Jen's Writing Journey

I missed my Wednesday post because I was down for the count with the regular-old flu.

• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing
• Platform

The Business of Writing

Special Video Interview Series with Chris Anderson
Jeff Rivera got an exclusive video interview from Chris Anderson, proponent of the freemium model of book sales. He discusses marketing, sales, and the like.

• Part 1
• Part 2: Turning Exposure into Book Sales
• Part 3: What Does NOT Work in Book Marketing
• Part 4: How Novelists Can Sell More Books

Gender Matters
Novelist L.J. Sellers explores gender preferences among readers. Do you prefer male or female writers? Does genre affect your genre preferences?

Writer Inspiration: Jessa Slade
Do you have what it takes to make the transition from writer to author? As newly published urban fantasy author Jessa Slade tells us, it may not be as easy as we think. Turns out getting that first contract is only one hurdle you need to leap on your journey. Slade gives an inspirational and authentic look at her own journey.

This Week in Publishing
Agent Nathan Bransford does a nice job synthesizing all of the craziness with new e-readers, eviscerated book prices, and doom and gloom predictions. Do you think these are the end times for the novel? Or are we just transitioning into something new?

The Dreaded “R” Word
Over at Pop Culture Divas, Kelly Boyce shares her thoughts on rejection. She closes with some of the famous (and so, so wrong) rejections from literary history. Print this one out and keep it in your inspiration file.

Deadlines
Love them or hate them, deadlines are our reality. Agent Jessica Faust gives some good tips for ensuring that the deadlines you agree to will actually work for you.

In Defense of Print
J.A. Konrath looks at the arguments for and against e-books.

Craft

So Who Else Is Doing NaNo?
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? (This abbreviation always reminds me of what I would note in my unicorn diary if I missed a day of writing: Sorry. ForgTWri. Yes, I was 8 at the time.) Moonrat has poll about what you think you will get from the NaNoWriMo process. I see the process as similar to what you get from following the Book in a Month process: great experience writing a lot of words in a short amount of time, but probably not a salable novel. You’ll probably end with a really nice first draft that you can polish into a potentially salable novel.

Write What You Can Make up Entirely?
Novelist Rachel Vincent discusses the perils of writing realistic emotions/experiences that you haven’t lived. Do you prefer to ground yourself in realism, even when it involves experiences you have never and will never have? Or do you prefer stuff that is so fantastical that you can just make it all up?

Fiction

Ask Daphne! About My Query XXVIII
Agent Kate Schafer Testerman presents a sample query and her reactions and advice. What lesson did you learn from this post that you will use in your next query letter?

Avoiding On-the-Nose Writing
Author Mary Jo Rhodes discusses the perils of stereotypical characters and plots with specific examples of the cliched and the unexpected.

Freelancing

Free Webcast: How to Create a Freelance Writing Career
Mediabistro is offering a free webcast on freelancing. Sign up here.

20 Ways for Freelance Writers to Save Money
We writers are all lolling about eating bonbons and jetting off to Rome on a moment’s notice after we put in our half our of daily writing, right? Yeah. That is a nice dream. If you’re worried about making ends meet, Deb Ng has a roundup of money-saving tips for freelancers.

The Freelance Multiple Personality Disorder
Are freelancers just crazy people who have found a way to earn a living? Michelle Rafter looks at a typical work day and the myriad personalities she gos through.

Interview with Author Sara Morgan, “No Limits”
Have you read No Limits: How I Escaped the Clutches of Corporate America to Live the Self-Employed Life of My Dreams? If not, based on this interview, it sounds as if you should. Kristine Meldrum Denholm asks great questions, and Morgan gives great answers. Morgan serves as an example of what you can expect as a writer and what you should do to prepare yourself for the work involved in being an author.

Platform

Did You Write a Blog? The Times and Perils of Blogging
Rebecca Emrich discusses the issues you may encounter when blogging. So many bloggers start off great and then taper off. Did you have a blog? Did you keep it up? What did you struggle with? What would have made your blog seem successful and self-sustaining?

Death of the Book Review
Adam Penenberg discusses the ever-lessening role of book reviews in book sales. Do you read reviews? Do you have a plan for building buzz that doesn’t include book reviews?

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, June 25
• Writing Roundup, June 18
• Writing Roundup, June 4
• Writing Roundup, May 28
• Writing Roundup, May 14

I am a mixed bag of grammar and usage rules. Some I flaunt openly, and others I follow as if my life depended on it. I get angry when I see a misplaced apostrophe in a takeout menu. I want to mark up ads and send them back to the agency/advertiser when I see the use of the word “impact” for anything other than a car crash or “quality” used with no modifier as an endorsement of a product.

The rules I follow:

• Don’t use unnecessary words. If a word can be deleted without changing the meaning of a sentence, it probably should be.
• Avoid adverbs. Stephen King convinced me of this one. Adverbs can clutter prose, especially when they are used in dialogue tags. The verbs should be strong enough to convey meaning without modification. There are exceptions, of course, and I will use an adverb where necessary.
• Stick with “that” to introduce a restrictive relative clause. Some grammarians argue against this one, but I see no reason not to make the distinction between that for restrictive clauses and which for non-restrictive.
• Delete that. Other than using “that” to introduce a restrictive clause, I strive to delete “that” from my writing. Oh, I use it. All the time, in fact. And I don’t catch all of the “thats” that clutter my text.

The rules I ignore:

• Split infinitives. If the sentence reads better with an adjective in between “to” and the the verb, then I will split my infinitive.
• Prepositions. I take a natural language approach to my syntax. If a sentence works with a preposition at the end, no problem for me.
• Following the word “help” with the infinitive, including “to.” Does a guide to grammar “help writers practice good usage” or “help writers to practice good usage”? What? Both phrases mean exactly the same thing, but one contains three more characters? Yeah. I leave out the “to” on a regular basis.
• Avoid negatives. We speak in negatives all the time, and there is no reason the word “not” should be avoided like the plague. Some of the constructions I’ve seen that avoid “not” are tortured and much longer than they need to be.

What about you? What are your favorite grammatical rules? Which should tossed out post haste?

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AKG Mag just posted an interview where I talk a little bit about The Best of Learning & Leading with Technology. Read it here.

I also did an interview with ISTE over the summer for their author podcast series. Listen here. The podcast series has some great stuff, so check out the other interviews here.

Enjoy, and check back later for more chances to win a copy and for some notes about some cool resources I’ve found.

Related Posts:

• Review of The Best of L&L
• A Call for Financial Education
• Winners + One Drawing Still Open
• How Are You Celebrating Banned Books Week?
• Friday’s Blog Tour Stops

• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing
• Platform

The Business of Writing

Before You Sign That Publishing Contract
Diane Craver guests at Writers Weekly to remind us to take time to read our publisher contracts, assess the points, and decide whether the contract is really right before we sign.

It Takes All Kinds
Agent Rachelle Gardner tackles the demon of “if that book could get published, why can’t mine?” from an agent’s perspective. It is nice to know that it’s not just writers who have those thoughts, and it is nice to have an example of how to become more shall we say charitable in our thinking.

Readers Have Rights, Too
Author Courtney Milan discusses the ability to share digital books. Spurred by the New York Times article on e-book adoption, Milan looks at the level of sharing allowed with Kindle books and how that type of book sharing relates to piracy. (Hint: They are no relation.) Also read this related post on Emily Bryan’s blog.

15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing
Here is a nice list of publishing people to follow on Twitter.

An Inspirational Story of Publishing Success: J.C. Hutchinson, Thriller Novelist
Have you heard of J.C. Hutchinson? He is one of the self-publishing to traditional publishing success stories. After countless rejections, rather than giving up, he released his book series as a podcast. Now, his books a re being released in print format. Would you take this route? Or would you move on to another story?

D Is for Digitize
Here is a compilation of information from the D Is for Digitize conference. You’ll find some interesting stuff, including video from the presentations.

Agents and the  Trust Factor
Maria Schneider discusses the different levels of the agent-author relationship and the importance of trustworthiness.

Craft

Indecision
What tool do you use for your writing? I have tried yWriter, but I keep going back to Word. DarcKnyt gives a nice roundup up the various writing-specfic software tools.

The 5W’s of Motivation
Rachel Zurakowski asks some guiding questions we can all use to keep our motivation up when we’re tired, blocked, or distracted.

Which Tense Is Best?
Agent Jessica Faust shares her thoughts on tense in writing. Is past truly the be all-end all?

Cake or Death for Writers
Mary Danielson has committed to a lot for the month of November. She has three Golden Heart entries, two of which are in need of serious polishing. But, she has a plan and a set of strategies for ensuring that she actually achieves her goals.

Fiction

Dispelling Popular Fallacy
Want a quick and dirty outline to follow for your next synopsis? Author Ann Aguirre has that.

First Chapter Misadventures
Author Rachel Vincent describes the novel openings that she later re-wrote. It is always nice to know that we aren’t the only ones who get it wrong on the first try. If you’ve read her books, you can compare her original versions to the final versions, which might be a nice exercise to help you get your first chapter into shape.

Freelancing

20 Things You Can Do today to Market Your Freelance Writing Services
Jennifer Mattern provides some great marketing tips that can help you get that next client.

Is Anyone Really Listening? Social Media Marketing
Ever wonder why you bother with blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook? Thursday Bram offers ideas and insight that will help you ensure that your social media isn’t time wasted.

Are You a Snotty Artist?
James, at Men with Pens, responds to the ever-present debate over freelance rates. He takes issue with the people who say that those who work for and those who offer low rates are devaluing the work we all do. It is tough. We all need to make a living, and I am a firm believer in refusing to work for rates that won’t allow me to do so. But I also accept that people do what they need to do to get buy. If a content mill is providing the pay and experience you need, who am I to judge you? If your budget wouldn’t allow you to hire me, should I call you out as an evil carpetbagger? Where do you fall on the issue?

Platform

The First 5 (Simple) Steps for Growing Readership on Your Blog
A lot of writers blog, but not all of us are effectively using our blogs to build our platform. Jane Friedman gives some great introductory tips to help you bring more readers in so they can find out just how much you have to offer.

Throwing the Baby Out: Or Why Social Networking Is Important and How to Keep It from Taking over Your Life
Writer Eliza discusses the right way to use social networking tools to build your online community. She also provides some great time management tips to keep from wasting an entire weekend tweeting. (Don’t think it can be done? It can. Believe me.)

Related Posts:

• Writing Roundup, September 11
• Writing Roundup, September 4
• Writing Roundup, August 28
• Writing Roundup, Aug. 14
• Writing Roundup, July 31

Many days, I like to wax poetic about the things I have learned from my adventures in writing. Today, I want to do some learning.

I have learned a lot about marketing a book online, and I have some ideas about marketing one in the offline world. But, I’m hoping to gather some great tips from other writers to help my readers create their own marketing plans.

Each book and each author will have his or her own marketing needs, but we can all learn from each other’s experiences. Please share those in the comments, with an eye on these three questions:

1. What was the biggest marketing mistake you made?
2. What marketing idea gave you the most success? Did you expect it to be as successful as it was?
3. If you could pick only one element to include in your marketing plan, what would it be?

I’d like to gather the comments into a free white paper readers can download. If you include your URL with your comment, I will make sure the paper includes that link. I am also happy to give you a copy of the paper once it is complete so that you can include it in your resources for writers.

Thanks! I can’t wait to read your comments.

Related Posts:

• More about Marketing, Part 2
• More About Marketing, Part 1
• Avoid Marketing Missteps
• A Library Request Chain

So I read the post about how women were ruining sci-fi last week. And I got mad. So mad I could hardly see straight. But not so mad that I started posting my rant in the comments. I would not have furthered the discussion in any way.

I grew up on sci fi. I love sci fi. I love speculative fiction in all of its guises, whether it takes place on a spaceship, in a magical realm, or in the most horrific recesses of hell. I love male writers, including Philip Jose Farmer, Isaac Asimov, and Stephen King. But I really love the space operas by Julian May, Elizabeth Moon, and Anne McCaffrey. Stories that take the science for granted and focus on the characters. I loathe sci fi that waxes poetic about the inner workings of space travel at the expense of a story or a cast of characters that hold my interest. If a focus on characters douches up sci fi, well then, I prefer it douchy, I guess.

Here is a collection of some of the more well-reasoned and coherent responses to the “women are ruining sci fi” blog post.

• By Special Request: War on Sci Fi at the Fantasy Cafe
• Women: Villainous Scourge of Hollywood at Cinematical
• Is Science Fiction Feminized, or Is It Sexist? Both at i09
• My Vagina Killed your Jet Pack at Pink Ray Gun

What do you think? Do you think the evolution of sci fi to a more character-driven focus is destroying the genre? Do you believe that the purpose of sci fi is to lure young people into scientific careers? If so, do you think the less science-y sci fi will fail at that goal?

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Here is a handy table of contents that will help you quickly reach the topic of your choice. Let me know if you like it this way.

• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing
• Platform

The Business of Writing

Book Trade Can Avoid Music Labels Digital Mistakes
Publishers are scared. They fear the advent of digital books. I mean, we saw the music biz get eviscerated by MP3s and file sharing. But, in this Reuters report from the Frankfurt Book Fair, Georgina Prodham explores the ways in which the book indistry is actually better positioned than the music industry was to move into the electronic publishing model.

See Jane Run
People have been waiting to hear what business venture Jane Friedman was up to. And the Frankfurt Book air was where we first found out about Open Road Integrated Media. It will focus mainly on backlist re-releases but offer some opportunities for new writers.

Agents Are Mysterious People
Agent Michelle Wolfson discusses her process. She focuses a good portion of her interview to the concept of exclusivity when she requests a full manuscript from a potential client.

The Power of Perseverance
Kristin Bair O’Keefe shares the story of selling her first novel. It took her 16 years and some solid networking, but she did it.

Craft

Three Qualities a Writer Needs
Author Lilith Saintcrow paints a portrait of a writer, listing the three most important personality quirks we writers need to achieve some level of success in the biz.

Daily Writing Prompts
Writer Camy Tang shares a new resource for writing prompts to help you build that daily writing habit and to improve your skill through practice.

In Which Maria Gets Up on Her Soapbox
Writer Maria Geraci questions why people read books they know will offend them–why not put it down if the language or sexual content is too much for you? She prefers to read books about real people, she says, and real people swear, screw, and do other things some people may find offensive. Such is life. Maria’s post reminds us that we can’t worry what other people will think as we write. We need to tell the stories as they come to us, without censoring ourselves. Edits can come later if your agent or editor convinces you that you need to tone certain things down. But your story won’t be any good if you second-guess everything you write, living in fear that someone will be offended.

Fiction

Writing a Character History
Writer L.J. Sellers explores back story as it relates to characters in a series. How do you keep track of each character’s history? How do you parcel out the revelations so that everything remains fresh, makes sense, and avoids sticky issues if editor’s request big changes?

How Do You Show Feelings?
Heidi Thomas gives a nice lesson in showing versus telling, complete with specific examples.

Freelancing

Why You’re Not Cheap
Lori Widmer reminds us of the importance of setting firm prices for our writing. Don’t bargain basement yourself out of a living wage. I mean, if you’re worth the right brand of shampoo, you’re worth a decent rate.

Why Bloggers and Citizen Journalists Deserve a Shield Law
There has been some legislation coming through Congress to provide federal shield protection for journalists. However, like the FTC regulations, it appears to discriminate against independent practitioners, bloggers, and unpaid writers. Clothilde Le Coz argues why we all deserve equal protection under the law.

How Do You Handle Vacations?
Jennifer Mattern discusses her struggles with taking vacations. If you don’t have work coming in, you have time but not money. If your work is steady, you have money but no time. Vacations are essential for keeping your motivation and productivity up; how do you manage your workflow so that you can take them?

Platform

Five Tips on an Easy-to-Use Social Media Marketing Tool: Commenting
When you visit a blog, do you add to the discussion? If so, do you include your URL? I do, when there is a box for it. I find a good response rate, with new visitors clicking through to my blogs. Malle Vallik provides some tips of posting good comments on th right blogs so that you get the exposure you need.

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I love blogging, and I am like a crack-whore for Twitter. Facebook seems like too much work, MySpace seems like a place for pedophiles to find teen victims, and You Tube is unwieldy.

I have allowed myself to feel undue amounts of guilt for not keeping my Facebook page up, and for not connecting with family and friends more frequently on my personal Facebook page. I’m trying to move beyond that.

I am learning that I can’t do everything. I have too many responsibilities to waste my time feeling guilty about underusing certain social media tools. I also have too many responsibilities to devote to more than two social media tools on a regular basis.

I am sorry Facebook lovers, but I’m not going to be updating their frequently. I am not even going to bother with MySpace or FriendFeed or the others. Twitter and blogging are it for me right now. It is important to focus on doing what you can do well and enjoy.

Now, I have four blogs and three Twitter accounts, so I am spreading myself out there and allowing my different audiences to connect with me in a way that works for both of us. I just don’t think anyone will be well served by me adding even more social media to my repertoire right now. That could change in the future. When I have fewer projects at the day job and in my writing, I might be able to handle more social media. We’ll see.

What social media tools do you prefer? What are most important for a writer? What choices have you made to better manage your online time?

Related Posts:

• Differentiate Your Social Media
• Agents to Follow on Twitter
• Freelancers You Should Follow

Pulling together a group of like-minded writers for a collaborative blog is more than just picking a name and setting up a bunch of authorized users.

First you need to decide what your common thread will be. For The Romantic Journey, I wanted to bring together romance writers who were newly published or not yet published. But I didn’t want writers who were dabblers, so the criteria for unpublished writers was a little more strict. One of the writers and I were acting a critique parters, and the other is a freelance writer who has an agent.

You also need to decide on what diversity you need. The founding contributors to The Romantic Journey were really excited at how international our group is. We’ve got a couple ladies from the U.S., one from Ireland, one from New Zealand, and one from Australia. We are somewhat weighted toward paranormal, as my critique partner and I are both paranormal and our Australian author is urban fantasy. We wanted to ensure that we represented a wider range of the romance sub-genres, and we succeeded with writers of erotica, contemporary, and Regency romances.

Next, you need to come up with a theme for the blog. We are still in our infancy, so we will shift the focus on the blog as needed to meet our readers’ needs. We all agree that the focus is on what the reader wants, and we are soliciting comments and feedback constantly to help us shape the blog.

Finally, you need to come up with a schedule and tools to manage it. We set up a private Yahoo group so that we could keep a central calendar. We committed to one or two posts per month, plus responsibility for an entire week of posts every two months. That system is allowing us to keep a well populated blog without putting too much burden on any one writer.

The rest is what you would go through setting up any blog–picking your platform, designing it, picking your widgets, publicizing, and so on.

Have you done any collaborative blogs or writing activities? How did it go? Did you learn any lessons?

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Here is a handy table of contents that will help you quickly reach the topic of your choice. Let me know if you like it this way.

• The Business of Writing
• Craft
• Fiction
• Freelancing
• Platform
• Special Section: The FTC Rules

The Business of Writing

Letting the Market Speak
The Waxman Agency blog hosts this great post reminding writers not to put the cart before the horse. Focus on your writing first, and your career aspirations second. Still be career minded, if that’s your bag, but allow your agent and the needs of the marketplace to have a role in when and what you roll out.

There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be a Writer
Christina Katz, writer and platform guru, gives us a little happiness and light in this inspirational post.

Oregonian Memo: Many Current News Teams Will Cease to Exist
The Oregonian is up for sale, and the higher-ups are reorganizing in anticipation of a smaller news staff. The memo stresses that the Oregonian will continue to provide high-quality content, but I wonder what this means for investigative journalism in Oregon. Will Willamette Week be our only source?

Declining Book Sales?
Jeff Rivera shares his opinions on why book sales are declining at the Galley Cat blog.

How I Got My Agent
Novelist Laura Whitcomb, who is speaking at this weekend’s Wordstock festival, discusses the process she went through when looking for an agent.

Letter to a Soon-to-Be-Published Author
Andy Crouch posted an open letter to the new author. He tells us what matters and what doesn’t from his perspective.

Publishing-Related Backlist
This is a great collection of Moonrat’s posts on this biz we call pubz.

Craft

Fending Off Procrastination
This collection of ideas for beating the demon procrastination is invaluable. Though iced lattes aren’t enough for me–as you loyal readers know, only Diet Rock Star gives me the jolt I need to type through fatigue.

Finding Your Voice
In this guest post on Rachelle Gardner’s blog, Heather Goodman discusses different exercises you can do to find and sharpen your voice. Your voice is the lifeblood of your writing, and without a good sense of it, you won’t be ready to succeed.

Tip of the Week
The Buried Editor offers this advice this week: Write the novel that is in you, not what you think the market wants. If you try to time the market, you will likely be off. If you try to ignore the novel that is in you for something that seems more marketable, it’s not going to work. Your writing won’t convey the passion it needs to, and no one wants to read a book not even the author loves.

Positive and Negative Spaces
In this awesome post, Toni McGee Causey uses the lessons of architecture to explain story structure. Lots of great tips here about when to start a  story and how (and when) to build your world.

Fiction

What is Omniscience (In Fiction Writing)
Writer Kimberly Davis gives a very thorough definition of omniscience as a literary term, complete with specific illustrative examples.

Freelancing

Where Is Your Freelance Writing Career Going?
Jennifer Mattern reminds us that, with the year drawing to a close soon, it is a good time to review our goals and beginning planning for the upcoming year.

Platform

Using a Blog to Market Your Book
Todd Rutherford gives some straightforward examples of why you should keep blogging even after your book releases.

Marvelous Marketer: Christina Katz
Christina answers questions on Shelli Johannes’s book marketing blog. Christina provides a good summary of the concepts behind her book Get Known Before the Book Deal and a nice list of common platform mistakes.

Special Focus: The FTC Rules

I’m sure you didn’t miss all the hullabaloo about the new FTC guidelines requiring full disclosure of any financial relationships between reviewer and reviewee. At this point, the common wisdom is that giving free books to book reviewers is a financial relationship.

Fines for Bloggers?
Kate Schafer Testerman shares her thoughts and collects some good comments from her readers. The post also includes a link to the guidelines in PDF format.

FTC FAQ for Book Bloggers
The Boston Bibliophile blog hosts an FAQ written by a lawyer. Because he is a typical lawyer, he makes sure to remind we readers that nothing he says should be construed as legal advice.

FTC Guide re Endorsement Update
The reviewers at Dear Author are following the issue closely and ensuring that they comply with the new regulations. Their blog is a good one to add to your reader, if you don’t already subscribe.

Bloggers, Stop Worrying; Publishers, Start
Ron Hogan posted a late-breaking update that should help squash some of the fears of amateur book bloggers. Ron has been providing some great thoughts on the regulations and the concerns many of us have with them. Follow him on Twitter if you don’t already.

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