Added Appearances Calendar

Hey,

I'm working on getting out there to sign books and talk about writing, what to do with a manuscript, querying, and all the stuff that gets something from 'I got an idea' to a book.

I'm a member of the New Jersey Authors Network.  Jon Gibbs and others contact libraries and keep the rest of the group aware of upcoming opportunities to speak about their experience and maybe tell some war stories, but also to offer advice.

When I first tried National Novel Writing Month, I didn't have a project plan all laid out regarding what I actually did.  I thought that step 1 was get an agent or publisher, then changed my mind when I found out more about the length of time between acceptance and 'on the shelf'.  Also, I don't mind edits, changes, or rewrites, yet I don't want the story molded to the formula because the formula worked for Best Seller Girl.  And see, I was ahead of the curve with a New Adult heroine, rather than de-aging Vanna to a teenager.  I could be foaming at the mouth now being asked to age her back up to New Adult today.

While there, I could also learn from my fellow panelists.  Publishing is changing at a rapid pace.

So I'm adding a tab up on the top for a calendar of appearances.

Writing and Publishing

I’m feeling so inspired after reading Chuck Wendig’s blog post ‘Ask the Writer: “How do I get Published?”’ 

I like the storytelling bit, or I wouldn’t have written all that fan fiction while I was unemployed.  Then NaNo came along, and I thought I could write 50,000 words in a month, even though I was back to working, and working two jobs because Day Job doesn’t pay what my Old Day Job used to pay.  To up the ante, I figured I’d write something original – new characters.  An experiment.

Well, that experiment was moving along in November 2011 when I started the month off sick, then I got cheesed off at something so I flipped my writing back into fan fic to make myself happy.   My word count jumped, besides having 4 days off with nothing to do – neither job, no relative wanting me for Thanksgiving  - and I ended on Nov. 29^th with 167,756 words.  On the 30^th, both jobs had me scheduled, so no writing.

Half of these words were the zero level draft of The End of the World Sucks. The rest was fan fiction that I posted, got some real reviews for, and then got trolled … because that’s the way fan fiction works.

So back to Sucks – I had this chunk of words that I could post for free on fan fiction’s sister site, Fiction Press.  I hadn’t posted anything there, but thought about my CreateSpace coupon and the much-touted *fears* that Amazon was only using CreateSpace and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest to steal everyone’s novels. 

Not MY fears, all the paranoid people that think they can’t pitch or query their novels because every agent and publisher is out to steal them.  200 word query = 84,000 word novel *stolen*?  Math doesn’t compute, but the logical part of my brain also calculates less people will see it if I never do anything with it.  Posting it free online will get some reviews and feedback, but this is different than fan fiction.  I don’t own those characters or settings so that’s for fun with no chance at recognition except as a quirky pen name. 

What if I wanted to do something for some money – average author annually makes $500 so I’m not thinking about my new Beverly Hillbillies lifestyle, just over time, if I write more books, I’ll sell more, and gradually make it worth the hours I invested in November.  What I didn’t realize is how many more hours I’d invest in edits and rewrites.  I spend more time doing that than writing, but I will hopefully become better when I write future zero level drafts.

I queried and entered contests.  Is it a jackpot moment to talk to an agent on the phone?  Yes and no.  I do really and deeply appreciate the call – no question in my mind that I gained something out of it.  I think I’d compare it most with a job interview.  I don’t mind job interviews so much, unless they’re clearly wasting my time.  And here’s the kicker, this happened early April 2012.  Some people query for a long time before getting THE call.  I got off the phone, bridges unburned.  If I altered my story to a genre-compliant zombie novel, I could submit my manuscript to him.  Since I now had his email address, I could have submitted it with no changes, but I understood what he was saying regarding the marketability. 

While this plum was dangling, I was reading online and going to talks regarding traditional publishing.  I work with metrics and contracts in periods of my professional career so my expectation was different from the way the publishing business works.  However, I can understand their viewpoint because they allow books to be returned by bookstores so the initial shipment does not equal sales.  They also package the author’s product and even if promotion is pushed onto the author, they do make the publication available through their distribution channels, which may have some proprietary aspects.  I can even understand the parts about the advance and it being applied to future royalties so I will not get paid again for that title until x number of books sell.  I didn’t jump into the ‘boo, hiss, they’re evil’ camp because I wasn’t learning about the inner working of publishing, just the author/publisher/possibly agent relationship. 

It didn’t sound like something that’d make me happy.  If I aspire to try to crack $500 annually with my writing, which is way less than minimum wage at the rate I write and edit, then I should go after what will make me happy with this – my plot, my characters, no mystery re: earnings.  Money would improve my outlook, but if only a handful of authors make substantially more than $500, that means that many more earn less.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older that I consider what I would like to do after everything else is done – I went to work, did things for the pets and foster kitties, washed my clothes and now I have free time. I could watch T.V., read, or run loose in the streets yelling my drunken head off (welcome to Sharon’s street – where I see people with red Solo cups dancing around the stop sign on the corner at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.  

Since I’m not joining the town bacchanalia, I stay inside writing, and I’ll rewrite to bring them up to the level where others should like them.  It’s my time to waste, and if I don’t feel like writing based on a genre formula, well I guess I’m throwing money away so I won’t be cracking the $500/year threshold to make it into Big Time Authorhood.

Don't TROLL me, bro

After my last outburst or blog post, you’d think I’d back my shit down, but I’m still finding a lot of dubious advice regarding self-publishing being touted with CAPS and insults.

It seems that if someone allows their work to be edited, formatted, proofread then it is no longer their story, and they never had faith in themselves as authors.  GIVE UP NOW!  You can’t compete with the accomplished authors (like the authoritative poster) who knows what they’re doing, and you noobs will save yourself a lot of money and heartache.

What do I know?   Any response to that hooey, and I’m rec’g  different versions of ‘@SHARON I’M CAPPLOKKING MY REPLY SO YOU READ MY RIGHTEOUS RAGE OVER YOUR TERRIBLE ADVICE – YOU CAN’T SWIM WITH SHARKS’ Oh, are those ‘pro tips’?  Given that they’re someone I should pay attention to, I wonder what genre they write in.  Ah, it appears they are using a pseudonym somewhere, or they are principled individuals boycotting Amazon.   I better not cross these guys, or I’m doomed.   Oh wait, that’s really DOOMED, eh?  Hey, my caps lock key works. Should I use it more to sound like I’m an authoritative person accomplished at writing, rather than a noob?  I really thought people trolled on political sites, fan fiction and gaming boards – not LinkedIn, ‘the world’s largest professional network’. 

Although I have been told parasites in cat pooh make me bat shit crazy, I keep my game face on while I’m posting on LinkedIn.  My author blog – well, I have to show some of my personality.  I am not writing IT or PM manuals; I write fiction.  Maybe somewhat strange fiction, but the parasites help me think (or so they tell me).

What I really know - Anyone can self-publish.  Write, upload, choose some options, and ‘Bam!’, you’re an author.  Congratulations? 

Am I trying to be facetious to keep everyone from becoming rich and famous as authors?  Writing is not a get rich quick scheme.  Many authors keep their day jobs, and possibly their second jobs.  I have.  That’s why I can’t afford to go putting a CAP in someone’s ass all over LinkedIn.

Someone referred to an article that claimed the average author makes only $500 per year.  I think that’s possible, based on the amount of new authors, the number of authors that are not paid handsomely by traditional publishers, and the authors that may not be trying to sell something that readers would buy.

I offered advice geared towards the self-published author – both new and even those that may have titles out but wonder what’s wrong after months of bad sales and reviews.  I think it costs a candle nothing to light another candle, and I don’t drop a bunch of low star reviews on Amazon when I see poor ‘Look Inside’ reveals.

Plot aside, what does that book look like?  Is it formatted for easy reading – check out Joel Friedlander’s blog - http://www.thebookdesigner.com/  Study it.   Learn.  If I was to post hints here, they’d come right from Joel’s blog.  A self-published book should not be uglier than a traditionally published book.  You don’t want the reader to click on ‘look inside’ and cringe – that’s if they got past your cover and decided to click. 

So formatting is somewhere that I think authors can spend a little more time, and by that I mean hardly any time at all to do it right.  I don’t know why justifying text is self-pub kryptonite, but it seemingly is true.  Pick up a regular, traditionally published book – look inside it. Is your printed book going to look something like that?  What’s different?  Fix that.

I used CreateSpace and was happy with the result of uploading using their Word template and their cover maker using images licensed from Shutterstock.  Like anything else, there are people out there who make a living formatting text and making cover art.  Sometimes you can find help on Fiverr – results vary widely on Fiverr, but it’s only $5 a gig.  

Next – Plot [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)].  Is there one?  Is it suitable for what you wish to communicate?  Can the reader understand it?  This is a problem of mine.  I write long sentences, don’t always put in the little words, and I know exactly what I mean no matter how circular the route to get to the point – why don’t you?  You won’t know that answer unless someone else reads it and says something.  That’s part of what an editor does.  There’s different ways to get your work read and commented upon – critique groups, exchanging with another author (you read theirs), or a family member that reads voraciously and can be conned into reading your crap.  With all those, the benefit is it may be *free*, but the caveat is that the input is only as good as the person reading it.

I like critique groups because I can also learn from what’s being said about others’ work.  The drawback is that one bad apple can mess things up, and leave me feeling it’s a waste of time.  Since I do like getting things accomplished in my ‘free time’, I have little tolerance for divas throwing other people’s stories onto the table and declaring it’s no good because there is a semi-colon.  Nothing about content, because the semicolon is that offensive to them.  If only I brought my laptop – I'd so CAP her so hard, she'd think I'd become a professional writer/editor/social commentator/trollwad.

There are also free-lance editors.  I would advise someone to either get recommendations from an author who you admire or writes something similar, or ask the editor if it’s possible to get a multi-page or one chapter sample edit.  It is your money – so you want to get your money’s worth, and probably not waste time because an editor won’t have that manuscript back to you tomorrow. 

Maybe it’s because I’m an intolerant crazy cat lady that I get so picky, and don’t just want the cheapest editor around to add strikethroughs everywhere.  I also do not want to receive back something that makes me work to find the edits.  If I send a MS Word document (or Open Office), I want changes tracked and comments added to the document.  Do not send me back a corrected pdf and expect that I will accept all changes.  Chances are I’ll accept many of the changes, but I want the option to reject some.  In the end, it’s my name on this so if I want to ignore perfectly good advice, that’s my problem.

Editors may also suggest plot changes.  Some can be pretty big.  For The End of the World Sucks, I rec’d two big ones, besides the cries of sacrilege because I was breaking genre commandments (vampire and zombies are never together, and all zombie books must start at the outbreak).  The first was to add romance - I mocked it for a couple days, but then my teen said she expected some romance too since there was a vampire in the novel.  So I changed ages, added about 10,000 words, and now have to outline a sequel (possibly for 2012 NaNoWriMo).  I think the second one is on par with ‘add romance’, but just didn’t fit with my concept for this plot.  Change the main character, kill someone dear to him/her, have him/her train all through the novel, then at the end the main character saves everyone by killing the zombies in a winner takes all grand battle.  To me, that reads like the plot of any ‘killed my teacher’ vengeance, kung fu film with a lot more enemies at the end.

After editing, possibly rewriting, the manuscript is almost ready to go.  What about proofreading?  Someone needs to go through the reworked document looking for the little errors, and scrawling something like ‘so many commas’ on the page for you, besides showing you which ones need to be removed or added.  It’s checking spelling, grammar and language usage.  A couple will not bother most readers, but if it’s riddled with errors, that’s too distracting, and if someone ends up feeling they wasted money buying your book, it’s likely they’ll leave a bad review.  Bad Reviews are bad. 

Consider proofreading. It’s not as easy to find a proofreader as an editor because it’s hard work, but they’re out there. Though you can give them some direction – one rewrote some dialogue for me.  I don’t talk that properly so I did not accept those changes.

If your grammar, spelling and all is good, you might be able to work out an exchange with someone to keep your costs low.  Don’t try to inflict really bad prose on someone, unless they’re equally in need of help (though how can you help each other?).

In a way this comes back to self-published versus traditionally published.  If an author wants no part of design, format, editing and proofreading, a traditional publisher handles all that.  Win-win. 

If an author wants no part of it and self-publishes, it’s not likely to sell well. Not impossible, but it’s almost as if the author is sabotaging themselves by not putting their best effort into it.

The self-published author also has to consider cost.  Remember that figure from the beginning that authors average $500 per year?  It could be the figure is misleading, and if you spend $2,000 on a full-package deal (cover, edit, proofread, format and upload), you sell $2,500 of books, netting $500.  To me, that sounds risky.  I could just as easily lose $500 or more, rather than make $500.

What I’m seeing among the obviously self-published authors is a category that weakens the whole label of self- published and equates it with trash.  Kindle is allowing novella publishing – I have no problem with that concept, there’s some great shorter fiction.  So I’ll see a lot of 89 page, 99 cent offerings while I’m mucking around on Amazon.  Everything’s fine until I click on ‘Look Inside’.  Being a shorter work, there’s less pages available for sampling, but even in that short taste of the book, I have enough to form a bad opinion, if the 2-star review average didn’t give me a clue.

A couple clicks in Word before uploading would have made it better formatted, also those red, squiggly lines mean something – look those words up, don’t just upload it willy-nilly because your fans need your latest book tonight.

If that fails, here are the community guidelines from FanFiction.net   Authors share fan fiction freely, since they cannot try to sell another’s ideas, characters …   So should free fan fiction have a higher standard than self-published fiction? 

Here is a list of conducts that should always be observed:

1. Spell check all story and poetry. There is no excuse for not performing this duty. If you do not have a word processor that has the spell checking feature, use a search engine such as Google.com to find one.
2. Proofread all entries for grammar and other aspects of writing before submission. 'Hot off the press' content is often riddled with errors. No one is perfect but it is the duty of the writer to perform to the best of his/her ability.
3. Respect the reviewers. Not all reviews will strictly praise the work. If someone rightfully criticizes a portion of the writing, take it as a compliment that the reviewer has opted to spend his/her valuable time to help improve your writing.
4. Everyone here is an aspiring writer. Respect your fellow members and lend a helping a hand when they need it. Like many things, the path to becoming a better writer is often a two way street.

5.    Use proper textual formatting. For example: using only capital letters in the story title, summary, or content is not only incorrect but also a disregard for the language itself.

In conclusion, Rule #5 says watch those caps lock rants. Fan Fiction is not the pro-tip source, but it does seem more polite, even if there’s tons of troll reviews :^)

Time & Materials for Self-Publishing

Or what I would call a T&M metric.

Actually, this blog post is more personal than that because there’s been questions, and perhaps my answers are falling short.

I’m an idea person.  For years, I would think of alternate versions of stories, shows and whatever, and when I was laid off in 2009, I read fanfiction, then wrote some.  I did not convert any of that into original fiction, but there’s some similar ideas and themes.

Then I heard about NaNoWriMo in 2011.  At the time, I was back to working full-time, and still kept my part-time job from my unemployment phase because my pay was drastically reduced.  However, I was good at spitting out large amounts of words so I was undaunted by the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days.

I wrote the first draft for The End of the World Sucks in November 2011.  Some NaNoWriMo participants call it quits on Nov. 30^th – mission accomplished or not.  It’s the writing that’s important, not who sees it.

From my fan fiction, I knew that some people liked what I write (though there’s others who set up troll accounts to keep voicing their hate continually – I’m that much of a literary force?).  I could post it for free to the internet, and point people to it.

But there’s also the possibility that it was a publishable idea/story.   To ask for money though, I felt the story needed to be stronger and improved.  It’s a two-way street – I invest time into the writing and making it better, and someone pays for the diversion and hopeful enjoyment of reading it.

So I entered months of critiquing, editing and finally proofreading. Why did it take months?  It wasn’t that the manuscript was that big a pile of crap, but I have limited free time.  Besides working, I also do volunteer work, and at times, my teenager needs me for parental things.  

During this period, I tested the waters regarding traditional publishing.  I understood it would take time, but I was getting the feeling that what I had was not genre-specific enough, but drew enough on the horror elements that it couldn’t be a mainstream novel.

I’m ok with that.  I don’t feel like rewriting the story with a kick-ass, unreal hero(ine) with all sorts of mad survival skillz.  She’s intentionally normal … or somewhat normal. Vanna’s not me, but I have observed some young ladies at my part-time job that could be close (the client’s employees, not my colleagues), and I’ve also watched enough television and news stories to fill in more details.

I also did not want to rewrite the disaster that put her in this situation – Vanna hiding in her house for a month after a zombie outbreak can be dramatic, I suppose, but I was interested in what happened after that.  That’s what the story’s about. Many other tales begin with the outbreak, and then the search for other survivors.  I wanted to investigate what happens once someone survives to that point.

Also, I don’t have enough zombie action.  Since I intentionally have Vanna as the main character, and she’s rather normal, why would she want to head towards zombies?  I’m leery of storylines that have characters continually putting themselves in danger, without good reasons to do that.  I’m even more critical when during their repeated attempts to do stupid things, the skilled characters martyr themselves to save the idiot.  Good going, idiot.  Now who’s going to save you from yourself?

Then the final straw was zombies and vampires don’t mix.  I wouldn’t say they’re mixing in my book, they coexist.  I feel that zombies would present a problem to a vampire if they need living human blood to survive.  What’s a vampire to do?  That leads into a secondary problem that some people don’t like which is other characters having motivation that may not mesh with the main character.  I’m writing crazy ass plot with everyone having an agenda.  Most start with ‘stay alive’, but it diverges after that.  I don’t think that’s such a big deal because even in a simple sounding murder mystery, it’s not as easy as everyone versus the killer.

So, when I decided on self-publishing, I had to learn what was what.  I’m not in this profession, and less than a year ago, I didn’t even know people doing it.

I have to spend time on ‘the author platform’.  That means this blog/web site, Twitter, Facebook, and trying not to spend too much time on GoodReads.   I’m supposed to be talking about what I know and what I’m working on.  Well, I’m not labeling myself as a professional writer, but I don’t mind sharing what I’ve found out.  A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

On top of that, and getting the manuscript text polished, people started talking about costs.  I didn’t spend anything on the author platform, except my time.

I had a coupon for CreateSpace from NaNo – 5 free copies of the novel, but I needed to pay for shipping.  I won a second coupon with the same offer.  Expiration date: June 30^th.  Shipping costs $11.90, and I have ten printed copies of my novel.

Before that June 30^th deadline though, I had some other expenses like editing and proofreading, and I also wanted to have a certain look to the cover so I licensed some images from Shutterstock.  I also licensed some extras of the same female model to use because one of the writing groups I had joined suggested that I put back story for the novel on my web site.

I also opted to officially copyright.  Work is copyrighted from the moment an author writes it, but the $35 seemed a reasonable price.  It’s certainly less than buying my own ISBNs.

Once I had my cover image, I splurged on Vistaprint and ordered some business cards with my book cover and social media list, and also some postcards.  Vistaprint may be in what’s considered a dying field – business cards and other marketing items – but they’re keeping it alive with their great pricing.  If I break it down, a color postcard cost me six cents.  Between both sides, it lists my book title, July publication, a blurb, and sets the expectation that it's about 'Zombies, a vampire, and human social drama.'

That leads to the three-part question that spurred me to write this post – “How do you expect to make money as an author when you are spending so much to self-publish, especially when it takes you more than six months to get a novel to market?  Additionally, how can you consider yourself successful if no one is waiting to buy your book when it first comes out?”

I’m going to answer the second part first, since to me that seems like the no-brainer – I’m not quitting my day job, or even my part-time job because I need that income.  Once I begin making ‘real money’ as an author, I can reconsider that possibility.  I don’t believe six months is an unreasonable period of time to work on editing my first professional novel.  If I had pursued the traditional publishing route further, and was successful, it may be 18 to 24 months before the book was scheduled to be published.  I hope to become quicker as I practice good writing habits.

How do I make money with this?  Well, I have a spreadsheet listing my costs to date because if I have income, I should deduct business expenses.  Since I’m tight-fisted in this endeavor, I spent $141.  Some people may spend more, and there’s less expensive ways to do this.  I am comfortable risking this investment. 

During the first week, I sold a few copies through the kindle format, one through the Nook format.  Some people have said they ordered the paper version of the novel, but Amazon/CreateSpace is not reporting those sales yet.  My best royalty rate is roughly $2 and that’s for the Kindle version.  So if 70 kindle versions are bought, that’s my breakeven point.   I also have extra paper, physical copies in my possession that I could sell for $10 each, if I join a local author talk circuit.

My business plan is to wait for positive reviews and word-of-mouth.  I believe the early orders are from people that know me, but I have no definitive proof except for the person who has the novel on her Nook.  The forward-looking part is if there are no sales through Smashwords, and B&N/Nook is stagnant, I will opt to go exclusively with Amazon for a 90-day period.

And BTW, I think that line of questioning is a deterrent to everyone considering in investing in a better, self-published product that saw them posted @Sharon because I recommended self-published authors invest time and money in editing and proofreading.