Category: LDS Publisher

Posts on navigating the LDS publishing world.

Need an LDS Writers Forum?

Hi, Publisher!

I’ve been following your blog for some weeks now, but I haven’t seen your name (or a moniker) anywhere mentioned, so I apologize if there is one. (LDSP is fine.)
I really enjoy your blogs and the info about LDS authors. I know how much work blogs are, so thank you for making the information available. (Thank you.)

I was wondering if you could recommend an LDS writers forum. I wrote a lot when I was in high school and university and I’m now looking to start again. I realize the importance of peer feedback and I’m looking for an online place for discussion, etc. If you have any recommendations, I’d appreciate that a lot.

Thank you!

Wow. Tough question. And Google is not my friend today.

There used to be an excellent LDS writer forum at latterdayauthors.com, but I think it’s sort of gone by the wayside. (Does anyone know anything about this forum?)

There’s also Authors Incognito, but you have to attend one of the LDStorymakers Conferences to sign up for that one.

And there’s the Nauvoo Workshop for LDS Writers. I don’t really know anything about that one.

Readers, help!!

Reflexives!! by Annette Lyon

Thought that maybe if I put lots of exclamation points in the title, that reflexives would sound exciting!

Did it work? 🙂

Lara from Overstuffed brought up a funky English quirk with reflexive pronouns. I tried to dig around and ferret out the reason for the quirk, to no avail. So instead of explaining the history of the quirk, we’ll just discuss it!

Before we get to the quirk:

What the heck are we talking about?

Reflexive pronouns are ones where an action is being performed on the subject by the subject. For example:

Tommy can feed himself now.
While making dinner, Alicia accidentally cut herself with a knife.
They looked at themselves in the mirror.
You can help yourself to a drink.

And so on.

It’s important to use reflexive pronouns when they’re called for. Why? Because without them, you can create sentences that are grammatically correct but totally confusing.

The following sentence is from above but without the reflexive pronoun:

While making dinner, Alicia accidentally cut her with a knife.

See the confusion?

Did Alicia accidentally cut her sister or neighbor or some other female (her) in the kitchen? Or did Alicia cut Alicia? (Did she cut herself?)

Similarly:

They looked at them in the mirror.

We potentially have two groups. The group that is looking and the group that is reflected in the mirror. Or are they the same group? If it’s the same group, a reflexive pronoun takes away the ambiguity:

They looked at themselves in the mirror.

Are we clear on the basics of reflexive pronouns?
(I hope?)

Then let’s talk about the funky quirk!

All reflexive pronouns add “self” or “selves” to the end of another pronoun.

Some tack self/selves to the possessive form:

I / my / myself
we / our / ourselves

But other reflexives take the objective form:

he / him/ himself
(possessive form would be hisself)

their / them/ themselves
(possessive form would be theirselves)

We all know that hisself and theirselves are INCORRECT.

(We all know that, right? Please tell me you aren’t saying theirselves or hisself. My twitching eye thanks you.)

But I’d really like to know the reason behind it. Why do we say myself and ourselves but himself and themselves?

It’s just one more of ten thousand or so ways that English makes no sense whatsoever.

But we love it anyway.

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of eight novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

He Said, She Said: Dialogue Tags by Rebecca Talley

Many new writers complain that using “said” is too boring. They want to liven up their writing with new and different tags. The problem with using tags other than “said” is that 1) they call attention to themselves and draw the reader out of the story, and 2) they tell instead of show.

For example:

“You can’t mean that,” she shouted.
“But, I do,” he laughed.
“How can you be so cruel?” she questioned.
“It’s easy,” he intoned.
“I thought you loved me,” she cried.
“Never,” he exclaimed.
“But I love you. Please give me another chance,” she begged.
“Not interested,” he declared.

So what do you think? Don’t those tags call attention to themselves? Wouldn’t it have been easier to read if I’d used “said” instead? “Said” is a tag that virtually disappears. Readers don’t stumble over it. You can occasionally use, “asked” or “replied,” but do so sparingly.

The main problem with these tags is how they tell the reader what is going on in the story as opposed to showing what’s happening. This exchange seems to be between two people who are dating. A better way to show that dialogue might be:

“You can’t mean that,” she said as she brushed a tear from her cheek.
“But, I do.” He stepped to the side and she could hear a muted laugh.
“How can you be so cruel?”
“It’s easy.” He turned to face her, his expression void of emotion.
She swallowed the lump forming at the back of her throat. In a soft voice she said, “I thought you loved me.”
“Never.” The intensity of his voice startled her.
“But, I love you. Please, give me another chance.” She reached her hand out toward him.
“Not interested.”

How’s the second example? Does it show you more of what’s going on with these two people?

You don’t always have to use a dialogue tag if the reader knows which character is speaking. When you do use tags, make sure you use the invisible “said” for most of them.

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Target Reading Level for Fiction

Is there a target reading level for fiction? Does a novel with a reading grade level of 12 or higher have a chance at publication?

Yes, a novel written at a 12th grade level has a chance at publication!

But I have a qualifier. The content and story line must be aimed at adult readers. You’ll have better luck selling a literary novel at this reading level, than say, a suspense novel or a romance.

I tried to find some sources to back up my opinions, but Google was not my friend. I had a really hard time finding any recent legitimate statistics (backed up by research) on literacy, reading levels of adults, and the average reading levels of novels. Maybe I just didn’t know the right key words to get to it. There were a lot of guesses and some old research and arguments about how that old research is invalid… So if any readers know of a recent valid study, please let us know in the comments.

I asked a few colleagues, and our understanding is that in the publishing industry, most popular U.S. novels for adult readers are written at a  7th to 9th grade reading level. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any popular novels published at a higher reading level or even at a much lower reading level. (Read this article on reading levels of various novels.)

I also found a forum comment that made the following assertions, which “feel” right to me. They attribute their statements to studies done by the healthcare industry, but I couldn’t find the original source.

1. No matter how educated people are, they actually read three to five grades lower than the last grade they finished. People who finished high school read at the level of 7th-9th graders. (LDSP: Uhm, so college graduates would read at or above the 12th grade level.)

2. When a prominent newspaper lowered the complexity of their articles from college level to 4th grade, the number of readers shot up by 98 percent. (LDSP: Not sure of the percentages, but I’ve heard that when some magazines did this, their subscription rates went up.)

3. The books of the most popular U.S. novelists (Stephen King, John Grisham, etc.) are written at a 7th-grade reading level.(LDSP: That’s my general assessment, as well.)

4. Most romance novels (which make up about half of all paperbacks sold in the U.S.) are written at a 5th-grade reading level. (LDSP: Not sure about this one, but I would suspect that the mass market paperback romances [*cough * harlequin-esque * cough] might fit this.)

 

I also found the ProLiteracy website which seems legit. They indicate that approximately 29% of US adults read below the 8th grade level, with 14% reading at a fifth grade level or below.

That leaves 70% of the adult US population that read at or above the 8th grade level. Right?

So, yes, I think a novel for adults (as opposed to children and teens) written at a 12th grade reading level or above has a chance. If that’s the level at which you’re comfortable writing, do it. If your agent or a publisher likes it but tells you to dumb it down, then you’ll have a decision to make.

The Power of a Good Word

How important is word of mouth? In honor of the release of The Hunger Games movie, I offer this little anecdotal* evidence.

[And no, we’re not going to talk about the book itself and whether it’s good or bad or appropriate or whatever.]

Back in mid-2010, just before Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins was released, I went down to my local Barnes and Noble to get copies of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I thought I’d better read them to see what all the hoopla was about.

Unfortunately for me, they were all sold out.

I talked to one of the floor managers and he told me that when The Hunger Games first came out in 2008, they’d ordered several copies, put them on the shelf and they just sat there.

Yep. Over the space of several months, they’d only sold ONE copy.

Then Stephenie Meyer, of Twilight fame, mentioned the book on her website and blurbed it, saying:

“I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn’t have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it…The Hunger Games is amazing.”

–Stephenie Meyer, www.stepheniemeyer.com

The next day, Barnes and Noble sold every single copy they had in stock and hadn’t been able to keep them in stock since.

Interesting.

Does  The Hunger Games owe it’s success to Stephenie Meyer? Who knows. But her mention of it certainly didn’t hurt.

So what does this have to do with you and your book? Word of mouth is very important. Most readers trust other readers. In my opinion, getting book reviews on blogs, GoodReads, Amazon and other online places is a good way to get the word out. Even quick little tweets and status updates on social media sites is a good thing. If there’s enough positive and sincere buzz going around, eventually people are going to notice.

Readers, what do you think about word of mouth?

 

*based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation.

Shameless Self-Promotion by Tristi Pinkston

LDSP Note: I am sooo tired of having to hunt down authors, only to get to their blog or website and find no mention of their books. At all! (And yes, I know I’m at the right place.) So I tracked down this article by Tristi Pinkston. Take it to heart people!

We’ve all heard the term “shameless self-promotion.”  I’ve used it myself quite a bit.  Today I want to get on my soap box a little bit.  You don’t mind, right?  I mean, that’s sort of the theme of my whole blog… “Tristi on her soap box.”  If I were ever to change the title of my blog, that’s what I would use.

Self-promotion is absolutely crucial to every form of business.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a car salesman, or if you work in a clothing store, or if you are a make-up girl, or if you are a construction worker.  In each of those jobs, you are selling yourself—your skills, your experience, your know-how.  You are presenting yourself in such a way that your employer and your customer can feel confident in you and the job you are going to do.  Filling out resumes, going for interviews, meeting with prospective clients—these are nothing more than selling yourself and your abilities.

When you write a book and enter the big, bad world of marketing, you’re doing exactly the same thing you’ve done every time you’ve entered the work force.  You’re informing people of a skill or ability you possess.

Let me ask you a question.  Say you’re in the middle of a job interview, and you are asked, “So, I hear you’re good at typing.”  Would you answer, “Oh, I don’t know about that.  That other applicant you just had in here is a lot faster.”  Or would you say, “Yes, I’m pretty fast.” It’s a pretty simple choice to make, isn’t it?

So why do we downplay our writing?  Why do we feel that we need to apologize when it comes to talking about our books?  We say “shameless self-promotion” as though perhaps, at some point, we might have felt the need to feel ashamed, but we’re going to shake that off for a second.  There is no need to ever be ashamed of the product you have produced as long as you know you did your very best on it.  If you turned out something you know wasn’t up to your potential, then you can make a decision to do better next time.  But “shame” is not something that should ever be associated with something you created that came from your gut. If you really, really are ashamed to admit that you did it, then… why did you do it?

Now that we’ve talked about the “shame,” let’s talk about the “self-promotion.”  Go back to the analogy of the shoe salesman.  A woman walks into his shop and says, “Hi, I need a pair of shoes.”  He pauses.  Should he say something?  What if he shows her a pair and she says she doesn’t want them?  He would be crushed.  Humiliated.  Rejected.

Um … no, he’s going start showing her shoes, right?  Of course.  That’s his job.  And it’s your job as a new author to talk about your books.  He has shoes to sell, you have books to sell.  If someone doesn’t buy your book, it doesn’t have to be a devastating thing—it just means that those shoes didn’t fit.  Someone else with feet of a different size will soon come into your life, or your shoe store, and you’ll be able to make that sale.

So, let’s encapsulate my little lecture.

1. Stop being ashamed to talk about your books!

2. Stop feeling as though you have to apologize!

3. Get some confidence—talk about your book in an upbeat, positive way.  Let other people know it exists.

4. Never downplay your accomplishments.  Don’t say, “Well, it’s just a little story about…” No!  Smile and say, “It’s a great story about…”

Self-promotion is hard.  It’s hard to get up the courage, it’s hard to know what to say, it’s hard to find that balance between talking about yourself and coming on too strong, and it’s also hard to know when you shouldn’t bring up your books (and yes, there are times when you don’t want to promote, generally in times of social politics, but that would be a blog for another day).  You can learn how to master all of these skills, but you’ve got to practice them, and regularly.  Hiding behind pillars and potted plants will not make you a master of self-promotion—you’ve got to get out there and do it, and you’ll find your own stride and what works for you.  And if you’re interested, here’s another post I wrote on this very same topic.

All right, then!  Go promote yourself, and let me see you stop saying the word “shameless!”  It should all be shameless!

 

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

Author Platforms

Everywhere I look on-line I read that an author needs a platform if he/she expects an agent or publisher to accept the writer or the work.

Now, I can see that if you have a published work to tout. A platform helps get a book the publicity it needs to be successful. The internet makes that relatively easy, yet time consuming. If you have a ready-made platform, all your “friends” on FaceBook and elsewhere have supposedly been following you and should be anxious to see your book.

But what if you don’t have a book to tout yet?

I’ve been struggling with that issue a lot lately. I have two books, one of which is probably ready for publication. But, without a platform is an agent or publisher willing to accept me or my book for publication? But how can I get a platform if I have nothing published yet?

Maybe someone can help me here. It seems like a dilemma to me. Frankly, at this point, being unpublished, I would rather spend my limited time writing.

Understanding what a platform is and is not trips a lot of writers up. Ten years ago, a well-written book was platform enough. An author might generate some extra publicity if the book was based on a timely topic, but it wasn’t really necessary.

However, now, when anyone with a computer can “publish” a book, and when traditional publishers do less to promote their books, having a platform is very important. All things being equal, an author with an established platform will have an edge over the author without one.

So, let’s go over this briefly.

 

What is a platform? It’s a tool or process used by an author to reach and build their target audience, usually through online visibility, to create a group of followers and/or fans. Sometimes it ties in with a topic or theme from their book. Sometimes it’s as simple as having a blog with lots of followers.

Jane Friedman has an excellent post on this. Go read it now. I’ll wait.

Rachelle Gardner, a literary agent, did a post on Author Platforms last year. Go read it. I’ll wait.

I found another good description for a platform by Karen Dionne: “Just as a real platform elevates a speaker above his audience, if fiction authors can find a way to make themselves stand out from the crowd, the odds of their fiction being picked up by a major publisher increase.” (Go read the entire article.)

 

What difference does a platform make? I’ve heard one LDS author say that it meant the difference between her book coming out as a midlist title (which is how it was originally scheduled) to actually being released as a frontlist, or lead title (one that gets more attention, promotion and marketing). If an agent can see you’ve got an established platform that works for you, they can use that to sell your book to a publisher.

Bottom line, life as an author is no longer just about creating the novel. The author has to spend some time in promotion and spreading the message.

 

How do you create a platform? Find an outlet that spotlights your writing skills and your message. A blog is a good way to do this. Readers will get a sense of your writing style and personality, and that will increase the chances that they’ll buy your book. You can use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to enhance and support your platform. You can also do speaking engagements.

 

What’s your message? That’s up to you. It might be on writing itself or perhaps it ties in with the theme of your book. Click here to read a post from 2008 with a few examples.

 

Readers, do you have a platform? If so, what is it? Where is it? Please tell us in the comments below.

Timing Your Submission

Hi,
I love reading your blog, and when a question came up about publishing in the LDS world, I knew you were the first person I had to ask.

I have an LDS romance story that is about 99% completed right now. It’s in the final stages of revisions and I hope to have it done before the summer. My question is this: Is it worth my time to submit this to LDS publishers during the weeks surrounding Storymakers, or should I hold off? I know traditional advice would be to submit whenever I’m ready, but I don’t want to get lost in a blizzard of submissions surrounding the biggest LDS publishing event of the year. Would I have a better chance of being seen if I waited until the storm died down? (Like avoiding the post-NaNoWriMo rush)

Thanks for your time 🙂

Don’t worry about it. It’s not like your submission is going to get lost in the shuffle. Trust me, most legit publishers have a very good way of tracking submissions so they don’t get lost in the pile.

Yes, you may have more submissions in front of yours for awhile and it may take longer for the editor to get to yours, but those submissions are going to be there anyway. If you wait, there will be other submissions that come in while you’re waiting—and yours will then be behind those too.

The only difference I’ve found that a mass of submissions makes is how long it takes me to reply. It doesn’t make me grumpy or rushed. I still give each submission an honest look no matter how many are waiting for me.

 

Children’s Picture Books

Thanks for taking the time to write your blog.  I’m just getting my feet wet in the publishing world, and you have given me a place to start.  I have written a children’s picture book.  I’ve been rejected by three publishers so far, and searched dozens of other LDS publishers who are not accepting submissions in this genre.  Would you please direct me?  I don’t know what to do next.

The difficulty with picture books is they cost more to produce and yet the expected sales are lower than books for adults.

Extra costs for a picture book include the cost of illustrations, which can run in the thousands of dollars if they hire a really good illustrator, plus the cost of full color printing, which can be double or more than a book with no color on the pages.

In order for a publisher to justify the risk, you’re going to have to have a pretty awesome story line or be an established author with a large following to guarantee sales.

What you need to look for is a publisher who specializes in picture books. I don’t know if your content is specifically LDS, but if it isn’t, or if it can be changed to reflect general Christian ideas, you might want to try a Christian publisher. (Google “Christian Picture Book Publisher).

I’m not sure what to advise your for specific LDS content… Readers? Ideas?

 

Common Reasons for Rejections

Hello, [my trilogy] was just turned down by deseret publishing on my first book of this project. I’m 75% done with the second book and will then immediately complete the third of the trilogy. There has never been books like these as they are unique and experientially based. Can you help me?

It is not at all uncommon to be rejected on your first book and by the first publisher you contact. Don’t give up.

The most common reason books are rejected is that they are not a good fit for the publisher. Read the publisher’s submission guidelines carefully. Make sure the publisher you are submitting to is interested in your genre and topic. Make sure they publish things similar, but not the same as what you’re submitting.

The second most common reason for rejection is that the book is just not quite publication ready. Get some critiques on your manuscript. Join a critique group with experienced writers. Go to some conferences that offer critique sessions. Make sure your book is as good as it can possibly be.

The third most common reason for rejection is your query letter isn’t quite up to what it should be. Saying things like, “There has never been books like these as they are unique and experientially based,” is not really very helpful. Unique how? What specifically do you meant by “experientially based”? Is that experiential component going to add to the cost of creating the book? That might be an issue (or not).

And I can guarantee, the publisher/editor/agent is going to have seen something like it before.

Do your research and keep submitting. Good luck!

Looking for an LDS Publisher with National Marketing

Hi, I’m a fiction writer. I want to query one or more of the LDS publishers, but I don’t know which ones are the largest and with which one I would have the best chance of getting into the national market. I have already been rejected by Shadow Mountain. I’m thinking Covenant or Cedar Fort. Am I right? If so, which? (My book is absolutely clean, no profanity etc., but contains no references to LDS history, doctrine, or anything else LDS.) Is there anywhere to be found, a list of rankings of LDS publishers in terms of size, books published per year etc.?

In terms of size and name recognition, it goes

  1. Deseret Book (with its Shadow Mountain imprint)

  2. Covenant (also owned by Deseret Book; does not have a national market)

  3. Cedar Fort (has both LDS and national imprints)

In terms of the number of fiction titles released each year, flip that list upside down and you’ve got it.

There is also WiDo Publishing, a smaller new publishing company which markets nationally.

But I guess my question is, if you really want to hit the national market, why are you looking at LDS publishers? Look for a national publisher instead.

 

Welcome!

Hi—and welcome to the new LDS Publisher website!

My lovely assistant has combined the LDS Publisher and LDS Fiction blogs into one big site, and given us a template that is ultra-SEO friendly. As a reader, that means you’ll only have to come to one place. Yay!

If you’re an author or publisher whose new releases are featured, or a guest blogger, you’ll get even more attention from the Google. Double-yay!

Most of the new site is functional so take a few minutes to scroll around, click some buttons, kick the tires…

There are still a few things that aren’t quite polished up—when you import 2,412 posts, some things are bound to get messed up. Some of the known glitches are:

    • Internal post links: The 2012 posts are cleaned up, but a lot of the older ones will take you back to the old sites. I’ll leave those sites up until everything is cleaned up and smoothed out here.

 

    • Category Labels: Not all of them ported over. Just be aware that much of the menu is linked using category labels so if you click on, say, “Writing Basics” under the LDS Publisher menu tab, not all of the posts will come up. It will take some time to get them all working correctly. However, the search feature (sidebar) on this site is sooo much better than the one I had on Blogger. Type any search term in and you’ll get good results.

 

    • Tags: Blogger didn’t use tags so these will be new. See the Tag Cloud in the sidebar? I’ll use tags as sub-categories, like query or agent or critique. Again, it will take a little time to get it all sorted out.

 

    • Design: Okay. Well, see the pictures at the top of the sidebar? Those will be replaced eventually. And see how the 2012 fiction posts have a little thumbnail image, but the past years don’t? Yep. Working on that too. But we’re going for functionality first.

 

Anyway, I’m so excited about this site that I wanted to go ahead and unveil it NOW. All new posts will be showing up here from now on.

So, once again, welcome—and let me know what you think.

Musty Writing by Michaelbrent Collings

When considering self-publishing on Kindle, there are four things you must do (“Must”y writing – get it?  Ha!).  They are like the mustard on my hot dog: a non-negotiable element.  Without it, you may as well not even try.  ‘Cause I won’t bite.

Now, before I dive into what those elements are, I should probably tell you how I know about them.  So y’all know I’ve got street cred.  And mad skillz (part of having street cred is always spelling “skillz” with a z).

I’ve been writing for most of my life.  I sold my first paying work when I was fifteen.  Going to college, I won a bunch of creative writing scholarships and awards.  Then I became a lawyer, where my job involved mostly (wait for it!) writing.

Oh, yeah, and somewhere along the way I became a produced screenwriter, member of the Writers Guild of America (which is statistically harder to do than it is to become a professional baseball player), and a published novelist.  Throughout all this, I had a book that I really liked, called RUN.  And though I had done all the above, no book publisher would touch RUN with a ten foot cattle prod.  Largely, I suspect, because it was very hard
to figure out how to market it: it was a sci-fi/suspense/horror/thriller/apocalyptic novel with romantic elements.  There is no shelf for that at Barnes & Noble.

But I believed in the book, dangit!  So I researched around, and discovered self-publishing through Amazon’s Kindle service.  I decided I didn’t have much to lose, since RUN was just sitting on a shelf anyway, so decided to try my hand at self-publishing an e-book on Kindle.

Within a few months, RUN became a bestseller, topping Amazon’s sci-fi chart, and eventually becoming the #61 item available for Kindle, out of over ten million books, games, puzzles, and blogs.  I also published a young adult fantasy called Billy: Messenger of Powers which has hovered on various genre bestseller lists on Amazon for the better part of a year now.  And followed those up with another e-book, and another, and another.  Some of the others became bestsellers, some didn’t.  But all have made money, and all have increased my fan base.

Now I don’t say this to brag, but I want you to understand I know a bit whereof I speak.  Through the process, I have learned the ins and outs of Kindle publishing (and e-publishing in general), learning as much from what didn’t work as from what did.  And that’s why I’ve come up with these four important things to do:

1)  Make a kickin’ cover

This is one place where approximately 99% of self-published authors get it wrong.  Look at most self-published books, and they look less professional.  And like it or not, a lot of people go strictly off the cover.  You have about ten seconds to wow them with your cool cover before they click the button and move on to another book.  For the Kindle edition of Billy: Messenger of Powers, I spent days upon days designing the cover.  Everything from the cover image, to the typeface, to the composition of the elements.  It was critical.  And it paid off.  Same for RUN, and another of my books, Rising Fears,
all of which have been praised for the fact that the covers are interesting enough to “hook” readers.  Some of my other covers aren’t as effective, or as professional looking, unfortunately.  And guess what? They also don’t sell as well.

2)  Market yourself

Here’s a fact of life in general: people generally don’t give you things for free.  You have to earn them.  And that includes getting people to read your work.  When I wrote Billy, I spent over a month designing a website (www.whoisbillyjones.com) that was interesting, conveyed a message about the book, and had a look and feel that I felt would intrigue people and make them want to find out more.  Same with the website for RUN (www.seehowtheyrun.net).  And my own website, michaelbrentcollings.com, took even longer.  But that was only the start.  I also had a Facebook “fan” page, a Twitter feed, and did the rounds of book and genre conventions.  Not to mention doing interviews, podcasts, guest blogs, and generally talking to anyone and everyone who would listen.  You have to do more than write a book.  You have to create an event.

3)  Have a grabby description

”What do you do when everyone you know – family, friends, everyone – is trying to kill you?  You RUN.”

That is the description on amazon.com for my book RUN.  Two sentences that I spent an extremely long time writing.  Like the cover of your book, the production description is something that has to grab people, reel them in, and not let them go.  Some self-published authors think the best way to get someone to read their work is to describe every jot and tittle.  But in reality, the secret isn’t information, it’s captivation. You have to intrigue your (prospective) readers.  You have to leave them with serious questions that they want answered.  Describing what your book is about is less important than creating a specific feeling in the mind and heart of your audience: the feeling that they will be better off reading your book than not.

4)  Write something worth reading

This may seem obvious, but the fact of the matter is you have to have something pretty darn special.  I’m not saying this to depress anyone: I firmly believe that most people have great stories in them, and have the potential to learn how to tell them.  But make no mistake, it is something that takes practice, dedication, and perspiration. Writing is a skill.  It is a discipline.  Anyone can knock out a sentence or two.  But getting those sentences to grab a complete stranger to the point that he or she is willing to fork over hard-earned cash to read them is another matter.  Let alone getting them to like
the sentences enough that they want to tell their friends to spend their hard-earned cash on them.  Again, I really do believe that most people have it in them to do this.  But I also believe just as stridently that to get to that point takes practice, practice, and more practice.  I have spent thousands of hours learning how to write … and I continue to
learn.  Any author who wants to charm people into buying his or her work has to be willing to put in the effort to make it happen.  Because without the skill to back up your work, no matter how good your basic ideas are, they probably won’t sell.  There are exceptions (that’s right, Twilight), but for the most part a book has to be extraordinarily well-written in order to get people to buy it.

That’s not to say that everyone will like your book.  Some people don’t like RUN, or Billy: Messenger of Powers.  Or Harry Potter or anything by Stephen King or even the bestselling book of all time (the Bible).  But if you don’t care enough to develop your writing skills in service of your storytelling, you can bet that few (if any) will like it at all.

And so…

… there you have it, folks.  Again, I think most people have interesting stories to tell.  But without doing the four things above, the great story will probably sit quietly in a dark corner of your closet.  And that, my friends, is no fun at all.

Michaelbrent Collings is a bestselling novelist whose books RUN and Billy: Messenger of Powers have been amazon.com bestsellers. He is also a produced screenwriter and member of both the Writers Guild of America and the Horror Writers of America. His blog is at http://michaelbrentcollings.com/blog2.html, and you can follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michaelbrent-Collings/283851837365 or on twitter @mbcollings.

You Have Nothing to Fear But That Big Hairy Spider Crawling Up the Back of Your Neck by Tristi Pinkston

The Top Ten Fears of Unpublished Writers:

10. What if my book doesn’t sell?

9. What if the stores won’t stock my book on their shelves?

8. What if no one will publish me?

7. What if no one likes what I’ve written?

6. What if I can’t get this ending/plot/scene right?

5. What if I used lay when it should have been lie?

4. What if the computer crashes and erases all my work?

3. What if I can’t write more than 40,000 words?

2. What if this is the stupidest story ever known to man?

1. What if I’m not really a writer?

I’d wager these fears sound familiar, if you’re an aspiring author. You might have put them in different order, and perhaps have thrown in some things like “finding time to write,” etc, but by and large, I think every new writer has these fears.

Now, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

The Top Ten Fears of Published Writers:

10. What if my book doesn’t sell?

9. What if the stores won’t stock my book on their shelves?

8. What if no one will publish me?

7. What if no one likes what I’ve written?

6. What if I can’t get this ending/plot/scene right?

5. What if I used lay when it should have been lie?

4. What if the computer crashes and erases all my work?

3. What if I can’t write more than 40,000 words?

2. What if this is the stupidest story ever known to man?

1. What if I’m not really a writer?

Notice anything? Yep—the published author has pretty much the same fears as the unpublished author. If you’re published, you may feel a little more confident over the whole lay/lie thing (I don’t) and you may feel that you’ve got a better handle on your scene structures, but deep down, we’re all the same. We all want people to like us, we all worry that our readers won’t like this new book as much as they did the last, and we wonder if our publisher will or will not accept our latest submission. A published author feels nervous while waiting for that acceptance/rejection letter, and it makes our day when we hear that someone liked our book.

I’m not telling you this to depress you — I’m telling you this so I can lead up to one simple, fundamental truth: getting published is not like waving a magic wand that will make all your problems go away and all your dreams come true. It will not make you more attractive, it will not make you an instant public speaker, and it will not ensure popularity. It will not boost your confidence. It will not make you a fabulous promoter.

You must work on all these things yourself.

You make yourself a better speaker. You make yourself good at promotion. You build your own confidence. And there is no reason on this great green earth why you should wait until you’re published to start working on these attributes.

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

Clarity for Fun and Profit by Michaelbrent Collings

Be clear.

This is something that is both very easy sounding and extremely difficult. It is especially difficult in the realm of fantasy and science fiction, as well as other genre writing like horror or supernatural works. People read fiction to be transported to another place, to give them some experience that they would not otherwise have. The reader of a work of fiction must always and automatically “suspend disbelief” whenever reading: he must put away what he knows to be “true” in order to immerse himself in the “reality” of the story. This is why details can sink or save a book: too many things that don’t ring true, and the reader’s ability to suspend disbelief is undermined. The reader stops being an active participant in the book’s adventures, and turns instead into a critic, a scientist, an observer looking for what is wrong rather than enjoying what may be right.

And the idea of “suspension of disbelief” is nowhere more crucial than when writing fantasy, science fiction, or genre works. In addition to the first layer of suspension (the fact that the reader is not really participating in the fictional adventures of the book’s protagonists and antagonists), there is another layer of disbelief that must be dealt with: the question of magic. Of alien technologies. Of ghosts and specters. These “make believe” aspects of genre writing present a special problem, as they inherently inhibit the reader’s ability to put aside the “real” in favor of the “read.”

The best way to deal with this problem is a facet of the critical characteristic of clarity. The best genre work always takes place in fully realized “worlds” with clear, easily-understood (or at least fairly easily-understood) “rules.” The presence of such rules can mean a fantasy windfall. Their absence can mean disaster.

One example of this is the blockbuster hit The Sixth Sense, one of the top-grossing suspense/supernatural thriller movies of all time. The rules are set up very early on in the movie: the movie’s young protagonist can see ghosts. The ghosts do not know they are dead. He can help them “move on” by finding out what unfinished business it is that they are remaining to deal with. These simple rules set the scene for both an engaging ghost story and one of the greatest surprise endings in modern cinematic history. And the surprise is complete and utterly earned because it follows the rules. 

Another example of literary rule-making is in The Lord of the Rings saga. There, Tolkien draws upon a much wider palette in order to paint an epic portrait of an entire world at war. Unlike The Sixth Sense, which is an intimate, almost claustrophobic movie, The Lord of the Rings follows dozens of characters throughout the various landscapes of Middle Earth. The magic use is prolific and varied. But still, there are rules, and they are scrupulously adhered to. Elves have a natural inclination toward and protective sense over all things of nature. Dwarves prefer to be underground. Gandalf the Gray is quite a different person than Gandalf the White. Each has set characteristics, set attributes, and these are as unchanging as the DNA of any real human being.

A final example (if I may) can be found in my own work. One of my books is called Billy: Messenger of Powers. It’s a young adult fantasy about a boy who finds himself embroiled in a magical war between two groups: the Dawnwalkers, who want to protect and serve humanity; and the Darksiders, whose goal is nothing less than world domination. As with The Sixth Sense and The Lord of the Rings, clarity is key. Billy (the hero) is drawn into a world of magic and wonder. But the wizards and witches he meets can’t just run around “doing spells” willy-nilly: there are rules, and those rules must be laid out with enough clarity that the reader not only understands the world of the story, but believes in it.

Simply put, clarity is key in all fiction, but critical in sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre work.. A muddled magic system, an alien technology that is capable of some things one moment then incapable the next, these can be the genesis of confusion in the reader…and signal the death knell for an otherwise viable series.

Michaelbrent Collings is a bestselling novelist whose books RUN and Billy: Messenger of Powers have been amazon.com bestsellers. He is also a produced screenwriter and member of both the Writers Guild of America and the Horror Writers of America. His blog is at http://michaelbrentcollings.com/blog2.html, and you can follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michaelbrent-Collings/283851837365 or on twitter @mbcollings.

Nine Month Manuscript Approval Process???

I stumbled onto your blog tonight while searching for LDS publishers, and I think you might be able to answer my questions (or just put my mind at ease, at least).

Here’s my situation:
I submitted a manuscript to [ABC Publishing] last winter, and in May the editor told me they loved my book and went through the approval process, but couldn’t make it work financially for them. She said their overhead was too high to produce it. The editor passed my submission along to another editor at a smaller publishing company because she felt it would be a good fit for them. I called the new editor about 6 weeks later to find out what the status of my book was. She said she loved it, but the approval process could take another 8 weeks, give or take. I waited patiently for 6 months and called again. She said she was about to go into a meeting and would track it down and call me the next day. She never called. I left her a voicemail last week, which was never returned.

My questions: Should I keep bugging her? And, is it typical for editors to not give a response if they don’t want to publish something? Nine months seems like a very long time for an approval process. But I don’t really know… this is my first submission and I don’t know what is typical. I’d love to hear any insight you might have on this!

If a publisher/editor doesn’t like something, they usually respond fairly quickly—unless they’re just so bogged down with submissions and other work that they haven’t even had a chance to look at it yet. But my guess, based on your feedback from the previous editor, is that this editor wants it but is trying to figure out how to budget it.

My guess is they’re struggling. Publishing is in flux right now and many smaller houses are hanging on by their toenails. The fact that she didn’t call back and hasn’t returned your message is not a good sign.

Should you keep bugging her? YES! While this is typical behavior for some editors (particularly in small and understaffed publishing houses), it’s unprofessional and makes me really angry. (Although, I sometimes do it too.)

Here are my general suggested guidelines: If they tell you the approval process could take 8 weeks,  give them the full 8 weeks. Call them on week 9 for an update.
If your book is still in the evaluation process, ask them when you can expect a decision. If you’re okay with the length of time they give you, then be patient again. Don’t bug them during that time frame. If you don’t hear from them again, call and repeat the process.

Or withdraw your submission. If 8 weeks is their usual response time, then nine months is unreasonable.  Personally, I’d call and say I was looking at other publishers and if I haven’t heard from them in two weeks, I’ll assume they’re no longer interested. Then I’d start checking out other publishers.

Creating a Character’s Backstory Part 2 by Rebecca Talley

Understanding a character’s backstory will have a dramatic impact on your novel. If you don’t understand, or take the time to investigate, your character’s backstory, your story will suffer and your characters will feel more like cardboard stereotypes than living, breathing people.

What are some ways to create the backstory?

Narrative. You can write out the major events in the character’s life in the form of a narrative. You can add different details, bits of conversation, and a description of the events that have shaped your character. Keep your narrative to 1-3 pages—more for the major characters and less for the minor ones.

Interview. You can conduct an interview with your character. Ask whatever question pops into your mind and then write down the answer. Use each answer as a springboard for the next question. You may be surprised at some of your character’s answers.

List. You can list the events chronologically with a short description of how each event affected your character. Lists are easy to scan for the details you need to form your character’s backstory.

Web. You can write your character’s name in the middle of the paper and then write events around the name. You can then connect feelings, descriptions, and/or reactions to those events so that you eventually end up with a document that resembles a spider web.

Visual. Cut out magazine photos to represent events and then write a description of how this affected your character. Use active words to describe your character’s reactions.

The purpose of creating a backstory is to help you understand what motivates your character. You want your character to react realistically to your plot events and you want readers to believe that your character acts realistically within the story.

If your character is presented with the news that her father has died how will she react? Will she breakdown into tears? Shrug? Be happy? Sink into depression? Feel guilty? It all depends on the backstory you’ve created for her. While you won’t include all the details of the character’s backstory, you will need to pepper your story with some of the details so the reader believes the reactions to the events in the plot.

It’s all about the suspension of disbelief. The more you understand your character and portray her realistically on the page, the more your readers will immerse themselves in your story.

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Creating a Character’s Backstory Part 1 by Rebecca Talley

A character’s backstory is important to your story. You won’t use all that you create as the character’s backstory, but knowing it will help you create deeper, more interesting characters.

You can fill out a questionnaire about your character and list answers to the questions. However, this is a simplified approach and will probably not result in a complex understanding of your character.

Dig deeper to understand why your character would react a certain way in a specific situation. How would your character react to being locked in a closet? Would he freak out? Would he sit back and catch up on some sleep? Would he try to figure out how to get out and keep working at it until he escaped? Would he scream until someone came to let him out?

Each of the above situations would depend on the character’s backstory. Perhaps, as a young child he nearly suffocated under a pile of blankets and since then he’s been afraid of small enclosures. He fears that a small enclosure will mean certain death so he freaks out whenever he’s in a small place.

Maybe he’s so calm and relaxed that he’d sit back and sleep in locked closet. Maybe he faced a previous situation and decided then and there to never worry or stress out in any situation. He feels sure things will always work out for the best.

Maybe your character is extremely curious and always took things apart as a kid to figure out how they worked. Maybe he’s certain he can get out of any situation just by using his brain–he’s learned to depend on his smarts to get him out of all situations.

Or, maybe he’s a big crybaby because he was always picked on as a kid and now he thinks he’s a victim in all circumstances. He feels like his only defense is to depend on someone else to help him. He doesn’t look to himself to solve his problems, but rather looks to everyone else.

Knowing the backstory of your character will help you to understand how and why he’ll react to the situations you create in your plot. Characters must have realistic motivations and the best way to achieve that is to know and understand their backstories.

What are some ways to create a backstory? Read Part 2 tomorrow.

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

A Little More on Giveaways

This post doesn’t deal with the legality of giveaways but rather the logistics. Tracking entrants can me a real pain—especially if you want them to do more than comment on a post.

For this site, I decided to try out a simple form system. I tested quite a few of the free ones and decided to go with Wufoo. It was easy to use and had a clean look, although it’s bigger than I’d like. But hey, FREE.

Here’s a site that lists several other free form makers.


If you want something more than a simple form, try Rafflecopter. I’ve used them on several sites in my real-life job.

Up until now, you had to ask to use them and wait for acceptance, but they’ve just done their official launch and anyone can use them now.

They’re also doing their own giveaway where you can win an iPad2 or a Kindle Fire. Here’s the link to that info. 

And while you’re there entering to win, browse their entire blog. They have lots of good ideas for holding giveaways. (Remember, I don’t know for sure that all their ideas are legal, as I am not an attorney, but some of the info is very, very good.)

Have you used something to track your giveaways that you can recommend? Let us know in the comments.

GIving Your Books Away — Legally

Got this email back before Christmas:

I don’t know if you’ve heard this or even if it’s legit, but someone posted [in a forum] that the FTC/FCC is cracking down on book giveaways where the winner is chosen by random because it is essentially a sweepstakes and is governed by very specific rules. Rumor has it there are fines. I don’t want you to get in trouble just in case this is true. I don’t know if it is and there are still plenty of giveaways going on. I just wanted to let you know.

From what I’ve read it seems like we can’t do giveaways and contests, but I’m not that savvy with this kind of stuff. My husband doesn’t think they can prevent contests but, again, I keep getting conflicting information so I look forward to reading your take on it. Thanks!

I did some research—for myself because I do a monthly book giveaway here—and also for you because I know a lot of you give away books on your blogs and/or participate in blog hops. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble.

I also don’t want anyone to PANIC because, well, there’s just no need to do so.

YES, you can give away books on your blog.

YES, you can select winners at random.

BUT…there are definitely some regulations on what you say, where you say it, how you say it, who can enter, blah, blah, blah.

Based on my research, I made a few changes to my monthly giveaway, the most noticeable is that now you have to enter to win using the form in the sidebar. Previously, you could enter just by leaving a comment—on any post. While this is still a good idea for blog hops and short-term contests where someone comments on A SPECIFIC POST, it doesn’t work so well here.

To the best of my understanding, these changes make my giveaways compliant with FTC/FCC regulations. Over the next few days, I’m going to post more detail about what I learned and how it applies specifically to blogging authors who want to do giveaways—as I understand it.

But just remember, I am not an attorney. I might be wrong.

In the meantime, here are some articles that I found. Some of the info is repetitive, but each of them adds some extra insights and thoughts on the subject.

Tips for the Writing Mommy by Tristi Pinkston


I’m a stay-at-home mom, a homeschooler, the owner/operator of a bath and beauty company, I write blogs for Families.com, I’m the Wolf leader in my ward, and I’m an LDS historical fiction novelist. No wonder I’m so tired – after typing all that, I think I need to go take a nap.

People ask me all the time how I manage to balance everything. Well, truth be told, I don’t always. You don’t want to drop by my house unexpectedly or you’ll never know what you’ll find. We live in organized chaos. I stay up too late at night and I admit there are days when I feel like I’m chasing my tail. But there are a few things I’ve learned that I’d like to share with you in hopes that it will help make your schedule a little more conducive to writing. Or for that matter, finding time to do any other thing you’d like.

1 – Meals and Snacks

You don’t need to prepare an all-out meal from scratch three times a day. You can do cold cereal for breakfast once in a while, you know. You can also do cheese, crackers and lunch meat for lunch. I do try to prepare “actual dinners,” as my daughter puts it, and I do make breakfast and lunch, but on days when I’m seriously writing, I let mealtimes become more casual. Some ideas:

a. Keep yogurt in your fridge for a quick snack for you or the kids. Yogurt and a banana make a great breakfast, too.

b. Take a loaf of bread and make it into a whole stack of sandwiches. Then slide the sandwiches back into the bread sack. When someone needs a sandwich, they can just grab one out of the fridge.

c. Designate one crisper in your fridge to be a “snack drawer.” Fill it up with apples, cheese sticks, yogurt, etc. When your children want a snack, tell them to go get something out of the “snack drawer.” You can do the same thing in your cupboard. Make a basket with pretzels, crackers, etc. and have that be the special “snack basket.” You can take sandwich bags and break the boxes down into serving sizes and tell them they can have one, so they don’t run off with the whole box.

d. Make meals ahead of time and stick them in the freezer.

e. When I buy a package of meat, I like to cook it all up and then freeze it, cooked. That way, when I go to use it, I just have to warm it through instead of defrosting and then cooking it.

f. Make tomorrow’s dinner while you’re making tonight’s. Especially if you’re using cooked meat, you can assemble tomorrow’s dinner, cover it and put it in the fridge. Then just throw it in the oven tomorrow night.

g. Teach your older children how to make sandwiches, warm up soup, etc. They get a sense of pride in their accomplishments when they are allowed to help make a meal.

h. If you have younger children, make some sippy cups with milk, juice and water in them. Then when the child gets thirsty, they can either grab one themselves or you can send your older child to get it for them. It’s a lot less expensive than juice boxes, that’s for sure.

These are all things you can either direct from your computer or will help you spend less time in the kitchen = more time at the computer.

2 – Entertaining the Troops

a. It’s not a sin to let your children watch TV. I don’t mean to stick them in front of it for hours on end and let them watch whatever comes on; there are definite dangers in allowing entire days in front of the TV, and with the programming that’s on, you never know what they might be subjected to. But there are some fabulous programs on that are fun and educational, as well as great DVDs. My kids have learned a lot from shows like CyberChase, Stanley, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, The Magic School Bus, and the like. There’s nothing wrong with turning on the TV and letting your kids watch a show while you write.

b. Get some paper and crayons and let your kids “write” a book of their own while you’re working.

c. Ask older children to read to the younger ones.

3 – Adjusting Your Sleep

This one’s hard. But consider getting up earlier than your kids or staying up late after they go to bed. It will do a number on your own sleep but you’ll have a sense of contentment that may help make up for some of that lack.

4 – Housework

a. I have to get up and walk around periodically. So while I’m doing that, I’ll change out the laundry and put in a load of dishes. Usually by the time I’m done doing that, I’ll be ready to get back to work.

b. It’s not a sin to teach your children to do chores. The happiest children are the ones who feel that they are valuable in their homes and who have a sense of purpose. When you teach your children to do chores, you are helping them to feel needed. Of course, keep the chores age-appropriate. My 10-year-old can vacuum, and my 8-year-old can wipe up the bathroom mirrors and counter top. My five-year-old can unload the dishwasher. I even have my older kids stand on chairs to get the laundry out of the washer and put it in the dryer. They all love helping me make dinner. As they get older, I’ll teach them to do other things. This not only clears up five minutes of time for me here and there, but when we work together to turn a half-hour job into a ten-minute job (freeing up twenty minutes) we’re drawing closer together.

c. Reevaluate your thinking about housework. Mold is obviously not good. It’s important to have clean towels and clothes, and feeding your family is a good thing. But if you can give up something to give yourself time to write, think about doing it. Are there ways you could simplify your routines? Can you delegate more to your husbands? Can you put up with toys scattered across the floor for a little while so you can finish your chapter? Is it necessary to have all your dishes perfectly stacked all the time? When you’re on a roll with your book, it’s okay to let some things slide until you’re done.

5 – Organizing Your Time

Yeah, this tip’s not a piece of cake either. When you’ve got other people in the house and they have needs, it’s sometimes impossible to create the chunks of time you need.

a. One thing I do is to create Days. What I mean by that is, Wednesday, for instance, is Scout Day. After lunch I sit down and review what I need to do to prepare for the Scouts to come at 4:30. I’m not writing during this time, or grocery shopping, or anything else. It’s devoted to Scouts. I get ready for them to come, they come, and then after they leave, I look at next week’s meeting. I do any ahead-of-time prep work that needs doing, and if I need to buy something, I put it on my shopping list. I record what they got passed off and make notes on what they need to do next. Then, with the exception of getting whatever I might have put on the shopping list, I don’t think about it until the next Wednesday. Monday is the day I use to make the products for my business, unless I have an emergency order. When I was a Stampin’ Up! distributor, Tuesday was my prep day for that. Look at your life – are there certain tasks you can isolate to one day a week?

b. Create an errand day. I used to have the tendency to run out and do errands several times a week, and I found I was away from home a lot. Now what I do is designate an errand day. This usually coordinates with Pay Day. I’ll sit down and pay bills, and then I’ll go out and do all my grocery shopping, trip to the post office, to the bank (if needed) library, Blockbuster, etc, all at once. It makes for about a three-hour trip, but it’s better for me to get it done at once. Now, of course, in between times I still run to the library and Blockbuster (who could go for two weeks without books and movies?) and I do mail books and products as the orders come in. But I try to do it in chunks so that I’m home more often.

c. And again, with the sleep thing I already mentioned. I’m usually up until around 2 am, the main reason for this being that my husband works the night shift and so I like to stay up to see him off. But from 9:00 when all the kids are in bed (supposedly) until I wake my husband up to get ready for work, I can be at the computer, or reading a book, or watching a movie. With the book and movie reviews I write for Families.com, I need to make time for that in my schedule as well.

I think the main thing we need to do is find a way to create balance. You can write and take care of your children at the same time. I recently moved my computer into the living room (it was in my bedroom) so I could be in the thick of things. Right now, my two-year-old is five feet to my left, watching “Blue’s Clues.” I know he’s safe, I know he’s learning, and I’m writing. If you’re totally ignoring your kids in order to write, it won’t be as satisfactory to you. But if you totally ignore yourself and your own talents and ambitions, you won’t derive the kind of satisfaction from motherhood that you should. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids.

Tristi Pinkston is the author of eight published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing, coordinating blog tours, and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

What is a Book Bomb?

A “book bomb” is when an author or publisher asks readers to purchase a particular book from Amazon on a specific day. If enough readers cooperate, it pushes the book up in Amazon’s rankings, giving it much more exposure than it would get if the same number of copies of the book were purchased over a longer period of time.

To schedule a book bomb, you use facebook, twitter, author newsletter lists, and other social media to get the word out: if you’re going to buy this book from Amazon, do it on this date, please.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—depends on how connected an author is, how much buzz they can generate, and how internet/media savvy their readership is. Sometimes an author or publisher will offer a reward for participation. Send them proof that you ordered and you’re entered to win something cool, like an iPad or Kindle

A reasonable goal is to get the book to move up above 1,000 in Amazon’s listing. You’ve done a great job if it shows up in Amazon’s top 100 for it’s genre. If you’re really successful, it might even move to Amazon’s top 100 books overall. If a book hits any these markers, it very likely that it will be picked up in Amazon’s marketing and sent out in their promo emails to customers.

Some of you may have participated in the recent Book Bomb for Variant by Robison Wells. If you missed it, that’s too bad. Here’s what happened…

Coordinated by Larry Correia, the Book Bomb took place on Thursday, November 10th. The day before the bomb, Larry reported, “Last night Variant was at #6,068 overall out of six million some odd books, and #74 in his genre.”

By the end of the day on Thursday, Variant was #57 on Amazon’s Top 100 Book list, #10 in Teen Fantasy and #7 in Teen Sci-Fi.

I’ve watched Book Bombs play out before but I’ve never seen one be quite this successful. This is the power of social media in action! If you want to see the details, visit Larry’s blog.

Writing Fiction: Using the Senses by Rebecca Talley


When writing fiction, it’s important to utilize as many of the senses as possible.

The more you can include the senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste the more your readers will “feel” your story.

As writers, we tend to use sight most frequently. We describe what our characters see more often than any other sense. We are visual and that comes out in our writing.

The next most used sense is sound. We write what our characters can hear. This adds more dimension to our stories, especially when we combine it with sight. Usually, sight and sound seem to describe enough. However, we are shortchanging our readers when we only use sight and sound.

When I was a kid, I used to go to the beach all the time. I’d stop at the snack shop and for a few pennies I’d buy green apple bubble gum and chew it while I was at the beach. To this day, whenever I smell green apple bubble gum, I think of the beach. Similarly, whenever I smell a certain perfume I always think of my mother. Coffee and burned toast remind me of spending the night at my grandmother’s house. Think about smells in your life and how they remind you of certain events. The same can be true for your writing. You can evoke a certain mood by including specific scents.

You can also pull readers further into your story by including touch. Was something rough, smooth, cold, hot, slimy, sticky, or gritty? Including touch can enhance your scene and involve your reader more fully in your writing.

The same is true for taste. Can your character taste the salt on her lips while she walks along the seashore? What about the tinny taste of blood in your character’s mouth after he’s been hit in the face? Use taste to bring your scene to life.

To develop more sensitivity to your senses try keeping a sense journal for a few days, or longer. Write down everything you see, hear, touch, smell, or taste. You’ll find that as you keep this journal, you’ll become more aware of your senses and then you’ll be able to use them more effectively in your writing.

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Supporting Your Facebook Friends


After reading Michael Young’s posts on Facebook Fanpages, I hope all of you published (or very soon to be published) authors have created your fanpage.

Now it’s time to spread the love.

If you have a Facebook Fanpage, paste your link in the comments. It doesn’t have to be fully customized or functional yet. Just let us know it exists.

Readers, please go support your favorite authors by “liking” their fanpages.