Writing 101: Need a Little Extra Money?

If you're an indie author and you self-publish books all on your own and you're living in this economy, chances are good that you could do with a little extra money. And believe me, I'm not going to give it to you. But I can tell you where to get a few extra bucks. Only be warned: I do mean that literally. 

Does a Little Go a Long Way?

Do you have some tidbit to share about crafting, gardening, fashion, some other area of your interest? Do you know recipe secrets, or all sorts of stuff about homebrewing? You can turn your skills into articles, and you can turn those into a little bit of extra cash. 

If you're not an expert and you have no idea how to write an article (which isn't so different from writing a blog post, honestly), you can always share your creative writing. Short stories and poems may also net you a few bucks. 

Writing 101: Block vs. Indents Isn't Even a Debate

As some of you know, I read a lot of author forums. Lately I'm seeing a topic that greatly disturbs me at the deepest levels. The debate between block paragraph versus indented paragraphs continues to be an issue among indies, and this is distressing. Because this isn't even an issue, or a debate. There's one way to format a book...my way.

Visual Appeal

Have you ever picked up a fiction novel and found block paragraphs waiting for you inside, with blank lines between each one? If the answer is yes, was this book self-published or otherwise released by an indie? Because this answer is yes as well, and I know it to be true.

Writing 101: Becoming Evil

Authors have to be a little bit viscous (or downright evil) in order to create exciting books. What would Harry Potter be without Voldemort, who senselessly kills? Where would we be without Dracula, an immortal murderer? Books often have villainous characters. But here's the secret that authors know: we're the real villains. You're the one who has to learn how to become evil. How else are you going to torture your characters? 

I'll Give You Something to Cry About...

Look, bad things happen to everybody. Have you ever fallen off a bike? Broken a bone? Been involved in a car accident? ...Known someone who has died? Real life is filled with tragedies big and small, and that's why all the best books must have the same. 

If you're writing properly, your characters should be going through a fair bit of hell before they reach their happy or tragic conclusions. Characters should not be perfect, and neither should their lives.

In other words, you have to become the villain. You have to be willing to put your characters through terrible situations, and you have to watch them suffer. Becoming evil is something that every author has to learn how to do. You can't write about a murderer without thinking about what it's like to be a murderer, right? So tap into your inner evilness. It's perfectly safe to do that...just as long as you keep your dark side confined to the page.

Ch-ch-changes

You may notice some features missing on the blog this weekend while I work on a brand-new design. That's right: everything around here is changing. The blog is getting a makeover to help me celebrate the release of my newest book, Hope's Rebellion. Keep checking back to see the new design and the upcoming cover reveal! 

Writing 101: What's Different About Your Book?

Digital books have sparked a self-publishing revolution that allows anyone to become an indie author, and this is what's so fantastic about it. But this is also what's bad about it, because there are a lot of indie books out there. No matter how hard you work on yours, it could easily get swamped in a bunch of books that didn't get the same time and attention. So when you write, when you publish, when you promote, you've got to ask yourself a question: what's different about your book? 

The Cheese Stands Alone

Go look for a vampire novel on Amazon -- only wait until you read this blog post. You might be busy doing that for hours, because there are so many to choose from. And if you also write a vampire novel because you love vampires and you've been thinking about them since you were a kid, your book could easily get lost in the shuffle. 

You might focus on the fact that it's a vampire novel, like Twilight and so many other popular novels. You might think this will help you gain readers. But the truth is, because of its popularity there are a ton of Twilight-like novels out there. It's not enough to mention a popular book and the genre you write in. It's not good enough for your book to be like another book -- because in many ways, your book is a lot like a lot of other books out there. That's the nature of the writing business.

So don't tell me how your book is similar to other books. Tell me how it's different. As an indie author, it's your job to make your books stand out. You've got to paint them fluorescent orange, add some new twist, and launch an insane marketing campaign that includes hatching live chickens.

Okay, so no you don't have to do exactly that, but I'm trying to make a point. You have to be unique. You have to stand out. So focus on what makes your book different from all those others, and build your marketing platform around that. You'll have a lot more success with this approach than with telling readers that your book is like someone else's. Give me a great reason to read your book, and that's the best marketing you can do.

Writing 101: Perfect Isn't Possible

I've been posting Facebook updates about my newest book...for many, many months now. It's not quite 60 thousand words and it's consuming me. And the other day I finally figured out what's been taking me so long to just finish it already: I've been trying to make it perfect. But here's the truth about that: perfect isn't possible. And I don't mean that it's not possible for indie authors...it's possible for no author.

Imperfect

I have never read a perfect book. In every story there is a typo, punctuation out of place, mixed-up names. Some errors are even more grievous -- a ridiculous character, an unbelievable plot, a horrible cliche. Even the books that millions love have their flaws.

Read your books again and again, and you'll keep finding stuff to change. Scenes to shift. Sentences to shorten. Punctuation to perfect. Keep looking for errors, and you will find them. Because writing is never going to be perfect. It's the unique phrasing and punctuation that you bring to the table that helps to create your unique voice. And you can spend so much time editing that you completely lose your natural voice in the flow of things. 

There's always something more to add, a character to flesh out, a scene to shorten or another twist to throw in. You can make yourself crazy with it without half-trying, because authors by nature are detail-oriented people. But when they say the devil is in the details, they were definitely talking about editing a book. 

Get rid of the errors, but don't edit out all the flavor of the story. It's not possible to be perfect, and there's always something more to do. But once you feel that the story adequately stirs the emotions you had hoped to engage, and you're quite certain that the book is as 100 percent error-free as is it can be, cut yourself off. Don't keep tweaking pages and messing with what you've got. At some point, you have to stop and you have to call your project done. 

The perfect book is the one that you feel good about. So feel good about your editing, but don't strive for ultimate perfection...because you won't get there. Authors tend to be picky people, too.

Writing 101: Who Should You Follow on Twitter?

If you want to get more followers, you have to follow more people. It's one of the basic tenants of Twitter that everyone knows, but it still leaves so much to desire. Like, who the heck should you be following? 

It's not as easy as you might think to find people who are into books on a site that's driven by misspelled words, random phrases, and very little punctuation. Go figure. But don't worry: I have the answer. Let me tell you who you should follow on Twitter, and you can put an end to your weird hashtag searches.

A Follow for a Follow

Following people on Twitter is only effective if you're following specific targets. Just start following anyone you can find, and your account will get flagged for spam -- and you won't gain that many more followers, to boot. You can follow random people if you like, but the whole point is that you want to sell books. So apply a bit more strategy, and you'll get a lot more results. 

• Books. Twitter is chock-full of book lovers of all kinds. Search for book blogs, book bloggers, review blogs and book lovers. These phrases will yield a ton of positive results.
• Genre. Do you primarily write in a specific genre? Search for it. I follow all kinds of people with YA and mystery in their Twitter profiles.
• Age group. Do you write children's books? YA novels? Adult novels? Search by age group, not just by genre, to get more readers. For example, I search for stuff that teens are into (like One Direction). Adults are more likely to be interested in news and politics, while young kids are into certain TV shows (do they still have Sesame Street?). Use your knowledge of your target age group to search for music, TV shows, actors and books that you audience is likely interested in, and start searching.
• Followers. Don't limit yourself to keyword searches on Twitter. Seek out popular accounts that are likely to be followed by your audience. My books contain a lot of stuff about fashion for younger people, so I might follow people who follow Seventeen magazine. Look for popular accounts, look at their followers, and get to work. 

Twitter helps you discover new accounts to follow, but you have to do some of the work on your own. Search for followers of popular accounts, use keywords and target your searches to the people who are most likely to read your book. Follow new people every single day to get more followers, and sell more books.

Writing 101: The Fine Line Between Marketing and Exploiting

Everyone's got a story to tell, and I'm not just talking about the ones in your self-published books. As an indie author, you also have your own personal story of tragedy and triumph. If you use that to sell more books, are you marketing yourself...or exploiting yourself?

Walking the Line

The question is a hard one, and I know because I had to face it head-on. I was randomly following people back on Twitter one day when I caught one profile that stood out. It was an author (I get followed by a lot of authors) who mentioned, in the same sentence, a terrible personal tragedy and a book she wrote about it.

Now, all authors draw from personal experience. If you write a book about your own personal tragedy, you're within your rights to promote that book for what it is. But you have to be sensitive about the way you choose to promote. Because if you start out by hitting me in the face with your tragedy, it feels a little insincere. It reads a little like "My daughter was murdered -- buy my book!" and that's not the greatest marketing message you can put out there. Take a more sensitive approach. That's hard to do in a Twitter profile, I know...but there's no rule that you have to announce your tragedy in your Twitter profile. When you do, it does begin to feel a little exploitative.

Take a more subtle approach with your marketing...or at least with your tragedies. Sometimes, in-your-face isn't the most effective means of selling a book.