Blog Tour How-To: Interview with Jessa Russo

Jessa Russo

To tell us more about how to put on a blog tour, I am happy to introduce the author of Ever, Jessa Russo. Jessa got such a great response for her blog tour, she had to extend it. Let's find out how!

You've put together an impressive tour for your debut novel, Ever. What steps did you take to get this done?
I think it’s safe to say that I pretty much just winged it. I knew I wanted to do a blog tour, and I knew I couldn’t pay for it. So I started asking my writing buddies on Twitter and Facebook, etc. I happened to have a few tour-hosting requests come in around the same time, so I asked those authors to do a trade. I had an AMAZING response. So much so that I have doubled-up some days and extended the tour into November, when I’d originally worried about filling just October. Writers are awesome, and the writing community as a whole is so, so supportive.

Did you do all the work yourself or did you use any paid services or ads?
I did all of the work myself, even down to making the blog tour banner (in case you couldn’t tell by looking at it.) I think that the sites that put together these blog tours are professional and worth it – if you have the extra money to invest. Unfortunately, I do not at this time. Maybe for the second book in the series.

I know it may be hard to tell, but so far, what type of promotion has seemed to be the most effective?
I think it’s still too early to tell, but I have gotten a fairly good response to selling signed copies directly from my blog. People seem to like having that option.

If you could go back and do your release again, would you change anything? Is there anything you'd like to do differently for future releases?
I can’t think of any complaints, or anything I’d change, except maybeeeeee a bit more build up to get people amped for the release. But I was just so excited and wanted my book to be in the world. Plus, with a brand new book from a no-name author, it’s hard to really get people excited. Hopefully *if all goes well* there will be more hype for my next book. (Yes, I’m crossing my fingers and praying. Lol)

What is the most important piece of advice you'd give an author who wanted to promote an upcoming release?
Just that: PROMOTE. Promote, promote, promote. This is your baby, and you are responsible for showing it to the world. Don’t sit back and hope that someone else will take the reins. And above all else, ask for help. Your friends in the writing community will help you – in fact they’ll want to – you just have to ask. Don’t be scared. We don’t bite. Well, I don't at least.

Blog Tour How-To: An Interview with Krystal Wade

Krystal Wade

This week I'm posting on blog tours and D-I-Y book promotion and I'm happy to present an interview with book promoter extraordinaire, Krystal Wade. Krystal has done a great job getting her Darkness Falls series all over the web. She did this fueled purely on her own sweat and tears, and probably a lot of caffeine. Krystal is a mother of three, editor for Curiosity Quills Press, author of three books (with more on the way), and has a full-time day job 45 minutes away. She is living proof that if there is a will, there's a way. Let's find out how she managed to launch an amazing book tour along with everything else on her plate:

You've done a great job getting the Darkness Falls all over the web. What steps did you take to get this done?

Step 1: Give up sleep
Step 2: Give up sanity
Step 3: Become a chatty cathy and make lots of friends
Step 4: Hope, wish, dream, guess, make mistakes, fall asleep at work, run through insane emotions, etc
Step 5: Participate in everything I can, even if that means over-committing myself to things.
(P.S. If someone has found a better way, please let me know.)

LOL. I'll let you know if I find the secret to cloning. I haven't yet. Did you do all the work yourself or did you use any paid services or ads?

The only paid service I'm using is a Goodreads ad. I have two ads under one campaign, and it cost $150 ($.50/click). I've noticed an increase in how many shelves my book is on on Goodreads, but have not seen a significant uptick in sales yet.

What type of promotion seems to get you the most actual sales?

Books sell best by word of mouth. So, placing books in the hands of "fans" for free and then having them tell their friends about Wilde's Fire (Wilde's Army and Meadow) seems to work best.

What mistakes have you seen other authors make in promoting their books?

You know, I don't have much time to watch other authors. I think the key is just to never stop promoting. Even when you release another book, keep promoting the first.

What is the most important piece of advice you'd give an author who wanted to promote an upcoming release?

Line up guest spots well in advance of your book's release date. Write generic posts you can share with whoever requests. Don't forget to sleep, and don't stress if you don't hit #1 on Amazon. Start at the bottom and work your way up.

Wonderful information Krystal! You can be sure I'm taking notes.

Wilde's Fire (Darkness Falls)

“There is no pain in this death, only peace, knowing I am going to die with the one I love the most.”—Katriona Wilde. Katriona Wilde has never wondered what it would feel like to have everything she’s ever known and loved ripped away, but she is about to find out: her entire life has been a lie, and those closest to her have betrayed her. What’s worse, she has no control over her new future, full of magic and horrors from which nightmares are made. Will Kate discover and learn to control who she really is in time to save the ones she loves, or will all be lost?

Wilde's Army (Darkness Falls) 

“Hello, Katriona.” Those two words spark fear in Katriona Wilde and give way to an unlikely partnership with Perth, the man she’s been traded to marry for a favor. Saving her true love and protector Arland, her family, and their soldiers keeps her motivated, but the at-odds duo soon realizes trust is something that comes and goes with each breath of Encardia’s rotting, stagnant air. Now, Kate must unite her clashing people, and form an army prepared to fight in order to defeat Darkness. When so many she’s grown fond of die along the journey, will she still be Katriona Wilde, the girl with fire? 

10 Ways To Promote Your Book Before You Sign a Contract

Hello all! I'm back from my maternity leave with a sweet baby boy. In addition to the baby, I'm expecting something else this year...a novel. Although the labor involved isn't quite as painful, it has gone on much longer. :)

This week I'd like to talk about something I've been thinking about a lot - book tours and D-I-Y promotions. I'll have interviews with two published authors and a prolific blogger who hosts book tours. Friday's post will be a surprise (to both of us).

My first post will be about the first promoting you ever do, the tasks you can complete before you even finish your book. Since you don't have an actual book yet, at this point you're promoting yourself as an author and building a foundation you'll use to promote your book later. As with all good promotion, this isn't about talking yourself up or schmoozing. It's simply about gradually building connections, knowledge, and a social media platform.

1) Start a blog - You may think you have nothing to say and that no one will read it. That may be true, but still, a blog is a great platform to use to connect with other authors. It's the single most useful tool I've found and it will help you with many of the other ideas below.

2) Participate in blogfests - This is a wonderful way to build connections and garner followers for your blog. As a bonus, this solves your problem of not knowing what to write about, they will tell you!

3) Read other blogs and comment - It's such a small thing, but other bloggers will take notice of you and may follow and comment back...which gradually builds your network.

4) Get critique partners and beta readers - Aside form the obvious benefit of improving your work, this is a great way to build strong relationships with other to-be authors and possibly find your first fans. You can bet that these people will be thrilled to help you promote your book when the day comes.

5) Promote others - Remember the golden rule? Use your blog to spread the word about your friends' upcoming releases. Offer to interview people. Offer to do cover reveals. Write reviews. They are likely to want to return the favor.

6) Decide on what your author's name will be and use it everywhere - Whether it's the name on your birth certificate or a made-up pen name, you need to decide what name will be plastered across your book's cover. You should decide now because you need to use this name for your social media accounts to make you easier to find. Twitter = @Yourpenname, Facebook = www.facebook.com/yourpenname, Blogger = yourpenname.blogspot.com, and so on and so forth...

7) Buy a domain name - If one day you'd like to have www.yourname.com for your author page, it doesn't hurt to go ahead and snatch it up. You can do this at GoDaddy.com.

8) Learn about book promotion - I am the type of person who doesn't like to use brain space on information I don't need right now. So, I didn't research how to promote my book until after I signed my contract. I don't recommend this tactic. The time between signing a contract and your release day is happy and exciting but also stressful and busy (at least it has been for me). Use the time you have now while you're waiting for people to reply to queries.

9) Start using Twitter and Facebook - If you don't already use these social media tools, now is the time to start. Like blogs, they are great tools to help you build connections. If you already use these tools, start using them like an author. This means you should build an following of other authors and readers and post things of interest to them. In my personal opinion, you don't need an author's Facebook page yet, but it doesn't hurt to start gathering likes now if you want to do that.

10) Dress for the job you want, not the job you have - Yes, that's what I said. And I don't mean you should dress like an author (aka barefoot in sweat pants) to your budget meeting. I mean that you should take yourself seriously as an author before you have a contract. Have the guts to build your platform now. If you're working hard and willing to not give up, you'll probably have a book to promote with it one day. 

What do you think? Any other ideas for ways to promote early?

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I am hosting a free writing clinic and contest on my blog this month. You could win a full request from my publisher, Curiosity Quills Press. Check it out!

http://sharonbayliss.blogspot.com/
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https://twitter.com/SharonBayliss

How Short Is Too Short?

My first novel. It’s been on my mind for a while now. I always intended to go back to it. Reedit. Rewrite. It’s not dead yet.

But, like with anything, getting started is half the battle. It’s been nice to pull the old story out and spend the time thinking about it. Thank you for putting up with my doubts and answering my questions.

It’s a nice exercise to look at your older writing. I see how much I’ve changed (and hopefully improved) since I put that story aside. As I pulled out the snippets that I posted, I saw some glaring issues with them. I took the time and rewrote them. It wasn’t as hard as I thought.

But, the novel I wrote ended up being about 77,000 words.

From what I’ve read online, fantasy novels should be about 80,000-100,000 words. Even rounding up, I don’t make the minimum. When I set the novel aside, I knew the word count was short. Now, I know that I’ll probably trim a couple thousand words as I tighten the novel again.

This worries me.

How short is too short for a fantasy novel? Is this novel doomed? Or can it be saved?

Describing the Obvious

The world I created for my first novel was one built on magic. Magical abilities there are akin to athletic abilities here. Or musical abilities. Or intelligence. It’s something everyone is capable of although some are better at it than others.

Since magic is so widespread, these people haven’t developed the kinds of technology that we have in our world. If you can move objects with your mind, you have no need to create engines.

But, there is another group in this world, a group that is interested in what could be created mechanically. They like to tinker with gadgets, and they study science. They’re a marginalized group, but marginalized like a group who’s fascinated with an obscure TV show here would be. Those who know they exist don’t pay all that much attention to them.

The inciting incident in my novel is an attempt on the king’s life. The weapon used is one that was made by this group. My point of view character doesn’t have the background or vocabulary to name this weapon, but it is something that the reader should recognize. I hope.

Here’s where the weapon is described:

The assailant brandished a small, black item with such intent that I knew it had to be a weapon. His hand was wrapped around a base of some sort, and above it stuck out a tube with the open end pointed away from the assailant. Before I knew what I was doing, I leaped for the man. A loud “pop” sounded just as I slammed into the man, making a bruise-worthy connection between my hip and the assailant’s hand holding the hard weapon.

A small, fast-moving projectile came out of the weapon. I flashed to snowball fights in the winter with my brothers. Challerton zinging one at me with his face full of anger and intent. It was the same expression the assailant had. Those snowballs stung, but they never did any real damage.

So, snowballs filled my mind, and I forced that image onto the projectile. As the two of us fell, I heard a loud, wet splat. I fell onto the man as he hit the ground, and I struggled to breathe.

But of course I am way too close to the story to be sure if I did it, so… Did I do it? Do you know what weapon the assailant used? What can I do to make this passage clearer?

Rewording Magic

A long time ago (so long that I have no idea on where to even begin to look for the link) I read something about how to name things in a fantasy world. The thrust of the article was to not go and rename mundane things. If your world has a rabbit-type creature, call it a rabbit. The idea was that it would be too complicated to describe your rabbit and associate it with the new term.

I agree with this idea most of the time. But I broke this rule in one really big way in my first novel. I replaced the word “magic”.

In my defense, I did this before learning the rule. And I had a very good reason for doing so.

When I hear the word “magic”, I think of Harry Potter, Disney movies, and the like. In my story, what we’d call magic is an ability that just about everybody has. It’s ordinary. It’s mundane. And rather than give the abilities that feel that comes with the word “magic”, I changed the word.

In my story, magic is more akin to intelligence. Or athletic ability. One can study and train to get better at it. It’s not the province of magicians or sorcerers.

But now I wonder. If I’m going to go back to my novel and rework it, should I go and change the word back to magic?

I’d like to know what you think. Would it be too distracting to use a different word? Would you put down a story in which magic was called something else? Or do you see my point? Should I keep it as is?

Gifting the Moon

This week I’ve dug out my first novel (currently trunked), and I’m trying to determine if it can be saved. I know this depends on the novel. So, here’s a recently reedited scene.

This scene takes place while Elswyk (the main character) is recovering from a stab wound she received when she put herself between an assassin with a knife and the king. The king is grateful (this is the second time she’s saved his life), and he’s planning on building a statue in her honor.

Elswyk doesn’t like the statue idea, nor does she appreciate any of the other rewards the king proposes. Exasperated, Elswyk makes a bad joke.

“You won’t be happy until you give me the moon,” I muttered.

The room went still. King Zontyn stopped going through his papers. He looked at me. A smile spread across his face.

“You can’t give me the moon.”

“Of course I can,” the king said.

“How? It’s not the sort of item that I can possess in any real way. You can’t pluck it from the sky. The moon belongs to everybody,” I said.

“That would not be practical, but what I will do is proclaim that the moon is for you in honor of your heroism. From now on, the moon is ‘Elswyk’s Moon’, and everyone must refer to it as such,” the king said.

The giggles burst from me before I was even conscious of them. Elswyk’s Moon! The giggles turned to laughter, and in moments I found I could not stop. My eyes watered. I grabbed the wound in my side as it felt like it might tear. That movement made me lose my balance, and next thing I knew I was on the floor.

Hic.

The jerking that accompanied the hiccups stopped my laughter. I took a deep breath. I rolled and pushed and pulled until I stood. Hands on hips, I stared down the king.

“Your majesty…hic…I never asked for a reward…hic…nor did I…hic…expect to get one when I saved your life…hic,” I explained.

“But you deserve…”

“You’ve…hic…rewarded me.”

“It’s not enough,” the king insisted.

“Murder is a selfish act…hic. People who think that killing someone…hic…solves anything…hic…” Stupid hiccups! “I did not save your life…hic…expecting some reward…hic. I was there and I could help, so I did.”

Were they gone? Hic. Nope. Grrr.

“But you saved my life. I must find a proper way to say thank you,” King Zontyn said.

“You’re…hic…welcome,” I replied. “Please, don’t go trying to give me the moon.”

From this scene I took the title of the book. Elswyk’s Moon.

Now, I’ve had time to rethink and doubt whether this is a good idea or not.

Help!

I need outside eyes. Good title? Stupid idea? Believable exchange between my main character and a king? I’m leaning towards stupid idea at the moment, but I thought it was a good idea at the time.

Revisiting an Old Story

When I was 15, I got the idea that turned into my first novel.

A wizard with self-esteem issues gets pulled into the middle of an assassination attempt on the king. She’s not with the assassins, though. She’s trying to save the king.

(Yeah, I know, the pitch needs work.)

I thought about the premise for about a decade. I added scenes. I added characters. I figured out the structure of the story. I built a world to contain it. And then I got up the courage to sit down and write the thing.

I wrote a first draft. I went back and rewrote the whole book a second time. I set the thing aside for a while and then went back to it. I’m not sure how many drafts I went through, but it was more than three. Then I knew I needed to get other eyes on the thing, and I looked for beta readers.

Beta readers are hard to find. The ones I used weren’t very helpful. They either told me that the book was “good” or all I heard from them was crickets. After waiting on them for a while, I decided that the book was as good as I could make it. It was time to see if I could sell it.

I wrote a query. I even wrote a synopsis. I did my research, followed submission guidelines, and I looked for an agent.

No one was interested.

While I looked for betas and queried, I worked on other stories. I’ve heard many writers say that they trunked the first book they wrote. They say their first book was for practice and isn’t good enough for publication. But I’m not ready to give up on my first. Not yet. I think there’s still something there.

Perhaps I’m naïve.

I don’t think I need to trash what I had and start over. But there are some decisions I made in this story that I now question. So, I thought I’d ask for opinions. And then maybe I’ll revisit this book.

Did you give up on the first book you wrote? Are you still working on it? Do you think a first book has a shot at being something worthy of publication?

The End of the World

It's all in the details.

If you understand anything about world building, try to maintain that.

But it's a balance as well. Like anything with writing. A balance between what the reader Needs to Know and what is going to bore them to tears. Or at least make them Skim...which is worse.

You have to distill down to the essence, and build from there, fill in the extra bits as you go.

I find the whole process fascinating and frustrating. I get overwhelmed with the amount of research that a alternative history story takes. I mean really, I want to Make Up my world! But if I get any of the real history wrong it's going to be Bad. Badbadbad. BAD! I love learning about the history once I get into it... and really enjoy writing the little details that no one notices but me.

Ultimately how deep you go into the culture, how full you build your world is up to you. I truly believe that if you get lost in your world, your reader will as well.

Lost in a good way.

Not lost in a padded room and throw the key away, way. That's not so good...though it probably would make for some good writing.

The Finer Points

So we've covered our basic needs.

What else does a world need to function? How deep do you need to go?

Religion and Politics. The major headliners. The two generally go hand in hand. Maybe the political structure in your world is the same thing as your religion. Maybe you've suppressed the religions with a overzealous military regime. However you handle it, ultimately you need to understand how these major pieces work in your world. (Or don't work, as the case may be.)

Art. Is it inspired by religion? Or is it more free form? Again. These are just details. Not that you NEED to have art in your book...just that you might possibly need to know the origin of it. And if you have art, the difference between art inspired by religion and art inspired by nature is pretty big, from a society standpoint. (If you want to go THAT deep...)

Weapons. What type of society are you building? What type of weaponry do your people need? Do they buy? If so, from where? Do they make their own? Think of the details of that as well. How does one MAKE a bow? How long does it take to cure a willow branch to make a proper bow arm? How do you even string the thing properly? Or are you going to go the "gloss over route". "Hayden was a master bowman. No one knew quite how he created his masterpieces, but he made the most incredible bows in all of the seven kingdoms." (why are there always seven kingdoms....ever notice that?)

Technology. This one is somewhat tricksy. Personally, I'm in favor of a 'less is more' approach for this one. Unless it's hard Sci-fi. But even then, possibly stick with made up stuff? (IMO). I think the problem with using real technology comes in because things get outdated so blazing fast. You start writing your book on an iMac, and finish on a hologram a year later. But in that book you've put in a reference (or 7) to your trusty iPod. Which is now woefully outdated. None of the cool kids are using them anymore. I think it's best to keep it as general as possible. Get down to the essence of what it is you're doing. rather then using brand names (is that ok anyway?). Say 'Music Player'. 20 years from now when people are still reading your book they'll automatically fill in whatever the new 'music player' is right then.

So. Did I miss anything? What other topics for World Building have you struggled with? How have you kept track of your massive amounts of World Building Research!? 
    

You Can Dress em Up

World Building is a slow, painstaking process. As modern writers we don't have the luxury afforded us that our predecessors had of the infamous "Info Dump". (God I hate that term) We have to be coy. We have to be sneaky. We have to take our ever loving, sweet ass time building our world. And hope to god that our readers don't lose interest and wander away to watch the latest installment of "Survivor: Mall of America" on Netflix.

So. What exactly does it mean to build a world? How Deep do you know the environment you have created for your characters?

Lets start simple. Food. Shelter. Clothing.

What do they wear? And maybe this isn't a simple question. Because in many cultures clothing is a status symbol. But for the sake of argument lets just say it's simply clothing. Do women wear skirts only, or are they 'allowed' pants? Leather? Cotton? Do people make their own clothing or do they buy it?

Ah. And here we get into a deeper question. Society Structure. (See how things start to have a domino effect?) So...If people make their own clothing, what kind of society is this? Hunter/Gatherer? Warring tribes? I understand quite a few of these implied questions can be answered by knowing what time period you are writing in...but if you read my previous post...one can never assume you know anything about a story. Go Deep into your Culture. If you know the simple details like where or how people get their clothing, writing descriptions of that clothing won't be so hard. Do you see?

Food. How do they get their food? This is another basic need that can lead down a rabbit warren. Do they grow their own? Do they truck it in, fly it in, replicate it, hunt it down? But, knowing how they get their food is just part of the puzzle. What do they eat? Are they vegetarians? Do they eat mainly meat, cheese and bread? I read an interesting blog post on Rothfuss's blog about how most Everyone who writes fantasy will inevitably have their characters sitting around a fire eating stew. No explanation about what's in the stew or how it was made. Just that it's stew, and they were eating it. It drove him nuts. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he's right. And now...yup...drives me nuts too. So. Keep that in mind. No stew. Well. Unless it's fall. Then it's ok.

Shelter. Again. Not so simple a question when you get right down to it. Who builds it? Where and how do they get their materials? (A plot point RIFE with corruption potential!) Who takes care of the shelter? Is it a community thing? A family thing? Women? Men? 

Now again. Even though it's beginning to sound like maybe Tolkien and Dickens had the right idea...No. BAD. Step Away From The Long Exposition! Really it's just YOU that has to understand your world in this level of detail. That way when you are writing along, you don't get tripped up by simple details and your world starts to feel flat to the reader. Simple sentences like (a bad example) "She opened the door to her boudoir and surveyed her domain." Or, "He called his first meeting of the village elders hoping this time they would take his role as war leader seriously." These types of leading sentences go a long way to explain what it is you're trying to do.

I've been reading a lot of steampunk lately which has massive amounts of, well, interesting clothing in it.  Gail Carriger to be specific. She's great at little details like this. She just makes passing mention of going to the seamstress for the latest in Dirigible Wear. Skirts with weights in the hem. Suit coats with the same. That kind of detail adds a lot to the believability and depth of your world.  

Even if this is a world of your own creation I would do research. Research societies like the one you're building. It will give your world a bit more realism, not to mention it may give you ideas for things you hadn't thought of.

What other details of these 'simple' needs have you found to be not so simple to explain in your World Building? How did you remedy the problem? 

Oh, the Assumptions We Make!

I was going to start off talking about how we can work the culture of our worlds into our stories. But then I realized that I should probably start off with the WHY of it all.

I wasn’t really aware, as a reader, that there was such a thing as “culture”, or maybe another phrase could be “world building”. I knew some worlds worked better then others, were more believable...long before I understood what it was to Build a culture, literally from the ground up. Even certain writers have worlds they seem to understand, or maybe enjoy building, better then others.

For example. Anne McCaffery does an AMAZING job building Pern. Not so great with her Petabe world. It’s almost as though the writer herself doesn’t quite buy it. Or. Maybe it’s a different problem altogether. Maybe the writer just didn’t take the time to clue us in to the rules. She left us out in the cold. She assumed we understood what was going on, when in fact, we didn’t...and therefore, her world felt flat, one dimensional, and ultimately boring.

Jim Butcher is great at world building and revealing. He throws us in head first, tumbles us around for a bit, then just when we’re starting to wonder what the hell is going on here, brings us up for air and gives us a few rules and regulations. Then throws another monster at us. Good stuff.

This started because I read a very brief article months ago in Writer’s Digest (I believe) about the assumptions that a reader will bring to your story. It glanced briefly at how if, for example, you have a pregnant woman, the majority of your readers will assume that woman has a husband. Think about that. We are so ingrained to think that A) A woman MUST be married to get pregnant. B) A woman who is pregnant must have a Husband. (Which isn’t QUITE the same thing as A.) Interesting, don’t you think?

Another common assumption? All worlds are Male Dominated. Hmm. Really? Are they?  That’s what a reader assumes, unless otherwise informed. And not only that, if you want a female dominant world, good luck! For this one, you have to really drive the issue home. Apparently a female dominant world is a hard plot point for a reader to buy.

So to build a world you have to, as the writer, understand that the reader knows nothing about your world. Nothing. That’s a very intimidating word. They THINK they know stuff about your world. But do they? Are you ok letting the reader imagine, for themselves, what type of clothing your people wear? Is it important to the story? A savvy reader can glean information about clothing type by the type of story they’re reading, absolutely. But are you ok with this? If not, you have to work this into your story somehow.

A readers assumptions are nothing to take lightly. But don’t let them get in your head. It’s all about building your world from the ground up. It’s the details. Have you ever gone to visit another state, or country, and thought you were on another planet? That’s the feeling you want to hold on to. That’s how your readers SHOULD feel. You Don’t want them to know, for a little while anyway. You want to explain it to them. You want to control what they know and don’t know. You want them to wonder about every little detail and IS it important. Are the beads he just mentioned in that guy’s hair something that I have to keep track of? Or are they just a costume detail? It’s hard getting the balance right. Not doing the ‘info dump’ of old, yet keeping the reader from filling in the blanks on their own.


What are some assumptions that readers, cp’s, random people, have made about your writing/story? Did it change how you approached your craft? Your story? Were you surprised?

Gettin' some Culture

Culture in our stories.

Hopefully it’s something that blends so perfectly that our readers don’t even notice the crazy worlds we've dropped them in. They just accept the rules we lay down as Law.  

But think about that. And the kinds of problems it presents.

Each reader, male, female, black, white, gay, straight...ect. is going to bring to your story their own set of assumptions. They don’t mean to. They just will. It’s our job as writers to set the culture firmly in our readers minds...without being too pedantic about it...so they understand the rules and can enjoy the story you’re trying to convey.

How. I mean, to you it’s obvious that the woman giving birth on the floor of the hut has three husbands and two wives and the birth of this child will determine which spouse controls the village until the next child. But have you explained this? Because your reader will (probably) assume the woman giving birth on the floor of the hut has one husband. And that husband is Ruler. For all time. Period. No matter what.

It’s the culture you’re trying to build. Just like everything else in the story, it’s a slow process, but you do have to clue your readers in on the rules so to speak.

Even those writing in Historical settings. Good gods. I can’t tell you the etiquette crap I’ve dug up on my research in the 1900’s. Honestly. How a woman ever got laid in that time I will never know. If she so much as showed her ankle, I think she was thrown in jail for wanton behavior!

So this week we will be getting all culture-fied at UB!  Art! Politics! Religion! Weapons! Clothing! Education! The meat and bones that readers don’t really ‘notice’ about your story. But if someone is carrying an iPod around in a Harry Potter novel? Yah. They’ll notice that.

Self-publishing: promotions

Like a lot of writers, I'm an introvert. Socially awkward. I tend toward the gloomy and the "oh-God-I-suck" side. I've been looking at how to promote Disciple, making some plans, and this is what I've worked out so far.

Blog tours
Trawl (not troll) around the blogosphere and work up a list of blogs relevant to your genre. Email their owners to ask if they'd be interested in a guest post, interview, review, giveaway, whatever is most appropriate. Some are bound to say yes. Work out a schedule. Write what you need to. Blog about it yourself.

This can be very repetitive, and it's a good idea to write up not only your pitches and short synopsis (I use my query, for that) but also an author's biography and some stock paragraphs ahead of time. You do want to tailor your emails, your guest blog posts, etc., to each situation, but working from a template will save brainpower.

Things to have on hand: that pitch, the short synopsis, a biography, answers to common interview questions like "When did you start writing?" or "Where do you get your ideas?", a couple guest blog posts (see this list).

Goodreads
This has rapidly become the place to give away free copies of your story in exchange for reviews. It seems like a pretty wild and woolly place, and I'm still getting my feet wet over there.

Book blogs
There are indexes of book blogs out there (BookBlogger's list for SF/F) but you need to comb through them to see which are still active, which are accepting books, and which are trying to dig out from under their submissions. It goes without saying, but you also need to limit yourself to book bloggers who read your genre. Because book bloggers are usually swamped with stuff to read, this is a long-range promotional strategy. It's still quite viable because your ebook will be always be available, regardless of whether the review goes up in three months or eleven months. Make sure the links you send your book bloggers remain functional!

I used this
bookmark design
for Disciple's
Kickstarter campaign.
That's not the
final cover art.

Bookmarks and postcards
These are Cheap Things to Give Away. Online printers are happy to run off a pile of bookmarks or postcards for a reasonable price. You can leave them on freebie tables at conventions. You can tack them to community bulletin boards at local coffee shops. Have some on hand if someone asks, "What do you do?" "Oh, I'm a writer, this is my book..." (Hey, it could happen.) Make sure that they are:

• Pretty. Use that book cover art you spent so much $$ on. 
• Informative. Book title, author name, genre. Web page. Be sure the person can find you!
• Throwing out a hook. Use your Twitter-sized pitch. Maybe your short synopsis will fit on the back?

And get feedback on your design before you send it off. The last thing you need is a typo to make you look like an idiot, or that lovely cover art turning into a  blob because you shrank it down so much.

What other promotions have you seen, or tried?

Question answered: 
Dezmond asked, but I can't reply to comments on this site, so -- the Big Six publishers are: Macmillan, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. They each own many smaller imprints, as well as publishing under their own names. (Macmillan owns Tor, for example.)

Self-publishing: am I ready?

This is the tough part. We all like to complain about how much crap is being published, and none of us want to be part of the crap. It's very difficult to be objective about one's own writing. It's very difficult to gauge its quality. Criticism hurts. Realizing you've failed to communicate the dream in your head hurts.

What clues do you use to decide whether your story is "good enough" to be released into the wilds of Amazon? The following is what I used to decide if Disciple was ready to self-publish. These are only my opinion, of course, but it's someplace to start.

What your beta readers tell you
When your manuscript has been fully read and critiqued by several experienced, articulate readers (who are probably writers themselves), take a look at how much consensus there is on your story's problems, and how deep they run. IMO, there are three levels of story problems (these are not exhaustive lists):

• Deep problems: weak plot, holes in the plot, main characters are flat, world-building problems, lack of tension, serious grammar trouble.
• Mid-level problems: dialogue is flat/unrealistic, bad info-dumps or missing information, pacing is off, confusion caused by the narration or grammar. 
• Surface problems: voice is unclear, POVs need tightening, fact-checking to be done, minor additions and clarifications of facts and events. 

If you've got mid-level or deep problems, it's not ready yet. You need to get out the chainsaw and do some serious revision. When your story has worked its way up to only surface problems, start polishing it for publishing -- or submission to agents/editors.

When I committed to publishing Disciple, it was near the surface level and I put it through another round of beta readers to be sure of that. Their critiques supported my opinion. So I polished it.

What your freelance editor tells you
See above. A good editor is going to call you out on the things your betas missed. If deep or mid-level problems had come up in Disciple at this stage, I would have had to put off publishing it until I was confident everything had been fixed. But the revisions my editor recommended were surface-level.

What your gut tells you

Aside from being full of butterflies, that is. We all go through love/hate cycles with our writing, but which side is your gut taking, on the whole? Do you read critiques of your work and feel overwhelmed, don't know what to do? Or does your brain start burbling with ways to fix your story's problems? Some of this is confidence in your own abilities, but some of it also comes from knowing what a good story is and how to tell it. You get some of that by training your gut, by consuming lots of good stories (and bad stories, so long as you know why they're bad.) Some of that is... well, I do believe in talent, I'll admit. That's a thorny issue, though.

Circle back to your beta feedback, for a moment. If your betas were kind, they included some praise for the things you did right along with their critique. What sorts of things did they like? Did they get through complicated or difficult parts of your story without a hiccup? Did they sound eager to see more? Were they hooked, in other words?

Betas: do you see your power, now? Please be completely honest in your crits! :)

Some more thoughts:

• There is no "perfect," though you should shoot for it. I think it's obvious that I'm on the "be as professional as possible" side of things. People won't take you any more seriously than you take yourself -- usually less than you do. So set your bar high. 
• There will be other stories. However long it takes, you're probably going to write another one. You're probably already a repeat offender on that count, in fact. This one book is not the end of the world.
• You're not going to strike it rich, and that's OK. Most people don't, even with a Big Six contract.
• It's a lot of work, but so is being published by a Big Six company. I don't know where anybody got the idea that writing is easy, but it's not true. 

What do you think? 

Self-publishing: more nuts and bolts

Some more nuts and bolts of self-publishing: the book itself.

Dead tree edition
If you put your mind to it, you can make Word generate a decent-looking document. You don't need to try to tackle a professional program like InDesign -- put that effort into mastering Word. (Does anyone want me to try to explain character styles and paragraph styles? And why they're different things?)

To be honest, you can get away with not even offering a print edition these days. It's hard to argue with the satisfaction of holding a book with your name on it, but it may not be worth your time. Especially if you're selling short stories and novellas.

Based on my past experience: go with print on demand. Do not buy a print run, however few hundred books the minimums are down to these days. If you doubt me, come by my house and I'll show you the  boxes.

Electronic edition
Do not skimp on your ebook. This will be your bread and butter. You want your ebook to be a simple, clean layout that's easy to read. If you're writing a fantasy (like me) and therefore need maps and appendix materials, you want those to be neat and clear as well.

Maps, in particular, can be difficult. You want an image that's large enough (in resolution) to easily read and maybe enlarge in the reader for a closer look. But not so large that it bogs things down. And one rule of thumb I've learned from working with greyscale images: avoid using grey screens. They muddy up the picture very quickly. Resist the urge to mark areas of your map with a screen.

Cover art on ebook readers is an issue as well. Yes, the Kindle Fire is popular, but most readers are still black-and-white and not noted for displaying art well. Most advice I've heard is to use your color cover in the ebook, don't worry about the conversion... but I'm a perfectionist. I worry. I will have to report back on this after trying some things out.

Creating your own EPUB and MOBI files is not as difficult as you might think (I blogged about mine) -- and if you really are not up for that, you can find someone to do it for a reasonable, flat fee.

ISBNs
Do you really need one? If you're making a paper edition and you want to sell it, yes. When it comes to electronic books, things get hazier. Some online retailers require them (Apple and Sony) -- but not Amazon or Smashwords. If you make both a paper edition and and electronic edition, each one gets their own ISBN.

Why? An ISBN is a unique identifier. How many books titled Burning Desire do you think are out there? How many editions (print, electronic, collections, special editions, etc.) might there be? ISBNs let books be easily organized (by libraries) and sold (by retailers.)

They're expensive. $125 for one, at the official sales site (www.myidentifiers.com) -- but for $250, you can get 10. Several online publishing sites will sell you one for less because they've gone and bought a ton of them and they are selling you one of theirs. Or in the case of Smashwords, they will give you one for free. Which means that as far as the U.S. ISBN Agency is concerned, Smashwords (or whoever you bought it from) published your book. For most people, that works just fine.

I will be putting an ISBN on my print edition and my electronic edition. My RPG-publishing company bought a pack of ISBNs over ten years ago, but we didn't use them all. They don't expire, so I can still register them and list my near-defunct company as the publisher.

It's worth saying again: ISBNs do not expire. If you're in this for the long haul (which self-publishing is) and you want to offer both print and electronic editions of your work (doubling your ISBNs) and you're setting your self-publishing up as a business (for tax purposes -- way out of my league to advise on, but it's a good idea) then think about buying a pack of ISBNs for yourself. If you buy ten, the price drops to $25 each. If you buy a hundred, it drops to under six bucks apiece. And if you're one of these folks who can churn out novellas by the dozen... there's a good chance you'll need them.

Distribution
I'll come back and tell you once I've been through the process. :)

Self-publishing: nuts and bolts

Publishing is a field where you can do a surprising amount of the work yourself, or pay someone a fairly small amount to do it for you. (Compared to, say, how much a car mechanic or a plumber goes for. But that's a whole different rant.)

Artists
Of all the aspects of publishing, this is one thing you do not want to skimp on. Despite the old saying, people absolutely do judge a book by its cover. Make your cover artist a major item in your budget.

Where to find one? I went to DeviantArt.com and posted in the appropriate forum. The price you mention will determine the upper limit of the talent you attract -- good, professional artists know what they're worth.

How much? The sweet spot is, of course, those artists who are obviously going to go pro (judging by their portfolio) but haven't yet. When I was shopping around the portfolios, I gathered that the absolute minimum price for the quality I wanted was $250. But I budgeted for $500-$800, which got me some nibbles from professional-level artists. You can go higher than that, of course, which will put you into increasingly higher quality levels.

Cover design
Easier than you think. All you need is a program that can put type on top of your cover artwork. All the type you need is: the book's title, and the author's name.

Use a simple, clear font. You don't want people to have to squint and stare to figure out what your title is -- because they won't, they'll just keep moving. Don't cover the important parts of your artwork with type. Get feedback from someone who doesn't know what your book's title is, if you can.

Do you want me to go on? Just ask.

Photo by Jenny Rollo

Editors, line editors and proofreaders
There's a wee bit more leeway here than with your cover artist. I'm of the opinion that several excellent betas can do the work of an editor -- assuming that you're skilled enough to implement their suggestions well (that's a whole 'nother post, stay tuned.) If you can budget for a freelance editor, do it. This will be as big a line item as the cover artist, in your budget. Possibly bigger.

Your freelance editor may be able to be your line editor, too. What's the difference? Editing on the larger scale involves your story structure, plot, characterization, and such. Line editing is all about your grammar, sentence structure, the stuff in the actual lines of your text. There can be some overlap between line editing and proofreading, too. Technically, proofreaders only look for spelling, punctuation, correct layout styling, and make sure that all the edits on a marked-up manuscript have been done. The actual text is not an issue, for a proofreader. It could be in Greek and I could still proof it. Proofing is harder than it sounds, but it's one of those things people think anyone can do. (You know, like writing a novel.)

If you can afford a freelance line editor and/or proofreader, do it. If you have a sufficiently nit-picky beta reader, English teacher, or friend, you might be able to get away with that. The important part is that you want someone who can be objective and impartial about your grammar and punctuation. You don't want them getting sucked into the story.

Stay tuned for more nuts and bolts...