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By
Cynthia Leitich Smithfor
CynsationsMelissa Gorzelanczyk is the first-time author of
Arrows (Delacorte, 2016). From the promotional copy:
People don’t understand love.
If they did, they’d get why dance prodigy Karma Clark just can’t say goodbye to her boyfriend, Danny. No matter what he says or does or how he hurts her, she can’t stay angry with him . . . and can’t stop loving him. But there’s a reason why Karma is helpless to break things off: she’s been shot with a love arrow.
Aaryn, son of Cupid, was supposed to shoot both Karma and Danny but found out too late that the other arrow in his pack was useless. And with that, Karma’s life changed forever. One pregnancy confirmed. One ballet scholarship lost. And dream after dream tossed to the wind.
A clueless Karma doesn’t know that her toxic relationship is Aaryn’s fault . . . but he’s going to get a chance to make things right. He’s here to convince Danny to man up and be there for Karma.
But what if this god from Mount Olympus finds himself falling in love with a beautiful dancer from Wisconsin who can never love him in return?Could you describe both your pre-and-post contract revision process? What did you learn along the way? How did you feel at each stage? What advice do you have for other writers on the subject of revision?Revising post-contract is a lot different than pre-contract.
The best part about post-contract revision is you have a clear path set by someone you (hopefully) trust. Your editor!
When my edit letters come in, I like to allow the feedback sit for a day or two before diving into the changes. That feels long enough to let any emotions attached to what she is telling me disappear.
I wouldn’t recommend writing from a place of feeling wounded or defensive. You need to be open.
Once I’m open to the critique, I go through her letter and write a list of all the problems in my manuscript.
After that, I brainstorm possible solutions, making sure my favorites work on a big picture level. The process breaks down to finding solutions within all of my story elements—plot, setting, character, theme—and then onto chapter/scene/sentence level from there.
One thing to remember when revising post-contract is that your book will actually be out in the world someday. While this seems obvious, it’s easy to forget when you’re focused on the work at hand. Mainly, you want your editor to continue liking your book, right? Do not forget that now, in revision, you should also fix the things that don’t ring true to who you are.
Because people are (for reals) going to be reading your book in the near future! Make sure you feel proud and certain about the changes you are making.
Pre-contract is much harder, especially if you don’t have a critique partner you trust. The key is to find at least one.
Trade samples of each other’s work, and see if you like what the other person is saying to help make your story better. See if they work on the same turnaround as you. See if you feel comfortable being yourself when you email back and forth.
|
Melissa's office |
My second piece of advice is to trust your story and your gut. Long ago, a valued beta reader of mine suggested that I consider taking the teen pregnancy aspect out of my YA novel Arrows. I decided not to, and that ended up helping my book sell to Delacorte. In fact, my book was pitched as “MTVs
'Teen Mom' meets Greek mythology.”
I’m not saying the beta reader was wrong. Maybe my book would sell a million more copies without the teen pregnancy plotline. Who knows. I’m just saying you don’t have to revise according to every comment, especially pre-contract.
Before sending your manuscript to beta readers, I suggest doing at least a couple revisions on your own. One of my favorite revising methods is a modified version of
Susan Dennard’s revision method (just scroll down). Take her ideas and adapt them to fit your style.
For me, a simplified approach works best. My plan always starts with printing my manuscript and reading it in one sitting. I might make notes in the margins, or I might not. Then, like Dennard, I paperclip my chapters together and figure out what is or isn’t working with the plot, characters and setting.
This takes time! And this isn’t the place for line edits! Because believe me, for those first revision passes, your deleted scenes file may end up as long as your manuscript.
That is okay.Shed no tears.
This is how all books are made.
“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”
― Ernest Hemingway
How have you approached the task of promoting your debut book? What online or real-space efforts are you making? Where did you get your ideas? To whom did you turn for support? Are you enjoying the process, or does it feel like a chore? What advice do you have on this front for your fellow debut authors and for those in the years to come?Promoting my debut has been both exhausting and interesting. I’m still a few weeks from publication date (I’m writing this on 1/4/16), but I truly feel I’ve done all I can leading up to this point.
I try to remember that promoting a book is a slow burn, kind of like the publishing process as a whole. It doesn’t happen all at once.
The things I’m doing pre-publication are the things I’ll be doing all of next year.
Promotion starts by figuring out two things:
1. How much time you can devote to promotion.
2. How much money you can/want to spend.
I think every author should plan to spend some time and some money on their promotion, but no one really knows the magic combo. Personally, I devote half of my work day to promotion, as well as some nights and weekends, which I started doing when my book was about four months from publication.
Up to that point, I was working on promotion as things came up. There wasn’t a set schedule or plan. So I guess you could say that about four months to publication, I panicked, created a master spreadsheet and worked really hard to meet my goals.
As far as money, my guess is that I’ll have spent about $1,500 to $3,000 on promotion by the end of 2016. This estimate includes postage (budget more than you think you need), thank you cards, thank you gifts, bookmarks, buttons, postcards, my book trailer, conferences and my launch party. All of this is tax deductible.
I have no idea if this is high or low as far as a marketing investment, but as a debut, when deciding where to spend money, it made sense to go “all in.”
I’m curious how I’ll feel at the end of 2016. My advice is do what feels right for you.
|
Melissa's office |
If you’re wondering where to start with promotion, I’d highly recommend joining a debut author group. I’m a member of the
Sweet Sixteens and the
Class of 2k16.
Being able to ask fellow debuts questions has saved so much time in random Google searches/panicking. Plus it’s a safe place to share failures and successes, and well, meet people who “get it.” My author family is a whole new awesome kind of family.
Another thing you can do is study what successful authors are doing. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Add your personality and style to their ideas. For instance, if they are on Goodreads, you probably want to be there, too. If they are doing giveaways on Twitter, why not try one?
For your own sanity, stay organized. Write all of your ideas on a spreadsheet and add deadline dates so that you don’t feel completely overwhelmed.
Work on your promotion in bite-sized pieces. One blog post at a time. One bookmark order at a time. One Tweet at a time.
In my opinion, being a debut is a good time to say “yes”. Try all the blog articles you can. Answer every interview you can.
Yes, you want to make a book trailer? Figure out how to do that. Yes, create a professional website and blog, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter. Yes, send a
monthly newsletter (I use MailChimp).
Yes, you can do this!
Cynsational NotesMelissa recommends:
Ten Things Nobody Tells You about Being a Debut Novelist by
Tim Federle.
If you're running a promotion, make sure it's in place before spreading the word on social media.
http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2015/12/more-on-promotion-timing.html
What does Rebirth mean for DC's financial futures?
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on 1/27/2016
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Could #Rebirth really, truly, launch a DC Universe that looks like nothing we've ever seen before?
With all the choices available in social media now, should you include Instagram in your marketing plans?
http://www.jkscommunications.com/should-you-be-using-instagram/
Your author brand is what helps readers recognize what they can expect in your writing.
http://writersinthestormblog.com/2015/12/22714/
If you're published, should you still be doing free events?
http://uncommonya.com/?p=889
By:
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Brandon and Alex talk about the best comics and comics creators of 2015!
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What does DC need to do to change its fortunes in the year to come?
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Our resident sales analyst David Carter looks into DKIII's BIG debut!
By:
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Becca and I love you guys. We want to see you break barriers, build careers, and enjoy success after writing success. Supporting you is what we’re about and what we do. We enjoy helping however possible, encouraging each of you to grow and be awesome as only you can.
To do this well, sometimes we have to nudge. Push a little, even. But our hearts are in the right place, because there’s no point candy coating the work it takes to be a successful writer. It will require every drop of strength and persistence you have to keep moving forward in the face of obstacles, rejection and doubt. You will have to grow thick skin, thicker than you ever thought possible. You will have to wear the hat of a learner, because you will never know it all or reach a point of ‘good enough’ when it comes to writing. There will always be more craft to absorb, more skills to hone, more marketing and business challenges to overcome, more work needed to expand your career, year after year.
So in our tough-love yet encouraging fashion, Becca and I are starting the year with a challenge for you: steer your own ship. Make a plan. Treat your writing like the business it is.
And this isn’t hot air, I promise–we live what we preach. Since organizing ourselves and adopting a yearly business plan in 2012, we have accelerated our careers. Not only have we built multiple businesses, published books in 5 languages, created a one-of-a-kind writing library and grown Writers Helping Writers into a learning hub with a loyal following, we teach and speak professionally as writing coaches. It didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen easily, but it happened.
And guess what? Neither one of us is special. We don’t have a magic 8-ball, or pet hamsters that shoot lasers out of their eyes while predicting the future. We’re just Angela and Becca, two writers who met in an online critique group.
What’s I’m saying is…if we can do this, you can too. So let’s get started.
Organize The Chaos
Most say writers write, but I think writers actually juggle. Yes, they do write, edit, and learn. But they also research the industry and their audience, build a brand, create a platform, handle marketing, promote, and run a business. And that, my friend, is juggling.
Trying to master all these aspects of a writing career is chaotic. There are countless books and articles to read on various subjects of writing, publishing and marketing, experts to heed, social media platforms to navigate, people to connect to and opportunities to take advantage of. And often what happens is the writer is pulled into so many directions at once, no real headway is made on bigger goals. Instead writing time is spent on a million mini tasks that seem valid at the time, but may not be.
In 2012, Becca and I found our time was being eaten by all the little things that come with running a larger site like Writers Helping Writers. Our days were spent neck deep in email, social networking, blog comments, and guest posting. And guess what wasn’t getting done? Writing. And well, that’s sort of the point, wouldn’t you say?
We knew we needed to organize ourselves and prioritize better. We wanted a way to measure each opportunity that came our way and make better decisions with our time. Luckily, my husband is a business management consultant, and he led us through the process of creating a business plan. The start was to assess where we were at, and define where we still needed to grow.
Ask Yourself The Tough Questions
In the business world, assessments are common. People are brought in to examine departments and processes, do risk assessments, and conduct 360° reviews on employees. A company needs to be efficient and functional to prosper, and a writer’s career is no different. So take a step back and look at where you are at. What areas did you focus on this past year, and what was your progress toward big goals? If you could do it all over, would you do it the same way, or organize your time differently?
Taking stock of where you are, and where you want to go is a great way to hone in on what to focus on in the coming year. If you can be honest about areas you are weaker in and what you must strengthen to position yourself better, you’ll save yourself heartache. For example, if your writing is really strong, you have a book you feel is marketable but you have no online presence whatsoever, spending more energy honing your craft isn’t the best use of your time. Instead, you might want to make getting yourself online, learning how to network and find ways to build relationships with your potential audience a primary focus. Yes, this might seem scary, but pushing out of your comfort zone will help you grow.
Likewise, if you are a Social Media queen but your writing skills are less-than-adequate, start boning up on your writing craft. Read, take classes and practice technique. A great platform will not sell a poorly written book.
Be a Planner, Not a Pantser
Lots of writers like to “pants” it. A little, a lot, maybe the whole book is written on the fly, a joy ride from start to finish. What will the main character do? Where will he go? How will the book end? Who knows—that’s all part of the fun.
And pantsing might work great…in fiction. But in business, pantsing will hurt you, or perhaps better said, will hurt your potential. Because while you’re flying along, researching weather patterns for a new story idea you have here, increasing your twitter following there, and flirting with a group promotion or two when invites roll in…you are missing the forest for the trees. Rather than take confident strides toward achieving specific goals to help you leap forward, you’re taking half-steps in too many directions and hardly getting anywhere.
Like Becca and I did, you might need some structure. A road map, a way to determine what areas are the most important to work on, what goals should be the focus, and the timeline needed for each. You won’t believe how well this will help keep you on track, and just how much more you’ll get done in a year.
I realize for many, the words, “business plan” probably sounds intimidating, but it really is so simple—7 steps will get you there. In fact, I wrote a post about the process at Jane Friedman’s blog, so please, check it out. Everything you need is there—the steps, a template, and even an example of one of our old business plans. (Take advantage of some free professional business consulting!)
You love what you do, and you work hard every day, I know it. You are capable of so much, so challenge yourself! Make 2016 your year.
Happy writing and business-planning,
Angela
The post Is 2016 Your Year? Make A Writing Plan And Take Out The Guesswork appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS™.
By:
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on 12/30/2015
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Every Wednesday, I talk about comics with Brandon Montclare, writer of the hit Image series Rocket Girl and co-writer of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series. We gab about what we’re reading now, what books we consider classics (Brandon loves Dark Knight Strikes Again…), and the hottest gossip of the industry. Occasionally, the inimitable artist Amy Reeder (Rocket Girl, Batwoman) stops by. Check out our full […]
Whether it's for your query letter or promoting your book, you want to have a good author bio.
http://buildbookbuzz.com/author-bio-mistakes/
By:
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on 12/23/2015
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Our resident Marvel analyst takes a look at the publisher's November sales, discerning which All-New All-Different titles are posed to be failures and which might become breakout successes.
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on 12/8/2015
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Today I received a copy of my book Sand Dollar, Sand Dollar in its final Spanish/ English dual language paperback version, published by Bab’l Books, Boston. I am excited to see this book in print again! I love the idea of reaching out to bilingual kids. And, its hidden message is environmental – that we […]
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by Xavier Lancel Welcome to a new analysis of the Marvel sales. Reminder: I’m French, that’s why I’m talking funny. Please adress your complaints to my all-over-the-news country. Reminder: these sales numbers are estimates of sales to comics shops situated in North America. American comics do get sold somewhere else in their original floppy edition. […]
By Candy Gourlay
Every year I help organise the highlight of my writing year: the SCBWI Conference for children's writers and illustrators in Winchester.
The irony of course is that I don't actually attend the conference. By being one of the organisers, my experience of the conference is that of sorting out the website, hustling behind the scenes, contributing to the programming, supporting the rest of the team, preparing panels, meeting and greeting on the day. But I get a huge kick out of watching something that was just a bunch of ideas turn into a successful reality.
This year, the title of the conference was: '
New Readers Ahoy! Creating Stories to Treasure' -- but I have to say, whatever name we give the conference, year after year, embedded under whatever we choose for the conference theme, is our true objective:
How To Be Discovered.
We are all hoping to be discovered.
The unpublished are hoping to find the inspiration and information that would lead to their first book deal. Even people who have been discovered, already been published, are continuously on the lookout for ways to stand out from all the other books out there. They want to be discovered by new publishers, by people who invite authors to festivals, by journalists, by teachers who might invite them to visit schools. Self-published folk are looking for the same thing but must struggle against bias and access to distribution.
What's the good of creating stories to treasure if nobody can find our work?
Over and over again, we are told: it's no longer enough to just write well (or
'Dance good' as publisher keynote David Fickling put it). We people who make the stories have to help get it out there too. But how?
Here are a few take-aways from the conference on how to be discovered plus some of my own tips:
1.
Know the game. Attending a conference will bring home to you the enormity of the journey ahead of you. You will realise that you've got to raise your game. You will meet vast numbers of aspiring authors, just as talented as you, who are also waiting to be discovered. Should you quit or carry on?
2.
Discover each other. If you decide not to quit, seize the opportunity to enjoy the company of these like-minded people. No, don't just socialise. Discover each other. The friends I have made at every conference are the ones who have held me up when I've been low and cheered me on whenever I've had a success.
3.
Meet gatekeepers face to face. There are many ways to draw attention to yourself on social media. You can participate in hashtags, tag famous people into interacting with you, retweet, link etc. Unfortunately there are a gazillion other people doing the same thing. So there's nothing like meeting someone face to face. Finding opportunities to meet people in real time teaches you how to conduct yourself in a professional way. You also very quickly discover that agents, publishers and editors are human beings. Seeing people as human is always a good strategy.
4.
You've probably already got a platform. How do I build a platform? That's what everyone is asking - whether published, unpublished, self-published. You've probably already got one. Take a sheet of paper and make a list. You have a platform in your immediate family and friends. These are guaranteed sales. You probably have other platforms you haven't thought about before. Professional circles, perhaps. Friends around a special interest. The question is: how do you get these friends and acquaintances to not only buy your book but to persuade others to do so?
5.
Know your influencers. Should I build a platform from scratch? Don't. You have better things to do with your time -- like, for example, write another book. Rather than knocking on the doors of strangers (this is what it feels like for non-bloggers who are forced to start a blog so that they can 'build a platform'), it is better to focus on influencers -- in children's books, these are librarians, teachers, booksellers. Can you get influencers to love your book? Can you get them to persuade others to read it?
6.
You're not a salesman, you're an author. Promoting your book
must be a lot more subtle than shouting 'BUY MY BOOK!' on social media. You're an author. You're shinier than a salesman. What a turn off if Meryl Streep turned up at your door saying, 'Watch my movie!' Don't be that kind of self-promoter. You are about STORY so craft your story ... the story you are going to tell in radio interviews, newspaper articles, festivals, school events. Read my piece
Being Human is the Best Kind of Marketing.
7.
Engage with communities. Communities are groups driven by shared interests. If your book has a theme or focus that drives a community, this can be a chance to engage in with interested people in a meaningful way. The quality of your participation may lead them to your book. Book promoter
Tim Grahl advises authors to be "relentlessly helpful". People respond when they are rewarded with things they want. So. What do people in your communities want?
8.
Make a plan. Quoting Grahl again: "Successful (book) launches are not random events. Authors don’t throw together a few Facebook updates and blog posts the night before, then watch their rankings skyrocket the next day." Think things through. Don't just set up a blog tour without understanding how these things work because your publisher told you to. Ask yourself, why am I doing this? What is my pay off? Can I measure it? How sustainable is this plan?
8.
Be findable. It still surprises me to discover authors who haven't set up websites or at least got a presence on social media. Yes, the internet and social media can be all pervasive and time-sucking. But we are LUCKY to live in a world where we have the power to put ourselves into the public eye without depending on the vagaries of fame. Are you findable? Maintaining your own presence on the web means you control your story. If you don't have a website or run your own social media accounts, you are in danger of handing your story to others to tell. And you will have no control over what they say.
9.
Be useful. The truth is people are just interested in themselves and in their own needs. They're not particularly interested in you (unless you are famous, and then they want to know everything about you - but that's for their own entertainment not so you can sell more books). People only find you if they need something from you. If you're a children's author, you will have child readers trawling your website if you can help them with their homework. Teachers will be looking for teaching resources. Librarians might be looking for reading lists. If people find you, will they get what they're looking for? Be useful.
10.
Be amazing. Ultimately of course, you've got to make something amazing to be discovered. Something people really really want. Nobody was ever discovered that did nothing. So make sure you do that. Write the best book you can. Be the best author you can be. Be amazing.
Candy's books are Shine and Tall Story. It's Christmas soon. Hint. Hint.
We're thrilled to welcome author Joshua David Bellin to the blog today as our monthly Ask a Pub Pro! Joshua is here to answer your questions on what exactly is an unreliable narrator and how to craft one, how to creatively recycle character types, and the pros and cons of using Book X meets Book Y in pitches. He's also giving away a signed copy of his recent release, SURVIVAL COLONY 9, with the winner also to receive a copy of the sequel, SCAVENGER OF SOULS, when it comes out next year. Be sure to check it out below!
If you have a question you'd like to have answered by an upcoming publishing professional, send it to AYAPLit AT gmail.com and put Ask a Pub Pro Question in the subject line.
Ask a Pub Pro: on Unreliable Narrators, Recycling Characters, and Mashup Pitches by Joshua David Bellin
Hi readers! I’m thrilled to be here on Adventures in YA Publishing to answer some of your questions. Enjoy, and at the end of the post, check out the cool giveaway I’m offering!
1. I keep seeing agents and editors ask for unreliable narrators. I know a bit about what this is but am not real clear. Can you explain what an unreliable narrator is and why they are so popular?
Unreliable narrators come in all forms, but the basic idea is that they’re narrators the reader can’t fully trust. This might be because the narrator lacks important information: for example, the narrator might be suffering from memory loss. Or the narrator might be a young child whose perceptions of the world are immature. The narrator might have a mental illness that leads her/him to misrepresent reality. And so on.
Read more »
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Catwoman getting a new creative team due to low sales, and immediately losing ~30% of sales seems like some weird karma thing. I assume it’ll be cancelled at Rebirth.
Man, those are some ugly numbers on some of these books. The trend towards a 20% loss without a freely order variant is pretty distressing also. Really hope DC can turn this around….
I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover? Are they aliens? What do they do with it? Do they eat food? Do they ever read the comics they purchased?
This might be more work than you want to do, but, damn, I’m starting to itch for asterixes next to books with FOVs so that you cn glance at the list and understand the context….
I wish you hadn’t written all of that nuts pre-speculation — it was really unfocused and almost certainly wrong in many many ways.
-B
“I always feel weird, asking myself who are those people buying comics only for their cover?”
It’s more likely that some people are buying more than one copy.
Like in the 90’s? Yuk! It would be really interesting to know the proportion beetween one and the other. I do think there is probably actual readers buying multiple issues -if so, why do they prefer to buy a copy with a different cover of a comics they already pruchased instead of somethign else to read, when the current market is offering so many nice differents reading experience?. But I’m pretty sure there is also a proportion of people buying an issue only for the variant, which would explian how very low selling titles see sometimes such a big jump whenever they play the variant card. It seems that there is a core number of buyers buying variant, no matter the title, but depending on the variant subject popularity.
Contrarily to the 90’s ugly trends, current variants seem to rely solely on art, no gimmicky shenanigans, therefore rest of the shoulders of the artist’s fame and the low print run. I’d be curious to see how the back issue market treats those. Might be a decent investment, in our uncertain times. I think Bleeding Cool has some kind of column tracking that kind or bargain/profit opportunity, every now and then for hot items. Does someone know if one ever provided some kind of statistics on recent variants?
Couple things on the FOV:
I haven’t historically gotten variants, but about a year ago Discount Comic Book Service began offering a package where if you bought all of the FOV for a given month you got them at a bigger discount. Since I was getting most of the titles anyway, I started getting those. Thus I discovered a couple things.
One is that owning the variant is great an all, but there’s this bit of weirdness of having this book and not having any way to know, from the book itself, what the “real” cover looks like. I’m actually kinda happy that the coloring-book covers are just on top of the regular covers, rather than replacing them. So in that context, I can kinda see someone buying both versions, to be able to own both covers.
Also, while I don’t follow it closely, it does seem that the FOV are increasing in value. I use ComicBase, which has its own price guide-type info, and I run a little report regularly to see which books are currently valued over cover price. The FOVs generally end up on that list. So despite the fact that they are as available as the regular books, there’s still some sort of aftermarket demand.
Worth noting I am not comparing the FOV guide value to the non-FOV version of the same books, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the FOV’s that are going up.
Is that for freely orderable ones, or all variants?
Why do people buy variants? I’ve never understood it. Do they actually appreciate in value?