Conversations with a Self-Publishing Writer, Royalene Speaks, Uncategorized

Conversations: 4/14/2017

BENEFITS OF WRITING SIGHT AND SOUND SCENES – Part II

As mentioned last week, today’s Readers are addicted to the visual and sound effects offered to them in every part of their lives. However we know that there is nothing to match the human imagination as we read the words of a novel that create our own sight and sound experience.

With that in mind, I will mention one other book which my students selected for class discussion from the World Literature list: The Call of the Wild by Jack London. I’m sure they expected this to be a “quick and easy” grade because it is short and most had read it before. I won’t add their classroom experience here, but only say that they got more out of it than expected. However, now that working with writers of various levels of experience, I’ll share several concepts about Mr. London and his writing expertise that can benefit us, today.

  • London’s stories take the reader out of their comfort zone and force them to imagine, “What if.” Yes, the main character is Buck, the dog. Yet this character symbolizes a common mythic character who wins the day against all odds and returns to the peaceful bliss of nature. Did London develop this thread from reading such novels as Dickens’ Hard Times? Possibly. And it is alive and well today in the multi-media (magazine, book, film) super-hero productions.
  • This novel falls into the genre of “animal fiction.” However its blend of parable, fable and allegory is another reason it has never been out of print since first published in 1903. These three genre categories are excellent venues within which to practice and develop writing skills.
  • Finally, the bold content that almost forces Readers to feel the “flight or fight” adrenalin effect was part of London’s strategy to make a statement against what he saw as the destructive result of industrialization. His personal life experiences “in the wild” touched him deeply and he hoped others could appreciate its inspiration, beauty and value.

Most of us write and develop our novels to accomplish these same goals: offer examples of survival against all odds, inspire Readers toward happier, healthier lifestyles and (this is the BIG goal) never be out of print.

Now…keeping London’s Call of the Wild in mind—and the beauty of sights and sounds he experienced—consider the following book as a potential tool to inspire and develop your own creativity.

art experience and faith by william tolliver squireArt, Experience and Faith by William Tolliver Squires, a retired Art professor at the
University of Georgia and a current sculptor and painter, has been called a “guidebook of one artist’s evolving theory of his creative process.”  “Dr. Squires describes his early artistic career as…misdirected, without grounding in a mature sense of what is important in life and art. He now sees the best work of his life as…how the process is informed by a combination of his intuitive, spiritual self and his practical, rational self.”

I find it totally joyful when discovering additional ways to enhance my writing. It is even more exciting to share these tools with other writers! No matter what season we are in, or what genre we’ve chosen, ALL the tools to develop writing skills will help us produce the best book possible. Once that manuscript is completed then it’s time to publish! GO FOR IT! You’ll never regret it. ⚓︎

Royalene

ABOUT ROYALENE DOYLE: Royalene has been writing something since before kindergarten days and continues to love the process. Through her small business—DOYLE WRITING SERVICES—she brings more than 40 years of writing experience to authors who need “just a little assistance” with completing their projects. This is a nice fit as she develops these blogs for Outskirts Press (OP) a leading self-publisher, and occasionally accepts a ghostwriting project from one of their clients. Her recent book release (with OP) titled FIREPROOF PROVERBS, A Writer’s Study of Words, is already receiving excellent reviews including several professional writer’s endorsements given on the book’s back cover.  

Royalene’s writing experience grew through a wide variety of positions from Office Manager and Administrative Assistant to Teacher of Literature and Advanced Writing courses and editor/writer for an International Christian ministry. Her willingness to listen to struggling authors, learn their goals and expectations and discern their writing voice has brought many manuscripts into the published books arena.

elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Knowing When to Quit

quit

We’ve all been there, and it’s a tough place to be: we’ve all faced the daunting question of “Should I continue writing this?” and not known the answer. But there are signs on the road that leads to doubt, signs which can tell us more or less reliably when the project needs to make a quick exit from our lives … and when to press on.

My first impulse as someone who works in author services is always to encourage, to say … you can do it! You can finish the thing! All it needs is a little more time and focus! … and sometimes, I’m right. But sometimes, I’m not. And a lot of my job relies on me being able to parse the right time to–yes, encourage–the writers I work with to part ways with their current piece.

It all starts with time, and waiting.

The first sign that it’s time to quit is that you’re waiting for inspiration. A lot. Maybe all of the time. It’s like a divine fire which descends from the skies and burns its way out of you, this inspiration. You can work through the night without even noticing, when it comes … but it doesn’t often come. The difficulty here is that if waiting is your M.O., you’re likely to eventually produce a manuscript … but not a workable book. Writing frenetically and disorganizedly, powered only by brief flashes of inspiration, isn’t enough to hold a book together–the secret to writing a novel isn’t to work through minor problems quickly and leave major ones until after the first draft is complete, but this is where waiters-for-inspiration tend to end up.

The second sign that it’s time to quit is when you wake up and realize you’re writing for someone else, not because you feel personally involved in the story being told. Some authors succeed in writing for the masses passionlessly, but it’s generally not a safe bet, because what draws the masses (in most cases) is a recognition on the author’s part–the author looks into the text and recognizes that there’s something magical going on there, some part of the self which has found its own kind of agency.

Oh, and authors who write for a market and not out of vision tend to neglect their craft. Why does the sentence-level work matter if the grander arc of the story doesn’t? Authors sense this discrepancy and it can kill enthusiasm stone dead.

The third sign that it’s time to quit is when you start finding reasons to not write. Like, if you’re reading this blog post because you Googled “How to know when to quit?” then … that’s what I’m talking about. Or when you find excuses to be too busy during your dedicated writing hour each morning (or evening, you night owls!). Or when “the fire just isn’t there anymore,” as one author lamented to me recently. Often, when we try to push through this particular sign, it’s because we’re more intent on being authors than we are on writing. We wish to belong to a category of people who live lives we think desirable. We want fame. But the burnout inevitably happens a quarter or midway through the manuscript, and it never really comes back.

Usually at this point in a post about quitting, bloggers start quoting authors like David Eddings and Samuel Beckett and Neil Gaiman. And don’t get me wrong, I love Neil Gaiman the same as you do … but isn’t that half of the problem? We lean on the voices of others when we find ourselves at sea to pin down an idea. And leaning is 100% encouragement-worthy behavior, in my opinion, if you’re feeling on the edge of some great Quitting. But: forget all of those authors who faced setback after setback before finding an agent or getting published (Stephanie Meyer and Kathryn Stockett, I’m looking at you!). Forget the inspirational quotes.

Yes, some success is the result of stick-to-my-guns-itude. Some. But for every Kathryn Stockett out there, there are ten authors who persevered with the same degree of determination that she did, and never got past the bottleneck. And for every Stephanie Meyer out there, there are ten authors who realized their work wasn’t going anywhere and figured out somewhere better it could go.

Stick to your guns … until you know the sticking is sheer stubbornness. If you quit, it’s not the end of the world. There’s another book out there for you, waiting to be written. Maybe quitting is actually an important skill to develop–tasteful quitting, graceful quitting, quitting when the object being quitted is holding you back from digging in to a new, better object just waiting for your attention.

Quit, darlings. Quit and start afresh. It’s okay.

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
decluttering, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

Decluttering…The Finale!

Over the past few weeks, hopefully you’ve had the chance to slim down your filing cabinets and your schedule, you’ve gotten rid of that muffin that’d been on your desk for three weeks and was starting to leech spores into the air, you’ve updated your website and social media pages and even learned how to set realistic goals for yourself along the way.

declutter

Some lessons that I hope you heed from this series are that clutter accumulates a lot easier than it tends to disappear or become manageable. If you find yourself getting stressed out from the process of decluttering, remember to take some pointers from our “decluttering mindfully” piece. Go out for a run, write down your frustrations, take a nap, listen to a podcast or call a friend. Sometimes we need to take a break to achieve a task at hand, and it’s perfectly okay to let yourself do that in the interest of being more productive upon your return.

In that same vein, remember that “decluttering ambitiously” can be as important as decluttering your filing cabinet. This means setting reasonable goals for yourself (for cleaning up or for writing!) and using a calendar or schedule of some sort to keep yourself accountable for those goals. Maybe you didn’t have time for cleaning up shop this month because you were busy getting to your blog posts or finishing up a chapter you’d been working on. That’s okay. It’s never too late to organize. A rainy spring day when you can’t find the motivation to write or go outside might work even better for you–it’s called spring cleaning for a reason.

We all know time is precious, so “decluttering temporally” is a practice we can do without having to invest much time at all. This is as simple as being able to say “No”: to working extra hours, to going out when you just really don’t feel like it, to helping someone move, etc. etc. This can also be as simple as avoiding wasting your time on things like scrolling through a Facebook feed.

All that time mindlessly scrolling could, of course, be better used by “decluttering digitally” and cleaning up your author website and making sure your documents are organized in some meaningful way and backed up in case some sort of coffee catastrophe were to be unleashed upon your laptop or hard drive.

But when you do get around to it, remember that a cluttered desk–or room–often means a cluttered mind. Make sure that your physical desktop has only the essentials on it that you need for writing. No need to be stressing out about bills or constantly looking at that empty bag of chips while you’re trying to be productive and create a beautiful story! You ultimately want your workspace to be comfortable and to promote creativity and productivity. This might mean pulling some uninspiring books off the shelves and donating them to Goodwill. It might also mean spending a long time weeding out unnecessary files from your filing cabinet. But it might mean something more fun, like finding a piece of artwork for your walls or a comfortable chair for your desk!

Just remember, if it’s not aiding in your productivity or creativity and it’s even a little bit in the way, it should probably get completely out of the way. Decluttering sometimes means parting with the strange things we hoard and latch onto without any real rationale behind it. But I feel very confident in saying that ridding yourself of these cluttering items will only help you in the long run.

*****

The Series

  1. Decluttering … The Desk & Workspace!
  2. Decluttering … Clearing the Mental Clutter.
  3. Decluttering … Digitally!
  4. Decluttering … Your Schedule.
  5. Decluttering … Ambitiously!
  6. Decluttering … Publishing!
  7. Decluttering … The Archives.
  8. Decluttering … Your Bookshelves!

 

Thank you for reading!  If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or contributions, please use the comment field below or drop us a line at selfpublishingadvice@gmail.com.  And remember to check back each Wednesday for your weekly dose of marketing musings from one indie, hybrid, and self-published author to another. ♠

Kelly

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com
Advocacy in Self-Publishing, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “The Vook? Yes, Vook.”

Welcome back to our Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years.  What’s stayed the same?  And what’s changed?  We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

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[ Originally posted: January 27th, 2010 ]

There will likely be a good deal of hype this week about a cool new multimedia option called the Vook.

What will this do to the self-publishing industry, and will yours be the first independently published piece available?

Whatever happened to Vook, with all of its big dreams and potential for self-publishing authors?

vook

Well … it’s complicated.

Once upon a time, Vook began as a response to what NYTimes author Motoko Rich called an “increasingly elastic” notion of what makes a book … well, a book, and as publishers began to “mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment.” His words, not mine. (I don’t think books are archaic, at all!) Still, a Vook offers … more.

Take, for example, several ‘vooks’ which Rich details in his article, vooks published in partnership with the traditional Big Five publishing house, Simon & Schuster:

In one of the Simon & Schuster vooks, a fitness and diet title, readers can click on videos that show them how to perform the exercises. A beauty book contains videos that demonstrate how to make homemade skin-care potions.

Not just how-tos are getting the cinematic work-up. Simon & Schuster is also releasing two digital novels combining text with videos a minute or 90 seconds long that supplement — and in some cases advance — the story line.

In “Embassy,” a short thriller about a kidnapping written by Richard Doetsch, a video snippet that resembles a newscast reveals that the victim is the mayor’s daughter, replacing some of Mr. Doetsch’s original text.

And even when he published his article in 2009, Rich was recounting some degree of success, at least on the part of the author, publishing partner, and Vook itself:

Bradley J. Inman, chief executive of Vook, said readers who viewed prototypes of “The 90-Second Fitness Solution” by Pete Cerqua or “Return to Beauty” by Narine Nikogosian “intuitively saw the benefits of augmenting how-to books with video segments.” Mr. Inman said readers then “warmed to” the fictional editions.

Jude Deveraux, a popular romance author who has written 36 straightforward text novels, said she loved experimenting with “Promises,” an exclusive vook set on a 19th-century South Carolina plantation in which the integrated videos add snippets of dialogue and atmosphere.

Ms. Deveraux said she envisioned new versions of books enhanced by music or even perfume. “I’d like to use all the senses,” she said.

So what happened to the Vook? Well, as we reported in 2015, it became something else. Not for lack of enthusiasm or some sense of failure, but after successfully raising financing in 2010, partnering with major publishing houses in 2011 and 2012 to release several popular vooks, launching a brand-new self-publishing platform in 2012, acquiring a digital imprint (Byliner) in 2014, and rebranding itself in 2015 as … Pronoun.

Which was promptly acquired by Macmillan.

That’s what happened to Vook. Instead of becoming something great and unique and a friendly face in the self-publishing community, it took another path. Pronoun still purports to be a self-publishing platform, but the jury’s still out on whether it will make enough of a profit for the Big Five publisher to continue providing it as a service down the road. When it comes to traditional publishers buying out self-publishing platforms, historically, things have not gone all that well. You only have to look to Penguin’s acquisition of Author Solutions in 2012, which got lost in the shuffle when Penguin and RandomHouse merged the following year. It still exists, but authors have seen a steady decline in the variety and quality of services offered, while Penguin-RandomHouse has primarily used the service as an “audition” tool rather than a genuine self-publishing service. In other words, the parent company isn’t all that interested in seeing your book hit the market unless it’s likely to make them a lot of money. And what if you weren’t interested in writing a blockbuster?

Seems mighty limiting to me. So we’ll see where Vook goes from here.

Thanks for reading.  If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them.  Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can.  ♠

Kelly

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.
Kelly Speaks, news from the self publishing world, self publishing news, Uncategorized

Self-Publishing News: 4.10.2017

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

This week we’re going to take a look at self-publishing news from around the world!

This article focuses on the self-publishing journey of Grew Fowler whose work, Jam Sandwiches, tells a touching story of an abandoned boy with Down Syndrome “and the lives he touches as he navigates his way through life.” After receiving rejection letter after rejection letter, Jam Sandwiches was originally something that Fowler published online through Amazon’s CreateSpace– this is an easy process where you fill out a questionnaire, talk with a design consultant, and then a few weeks later your books arrive on your doorstep. After growing up reading a lot of Stephen King, Fowler found comfort in the fact that King had wallpapered his writing room with rejection letters and decided to press ahead, carving his own path.

Lucky for Fowler, his book was eventually caught the eye of a leading publishing company in the UK and will be “formally launched this year at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August – one of the world’s leading arts festivals,” after being translated into other languages.

Because self-publishing is still a fairly unheard of concept in New Zealand, Fowler acts as a sort of a pioneer, and perhaps an outlier as far as self-publishing goes in the country. Being picked up by a publishing company has been humbling for the author, who “maintains he just got lucky.” The challenge of writing something that is widely liked by a reading audience and that also catches the eye of a publishing house is grand. Most of us would be happy with just the former, and ecstatic with the latter. All we can do is put our work out there by whatever means we have available and see what happens.

In India, if a child said they wanted to be an author when they grew up just fifteen years ago, that would’ve most likely been a statement to be met by chagrin by their parents. However, with the emergence of self-publishing companies in India such as Power Publishers, becoming an author has become a more acceptable career choice that is being taken more seriously today.

“Just fifteen years ago, a new writer with the aspiration to become an author, or start a career in writing would have found a solid wall before her,” says Pinaki Ghosh, founder of Power Publishers, “It was practically impossible for a new author to publish a book in India.” In 2010, however, everything changed when digital printing became an option in the country. While traditional publishing companies in India were previously only willing to pick up books they could sell 5,000+ copies of, digital printing meant that first time authors were able to get 50 or less of their books published, meaning less risk for the publishing companies and authors.

Digital printing has equalized the playing field for writers in India and opened the door for self-publishing as an avenue for talented writers to get their work exposed and see if they can get picked up by a publishing company or successfully market their book and build a fanbase of their own.

spa-news

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

Kelly

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.