Wow, trying to correct the misspelling of my URL was just a mistake! I apologize to you all trying to get to the blog and we'll continue with out regularly scheduled postings via twiterfeed.
I'm not a web master yet but if I continue to poke around I'm sure I'll figure out what these buttons are! But I think I'll experiment on another website!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Why Every Word Counts
Marketing can do wonders for your book. But maybe not in the way you think.
Larry Prevost just posted a marketing tip on his blog (Larry Prevost-Awesome dude and great advice here)) outlining how the words "this" and "that" have a profound affect on buyers. He states the word "this" brings an item closer conceptually into peoples minds and the word "that" pushes an item or idea away.
While I'm reading Larry's post I'm thinking; words really do have the power to shape the mind. A simple word like "this" can evoke an emotional response much like "food". A gambit of images comes to mind with every word. It made me realize how learning the emotional response of words, even simple ones, can bring power to your book.
As I write my post I think, Now why did I say book and not manuscript in the last sentence? Don't they mean the same thing? A book is the finished product, while a manuscript is still in progress. That was an example of how to present words. Much like marketing, your words are important. There are more words in a MS than an ad, but learn from those marketers who only have 30 seconds or 6 words to get your attention.
It gives new meaning in my mantra (Every. Word. Counts.) I look forward to exploring the reactions I have to the words I read. Certain words draw people into a novel. It's all about the emotion behind the meaning of the words.
Here's one word that sends strong emotions in many people I know -- Hitler. One word. Yet I feel fear, hate, grevance, and a disbelief of one that can cause cruelty. I counter act that word with another -- Abundance. I feel warm, safe, comfort and my hackles are down. Wow. Words=Emotion. So when you're writing use that! Chose your words carefully because every word counts.
Larry Prevost just posted a marketing tip on his blog (Larry Prevost-Awesome dude and great advice here)) outlining how the words "this" and "that" have a profound affect on buyers. He states the word "this" brings an item closer conceptually into peoples minds and the word "that" pushes an item or idea away.
While I'm reading Larry's post I'm thinking; words really do have the power to shape the mind. A simple word like "this" can evoke an emotional response much like "food". A gambit of images comes to mind with every word. It made me realize how learning the emotional response of words, even simple ones, can bring power to your book.
As I write my post I think, Now why did I say book and not manuscript in the last sentence? Don't they mean the same thing? A book is the finished product, while a manuscript is still in progress. That was an example of how to present words. Much like marketing, your words are important. There are more words in a MS than an ad, but learn from those marketers who only have 30 seconds or 6 words to get your attention.
It gives new meaning in my mantra (Every. Word. Counts.) I look forward to exploring the reactions I have to the words I read. Certain words draw people into a novel. It's all about the emotion behind the meaning of the words.
Here's one word that sends strong emotions in many people I know -- Hitler. One word. Yet I feel fear, hate, grevance, and a disbelief of one that can cause cruelty. I counter act that word with another -- Abundance. I feel warm, safe, comfort and my hackles are down. Wow. Words=Emotion. So when you're writing use that! Chose your words carefully because every word counts.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Self Publishing Is Good For Publishers
As much as people see self publishing a threat to publishers, I see opportunity for publishers to reform, regroup and continue to be successful.
From the self published authors side after you write the book (hooray!) you have decisions to make. What formats are you going to offer? Print? Hard-cover, soft cover both? E-book? You know I've come to know there is a least 3 formats including iPad, Nook and Kindle. How about audio book? Great, after you've decided you have to go to more important issues. Even an e-book needs cover art. Who's going to do that? You need to copy-write it, I'm sure there might be some other administrative things too. When that's all done we move to marketing. Press release, tour if you dare, giveaways, campaigning, social networking. You'll have emails to respond to, results to analyze and books to ship out. Well, the POD printers might help with that.
Are you getting that self publishing means running your own business? You'll have a team that depends on you shelling out the money for their service, not them paying for the books and getting money from books sold. But wouldn't you want a team that knows if the book does well so do they? Don't you want people around you that believe in your project as much as you do instead of sure we'll print out whatever you want.
I can see a publisher taking in someone like Amanda Hocking because she's proven herself successful. A publisher can look at her numbers and think about the risks. If I were a publisher why wouldn't I take a motivated author that can appreciate what they would do who already has a following? Perhaps a publisher wouldn't take all the responsibility but it might give that writer a team to rely on. If at the very least the exposure of being in brick and mortar stores.
Sure e-books are on the rise and that's great! Self published authors can be successful and that's great! But, I see publishers being able to sit back and look at authors numbers to see if they want to represent them. If writing is your full time job and that's all you do then great! If you want to call all the shots, be responsible for all the work, shell out the money for your product then that's great!
But I like the interaction of an editor. I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong. I like letting someone create a cover and seeing what their visual "take" is on my story. I'd rather have an agent to conspire with about my career. I'd rather surround myself with knowledgeable people who love my work. And, I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong. I'd rather have a publisher to help me spread my books far and wide. I'm going to listen to everyone's advice. These are people who love books.
As I've said before, a book isn't just made by one person. Yes, even those self published authors. Unless they have a printing machine, write the book, draw the cover, edit their own work (how's that working out for ya), market their book and ship their book. What are you thinking? A book is made by many.
The reason why self publishing is good for publishers is because they can judge the future from past numbers. Self publishers are no longer necessarily that unknown. While we never know what's going to sell, the past books sold can give a estimate for the future. When self publishers find out how much work is involved in a book, they might find out having a publisher might be the way to go.
From the self published authors side after you write the book (hooray!) you have decisions to make. What formats are you going to offer? Print? Hard-cover, soft cover both? E-book? You know I've come to know there is a least 3 formats including iPad, Nook and Kindle. How about audio book? Great, after you've decided you have to go to more important issues. Even an e-book needs cover art. Who's going to do that? You need to copy-write it, I'm sure there might be some other administrative things too. When that's all done we move to marketing. Press release, tour if you dare, giveaways, campaigning, social networking. You'll have emails to respond to, results to analyze and books to ship out. Well, the POD printers might help with that.
Are you getting that self publishing means running your own business? You'll have a team that depends on you shelling out the money for their service, not them paying for the books and getting money from books sold. But wouldn't you want a team that knows if the book does well so do they? Don't you want people around you that believe in your project as much as you do instead of sure we'll print out whatever you want.
I can see a publisher taking in someone like Amanda Hocking because she's proven herself successful. A publisher can look at her numbers and think about the risks. If I were a publisher why wouldn't I take a motivated author that can appreciate what they would do who already has a following? Perhaps a publisher wouldn't take all the responsibility but it might give that writer a team to rely on. If at the very least the exposure of being in brick and mortar stores.
Sure e-books are on the rise and that's great! Self published authors can be successful and that's great! But, I see publishers being able to sit back and look at authors numbers to see if they want to represent them. If writing is your full time job and that's all you do then great! If you want to call all the shots, be responsible for all the work, shell out the money for your product then that's great!
But I like the interaction of an editor. I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong. I like letting someone create a cover and seeing what their visual "take" is on my story. I'd rather have an agent to conspire with about my career. I'd rather surround myself with knowledgeable people who love my work. And, I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong. I'd rather have a publisher to help me spread my books far and wide. I'm going to listen to everyone's advice. These are people who love books.
As I've said before, a book isn't just made by one person. Yes, even those self published authors. Unless they have a printing machine, write the book, draw the cover, edit their own work (how's that working out for ya), market their book and ship their book. What are you thinking? A book is made by many.
The reason why self publishing is good for publishers is because they can judge the future from past numbers. Self publishers are no longer necessarily that unknown. While we never know what's going to sell, the past books sold can give a estimate for the future. When self publishers find out how much work is involved in a book, they might find out having a publisher might be the way to go.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
How Do Writer's Measure Success?
Do you think being published is success? What about getting a fan letter? Is success measured by the numbers? How many books you've sold? How big your advance is? What about your skill level? Have you taken a look at things you wrote in the past?
Have you edited the work you've done in the past? Yeah, we all catch things we don't see when we leave it for a while, but have you considered that you learned more than before and that's how you can edit that old piece? Take a look at something you did 2 years ago, or even 6 months ago and look at it. Any mistakes you see now might not just be because you were looking at it so much before, but because you didn't have the knowledge to look for it. Or maybe your impressed with how well you did!
Perhaps old stories have something to remind you or something to re-learn. But measureing sucess of an unpublished author can be tough. How can one measure the expansion of the mind? Perhaps only by the words we chose.
I'd like to think my success is the reaction of readers. My success is having two friends argue at the dinner table about the two main characters in a heated debate forgetting that I'm the one that wrote the book. When they both look at me and ask who's right, I'd say--both of you. Because writing is about expressing thought meant for you to think. When a writer has readers thinking that, for me, is true success.
Have you edited the work you've done in the past? Yeah, we all catch things we don't see when we leave it for a while, but have you considered that you learned more than before and that's how you can edit that old piece? Take a look at something you did 2 years ago, or even 6 months ago and look at it. Any mistakes you see now might not just be because you were looking at it so much before, but because you didn't have the knowledge to look for it. Or maybe your impressed with how well you did!
Perhaps old stories have something to remind you or something to re-learn. But measureing sucess of an unpublished author can be tough. How can one measure the expansion of the mind? Perhaps only by the words we chose.
I'd like to think my success is the reaction of readers. My success is having two friends argue at the dinner table about the two main characters in a heated debate forgetting that I'm the one that wrote the book. When they both look at me and ask who's right, I'd say--both of you. Because writing is about expressing thought meant for you to think. When a writer has readers thinking that, for me, is true success.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Death Of A Blog
The good news is I am no longer distracted as to which blog I'll be posting at! Blogger has the publish post features in which I can dole out my posts at a specific time/day which I love! Finding relevant pictures will be challenging and so far, most my pictures come from the most wonderful stock of Donald Weller (Donald's Flickr Page). But it gives me the chance to display his beautiful talent.
So with a sad adieu, I've made a choice to continue blogging here. It could be for the best. If there was ever a need to see the archive, it's here.
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