I published a new book. What did you do yesterday?
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This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “personality,” comes to us from Astrid. Check out her blog here!
In a way, I’m jealous of authors who can plot and plan a novel or an entire series before they start writing. I haven’t published a full-length novel in a year because I’ve been busy writing three of them in a continuing series, and I’m afraid to release the first one in case the details in the third one require a change at the beginning of the overall story.
All this because I’m a discovery writer, or a “pantser,” as we often call writers who write by the seat of their pants. I love being a pantser—finding out what’s going to happen in my story and to my characters as I write is both fun and fascinating.
Many times for me, an entire book will start with a single personality. And often, that personality will come to me from listening to a character’s voice and seeing them in my head.
Because my stories are character-driven, personality is essential to pin down. Personality can often help me to decide what situations to put them in.
In Creamed, my latest release for instance, Tom comes to town and inadvertently steals Mary’s business at the Christmas market where they both have booths. If not for Tom’s strong feelings on the subject of fairness (he hates unfairness), the story might have gone a completely different way.
In other words, the personalities of characters have a lot to do with conflict and its resolution, and therefore, plot.
And that’s my lecture story structure for the day. Not sure how I came to this point, but here we are.
(Seriously, I didn’t plot this post ahead of time. 😏)
This wandering post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!
There’s a discussion going on in one of my Facebook groups and I’m having a very hard time staying out of it. So lucky you, you get to hear the side that’s going on in my head.
The complaint was a misused word. The sentence they are “Ugh!”ing over included the phrase, “something worst.” The original complainer called it a grammatical error. I pointed out it could have been a typo, and asked if it was one of many. She said it was the only one she’d found, so I said it was understandable: even a spellchecker wouldn’t have picked it up, to which she replied, “True probably self published.” Note the total lack of grammatical issues with her reply. (Sorry, I get sarcastic when I’m pissed off.) What I wanted to say was that even had it been edited and proofread professionally by a traditional publisher’s editing department, they hire humans. And humans are fallible.
Oh, but this isn’t the worst of it all. Someone in the group actually had the gall to say that with cheap, self-published books, you get what you pay for. First let me say that we self-published authors, no matter how much effort we put into a book, have to stay competitive. That means charging less than the big publishers do, because we don’t have the fan base who will buy anything as long as it has our name on it. That means, yes, undervaluing our work much of the time. But even so.
Name one profession other than writing where you can pay the person producing the work under five dollars for five thousand hours of work. Think about it. How long does it take you to read a three hundred page book? Do you think the writer wrote and edited it faster than you read it? Did you pay minimum wage for the number of hours it took you to read it? I don’t care who you’re reading, you’re getting much more than you paid for, and chances are if it’s a self-published author, you’re getting a lot more of their blood, sweat, and tears than you are of an author with a team of editors and marketers behind them.
I’ve been craving cheese lately. I just want to spread a lovely coat of cheese over everything I eat. And I have no idea why. Maybe I’m lacking calcium, or vitamin D, since I haven’t had much chance to get out of the house lately. I miss my paper route for that reason and that reason only. It was a pain in the neck when I had to do it in the snow and I didn’t have a babysitter, but it did force me to get out of the house and walk around the block every day. And hey, who wouldn’t want to get paid for walking around the block every day?
Instead, I’ve swapped that occupation for one of trying to get my work published. I was truly amazed at how much work it takes to advertise a book. I haven’t been doing all that well, apparently, since I’ve only sold 3 in the last month. I have had some great reviews though, which I should make a habit of posting here to remind people I have a book for sale and to keep the reminders somewhat fresh. Anyway, as you can probably guess I was making more money on my paper route than I am as an author. So far.
I’m coming up to the point where I’ll soon need advance-reader copy (ARC) reviews. I’d like to have a few posted when my next book comes out, so people can see what they’re getting on launch day. OH, and I had a bit of a bite from a local radio station. The story of The Great Dagmaru takes place in the real city of Kingston, Ontario. I mentioned this on Facebook to the rock station I actually mention in the book, and they told me to let them know when the novel comes out. Maybe I’ll get a plug from them. 🙂
I have no idea what this all has to do with coats, other than cheese … I promise my novels aren’t cheesy. That’s the one thing I don’t put cheese on. Or in. Hey, is that lasagna?
Yesterday I was lucky enough to be one of the fifty new authors who attended a Masterclass, presided over by Daniel Wells, owner and founder of Biblioasis, a publishing company which runs out of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Advertised as a “Writer’s Studio Round Table,” the event was hosted at the Holiday Inn by the Kingston Writer’s Fest, in a room half filled with chairs lined up for the audience and a podium at the front. I learned a lot: here are the highlights.
Mr. Wells, Dan as he likes to be called, came off as personable and approachable. Indeed, he allowed for about half of the allotted time as a Q & A, the “Qs” coming from us, a subdued and awed crowd of 99% (traditionally) unpublished authors of various genres. Dan spoke about the role of a publisher in the relationship between writer and printer/flogger. He gave us tips on how to get noticed by people in his field of expertise. First, (and I had an idea of this) he told us that a whopping 90-odd percent of his writers were NOT people who sent in queries out of the blue. He explained that he found most of his authors via the literary magazines in which they’d been featured and via recommendations by the authors whose work he has already published. For me this put in perspective how important it is to get my work out there – really get my work out there, not just here on WordPress and other social media sites. Having said that, the second point he brought up that I want to mention here is the fact that a publisher does take into consideration how much networking an author does. A majority of a publisher’s work goes into promoting his books – no publisher in this age of networking and social media wants an author who will simply sit back and hope for the best. Dan strongly advised that we immerse ourselves in the communities for which we write. Get to know people, writers and readers alike, and gain contacts.
Dan spoke about self-publishing as well. He mentioned the “gatekeeper” theory that if a book is traditionally published it stands to be of better quality than if self-published. He said this isn’t necessarily true, but that what it comes down to is a matter of trust in the community at large. For instance, if he goes to a national paper and requests a review of one of his books, he’s much more likely to get it than, say, the guy down the street who paid to have his book published. (My example.) He also used this point to suggest that when we read reviews in our local newspapers, look to see who the publisher is. It’s a good gauge to see who is on the ball… not all publishers are created equal, nor will all of them go the extra mile to get an author the exposure he/she deserves.
The final point of note which surprised me to no end was the tally of books which had to be sold in order for a book to make the bestseller’s list in Canada. For some of us this is good – a fantastic label to have on the front cover – but for those of us wishing to quit our day jobs to become bestselling authors, it’s a bit of a disappointment. The number? 3,000-5,000 copies. That’s all it takes.
In all I walked away from Daniel Wells’ Masterclass with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. It was extremely informative and it gave me a few new ideas on how I want to proceed with my querying. In the meantime, I’m researching literary magazines. And hoping for the best.
I came across an article today which drives home the importance of editing and putting out one’s absolute best work when self-publishing. I would have re-blogged, but that wasn’t an option.
This: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/01/28/follow-up-on-self-publishing-readers-are-not-good-gatekeepers/ is the article, by Chuck Wendig. In it, he explains how self-publishing is becoming a decent and viable option to traditional means, and how that could change if self-published authors present sub-par efforts to the reading public. It’s an excellent article. You should read it, even if you’re not an author.
lindaghill.com 