will spare you.

If only I could spare myself. Writing is hard enough. Finishing your book takes months, even years, of rewriting, finding and getting feedback you can trust, more rewriting, lots of re-imagining, removing stories from your book, adding others you were saving for your next book. Lot of decisions, lots of second guessing yourself, lots and lots of hours spent on the book. Still, it’s your writing, and it’s something you love and don’t really consider work.

But this book shopping stuff? There are at least a thousand small press publishers in this database and I spent one week searching through a couple of hundred of them. Result? I found 3 that might consider my book.

So next week, it’s back to the database where, if I’m lucky, I might find 3 more.

The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer On Reading (worth reposting)

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Compliments of Guest Blogger, The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer

read meWell it happened again last night. I started reading a well-known book (Anne Tyler’s Ladder of Years) and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t read it. It was just so much pablum. I even checked the end to see if anything happened that I would miss. Nope. And this has become more frequent of late.

Take “50 Shades of Grey.” I’ve found cookbooks more compelling. Now I consider myself knowledgeable about sex; I’ve seen some interesting movies. If memory serves, everybody has the same basic original equipment but honestly, eventually you have to run out of things to do with it. I could probably write a short story, or even a novelette, but to write three books about sex between two people there would have to be clowns and a horse involved.

I couldn’t read “The Life of Pi.” I tried three times and you would have to duct tape me to the couch to get me to try again. The premise was so interesting and I understand the movie was beautiful, but the book was… boring.  I bailed on “The DaVinci Code” halfway through even though self-flagellation is one of my very favorite topics.

I’ve been a big fan of bodice rippers all my life, but I am unable to get past the lack of hygienic facilities on a wagon train, or under the wagon train for that matter. So I cannot suspend disbelief to read them anymore.

I’m looking for that book that holds my attention and makes me think about it when I’m not reading. It holds me captive forcing me to read late into the night. Laundry piles up around me but I have to read. I can’t return calls. It’s all about the book.

Read anything like that lately? I’m all eyes and ears….

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The Oldest Living Middle-Aged Writer lives in Midwestern flyover country with her dogs. There have been reported sightings of her husband. In between innings of the Cubs game she is working on her web site and can be contacted at pat@pjchilders.com.