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Posts Tagged ‘award-winning writing’

Remember Why You Do “That Writing Thing”

December 10, 2012

My Lovely Bride … Alone in the Surf © R.L. Herron

The Art of Promotion
If you self-publish, it’s really easy to get caught up in the “I gotta get out and promote my book” whirlwind. After all, there’s no one else who’s going to do that for you … but getting caught up to the point of ignoring everything else may be a mistake, particularly if you let it start to rule your life.

I know how easy it is to do. I’ve got the tense shoulders, aching back and throbbing headache to prove it. I’ve been spending so much time trying to figure out social media, and get the word out about my books (especially my award-winning novel REICHOLD STREET), I’ve done little else.

I’ve also got a wife who’s ready to throw things at me to get more of my attention … she’s upset with me and she’s absolutely right. I’m so caught up in all this promotepromotepromote nonsense that I haven’t paid much attention to her at all, and I haven’t written 500 words all week on my next book. I normally write more than that in a day.

I know what I have to do. Relax, and remind myself what’s important in my life. Like my bride of more than 42 years. I don’t have to do every promotional thing right away. Besides, I’m still not sure which things work. I’ve decide to slow down my pace, be myself, and discover the marketing activities I like (and therefore, will actually do).

It might also be time to remind readers (and myself) about promoting themselves and their writing:

Read
I’m the first one to say you can learn a lot from marketing blogs, newsletters, webinars and such … but it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Don’t make yourself crazy trying to do it all.

Remember What Promotion Is
When you come right down to it, promotion is just a conversation between you and other people. It’s speaking with them about something you love: your book. It’s not blasting hype out to everyone in cyberspace. Develop a way to talk with people and … more importantly … listen.

Create a virtual space where this conversation can occur. You don’t need to do everything the experts mention, but you do need a few basic tools:

Website
Your site is “you” online, a place where you are always present, where you meet and greet people (even when you’re asleep). You can include pages “About You” and for your blog.

Email List
This is something I’ve neglected, but it makes sense. Talk about your book(s) and offer an incentive (I’m creating a white paper on building believable characters) to entice folks to sign up for your email list. Maintain the list through services like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or AWeber. It gives you a way to start conversations, and speak directly to those who have demonstrated an interest in your book.

Social Media
Also meet new friends and invite new readers through the outreach of social media, special interest sites and groups, and wherever else your people go (right now, I use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook). These connections grow as you reach out to more people, and they reach out to their friends on your behalf.

Remember You’re Human
Treat yourself like a human being … not a promotional machine chugging out blog posts and tweets 24/7. Don’t be a slave to the millions of “shouldas” in the world of book promotion. Take time away to refresh yourself and enjoy life.

Write
It’s what got you started on this road in the first place and it’s what you love to do (at least it is for me). So don’t neglect it. I intend to write a lot more on my next novel tomorrow.

Right now, if you’ll be kind enough to excuse me, my wife looks like she needs a hug.

One last bit of shameless promotion … my “Master Storyteller” book trailer …

Tags:award-winning writing, book marketing, using social media
Posted in Awards, Book Promotion, Book Trailer, Market Your Book | 6 Comments »

I Didn’t Always Write Fiction

December 6, 2012

An Article Written for the December 1983 Issue of “GM Today” © R.L. Herron

The headline of today’s entry is somewhat misleading. I’ve actually written fiction (and poetry) since I was seventeen. Most of it, with the exception of a couple of short stories and some poems, never saw the light of day in any publication.

In fact, most of it never even garnered a rejection slip.

Just like with today’s wannabe authors, rejections were not acknowledged … they were ignored. Somewhere, in a dusty brown cardboard box in the dim recesses of the basement, I’m sure I still have copies of most of the ones I did get. Sad, yellow-brown pages brittle now with age.

There were a few mimeographed (read xeroxed, for those too young to remember mimeos) and unsigned rejection letters, but those were infrequent and have long since been tossed into the same abyss my original submissions went into.

However, I did write and publish:

The cold darkness was broken only by the sound of cargo boats being poled across an icy river. Desperation was written plainly in the faces of the men sitting in the boats. A young general stood in the lead boat staring ahead into darkness.

Suddenly, there was a flash from shore. The entire group slumped. Instantly the shoreline came alive, not with cannon fire, but with conversation and activity.

“Cut! Let’s do it again; and tell those people not to use flashbulbs again while we’re filming!”

The date was November 21, 1983. The scene was the re-creation of George Washington and 2,400 of his troops crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Eve 1777 on their way to attack the Hessian garrison at Trenton.

The original action was one of the first important victories for the Continental Army during the American Revolution. The re-creation is also a first for General Motors.

I found this example of one of my articles, published in the December 1983 issue of “GM Today” … an internal monthly newsletter distributed to all GM employees. The print run, at the time, was over 800,000, quite a respectable distribution. I remember this article very well.

The editor didn’t like it at all.

He’d sent me to cover a portion of the filming of the GM-sponsored made-for-television mini-series about the life of the young George Washington, starring Barry Bostwick and Patty Duke. I met and interviewed them both … and the director, Richard Fielder, on location at the filming of the re-creation of Washington’s historic crossing.

From his comments when I returned, my editor thought the article was too story-like and not the nuts-and-bolts information he wanted. Thankfully, the PR Vice President had seen … and liked … my article or it would have found its way into the waste receptacle, too.

Is the world today better simply because the article ran almost exactly as I wrote it?

Probably not. But my memory of it is.

“Reichold Street” a book trailer video © R.L. Herron

Tags:award-winning writing, indie writers, journalism
Posted in Book Promotion, Book Trailer, Non-Fiction Writing | 1 Comment »

Now, Back to Business …

November 30, 2012

Lots of Questions
One of the things I’ve noticed since I won that pesky Gold Medal for my debut novel, Reichold Street: I’m now asked (usually by other writers, when they find out about the award) how I went about creating the book.

Did you do anything unique or special when you wrote? How, exactly, did you go about it? Did you create extensive review notes for all your characters? Did you make an outline? Did you follow any particular plot style?

The answer to all these questions is … no.

Oh, for a long time I tried to follow all the language rigors most teachers (who, by the way, were quite often not writers themselves) tried so hard to drum into me while I was in school all those years ago. Start with notes. Decide on a plot line. Make an outline.

The trouble is, it didn’t work (sorry, Mrs. Bliss).

My prose was always stilted and quite unbelievable. For a while, I tried making extensive Excel spreadsheets for each character. I would make detailed lists of their traits, physical descriptions, even notes about siblings and significant others.

I was doing this for every character in every story. It was far too tedious and the result was awful.

I finally found a Word-compatible piece of software called Scrivener – which, as recently as a few months ago I touted at the meeting of a local writers group I attend.

In truth, it was just another form of boring spreadsheet.

In Miami a few weeks ago I was asked once again by other writers: “Your characters are very well-developed … how do you go about writing?” and it occurred to me I had actually employed none of those approaches in crafting Reichold Street.

Oh, I admit I toyed with them … sort of. I plugged information into spreadsheets and also tried to coax software to help develop my storyline, instead of just letting the story happen.

But it was (as it has always seemed to be) a tedious, cumbersome and unwieldy process – one that always left me with, as you might imagine, predictably shitty results.

I realized it wasn’t until I let all that go and started relying on my intuition to tell me what was working in the story that Reichold Street started to come together.

Creative Spontaneity
Stephen King mentions in his fabulous book “On Writing” that “plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.” I’ve come to believe that’s true.

My writing style is really quite simple. I start with what I think is an intriguing (at least to me) what-if? question. Then I try to visualize what begins to happen.

Rather than going to the story, I let the story come to me. I see the surroundings; I hear the characters.

Then I try to translate what I see and hear in my mind into words on the page, and go forward from there.

Does it work? Some people seem to think so, but I guess reviews are one thing and people making purchases are quite another. From the proceeds so far I can afford lunch out once in a while. Not exactly world changing.

The months spent writing the book have started to seem like a breeze. Even the hard part of editing now seems easier in hindsight. I’ve discovered getting the word out is the hard part.

If you have the time, please check out the book trailer for “Reichold Street”