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Posts Tagged ‘self-publishing’

Dealing With Writers Block

January 14, 2013

The Dreaded Blank Page

Have you ever sat down to write one of those excellent story ideas you have in your head, only to have them somehow disappear the moment you pick up your pen/pencil or sit at the keyboard?

Writer’s Block
Every author’s been there. So have people who only wanted to send a holiday greeting to Aunt Bea. I can’t begin tell you how much time I’ve personally wasted, staring at a blank page.

There have been moments I couldn’t find enough energy to kick my muse into gear, no matter how many cups of coffee I put into my system.

But I’ve discovered a few ways that help me rediscover my creativity and build story ideas that will keep me writing for hours.

Junk Mail Inspiration
Sounds silly, I know; but take the next two pieces of junk mail you receive and use them to build a story. Everyone gets this kind of mail; I call it crap (sorry, but that’s what most of it is) from politicians, credit card and insurance companies. Spam e-mail works just as well. Pick any two and combine them.

No matter what your life situation or political leaning, they can lead your thoughts to many unusual situations. Plenty of writing fodder. Once your brain’s thinking again, shift to the work you really want to do.

Invent a History
We’ve all had friends, from grade school to college, that we knew quite well in that “once-upon-a-time” but haven’t seen since. The truth of their lives is quite often a mystery.

Well, pick one (change their names, of course) … and write about the life you imagine they could have been leading since you lost touch. The possibilities are endless.

Eavesdrop on a Conversation
OK, I admit it … I do this all the time, but not just for story ideas. I love to write dialogue; but to do it well takes practice.

I try to train my ear to the way people actually talk (sorry, Mrs. Bliss, all the grammar you tried to shove into my head all those years ago is worthless when it comes to catching the nuances of real conversation).

Try it sometime. When you’re in a writing funk, sit down (in a park, the mall, a restaurant) and observe the people around you. Listen to every conversation within earshot (try not to be obvious). Make a mental note of all the snippets you hear and imagine the stories they represent.

Pay close attention to the myriad ways people actually speak … then give one of the comments you overhear a twist to make it your own.

Request a Writing Prompt and Run With It
Sometimes the best cure for writer’s block is to let someone else start your story for you. You can search the web and find a number of sites that offer writing prompts, but I find it works just as well to simply ask someone to mention an idea to write about.

I belong to an online writer’s group that often has writing challenges. They create them for poetry, short stories or even flash fiction. My favorites are usually the ones for flash fiction, and they prompt you to use some object or group of objects (or even specific words) in a brief snippet of 500 words or less.

I find those challenges to be a great way to get started. For instance, consider this challenge:

In exactly 500 words (no more; no less), write a story about birth. Any style or genre and any loose interpretation of the word ‘birth’ is acceptable, but you must also include the words fire, coffee and javelin.

Admit it, as strange as the prompt might have seemed, you already have some rudimentary ideas. The neat thing about this kind of writing prompt is you can do it for yourself.

The idea you get from such an exercise may be just the inspiration you need to spark the next part of the story that has you stymied. It might even lead you to create a whole new story.

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

If You’ve Got a Moment, Please Check Out My “Master Storyteller” Book Trailer

Tags:award-winning writing, indie writers, master storyteller, self-publishing
Posted in Book Trailer, Market Your Book, Storytelling, Writers Block | Leave a Comment »

How to Write an Effective Book Description

January 4, 2013

The book description, one of the most crucial elements in selling a book, is often also the most difficult element for many self-published authors to create.

The main reason … they don’t want to leave anything out.

As the work’s creator, their natural instinct is to cram as much of it as possible into the synopsis. But too many details can render their description confusing and ineffective.

Here’s what I’ve learned through my personal trial-and-error efforts (and I’m by no means sure I have it right yet) … but these are the five main points to consider when writing a book description.

1. Don’t Include Subplots. When it comes to the book description, the only thing that matters is the main theme. That’s all you need to focus on. What is the primary action that drives your book?

2. Keep It Under 150 Words. Summarizing tens of thousands of words in less than 150 seems impossible, right? But here’s the rub … it isn’t (notice, however, I’m barely there yet with my own). Best advice: say in the simplest terms possible what your book is about and what will interest readers.

3. Write in Third Person, Present Tense. Describe your book as if you’re sitting face-to-face with the reader and they’ve just asked you what it’s about.

4. Use Emotional Power Words. You’re trying to portray the same emotions with your description that your book evokes. To convey these feelings, you need to use emotional power words like tormented, charismatic, passion, terrifying, etc.

5. You are Not the Author. Don’t write your book description as the author; write it as the publisher. Write with your head, not your heart. Remember, the book description is marketing material – not literature. It isn’t for you, it’s for your fans. Making a quick impact that will move the reader to want to buy your book is your principal concern.

Here’s an example of the latest iteration of the book description I’ve been kicking around for my award-winning self-published book “Reichold Street.” It has yet to appear on the book (or anywhere else for that matter), so consider this an exclusive:

“In 1964 Albert Parker, a distressed and troubled teen, arrives on Reichold Street. At fourteen, he has already endured the heartbreak of losing a parent and the anguish of living with a step-father tormented by mad visions. Responding in the only way he knows, Albert retreats ever deeper into himself, building a shell of aggression. On Reichold Street his only real friends are his step-sister Janice and Paul Barrett, the boy across the street. Coming-of-age in the turbulent Vietnam era of the 1960s, the story of how the neighborhood – and the rest of the world – reacts to him becomes a heart-pounding microcosm of life and death.”

I think this finally begins to get the description right. It is roughly 110 words. It’s told in third-person, present tense, and I count eight emotional power words (“distressed,” “troubled,” “heartbreak,” “mad,” “anguish,” “tormented,” “heart-pounding,” and “turbulent”).

It only tells you the main plot, but my hope is that people will open the book because of this description and want to own it.

What do you think?

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**01-05-2013 edit – version 2**
Based on some of the feedback I’ve already received, here’s a re-write of my “Reichold Street” book description. Is it stronger now?

“In 1964 Albert Parker, a distressed and troubled teen, arrives on Reichold Street. At fourteen, he has already endured the heartbreak of losing a parent and the anguish of living with a step-father tormented by mad visions. Albert retreats ever deeper into himself, building a shell of aggression. Coming-of-age in the turbulent Vietnam era, Albert’s only real friends are his step-sister Janice and Paul Barrett, the boy across the street. The story of how the gang of neighborhood kids, and the rest of the world, react to Albert … and adapt to each other … evolves into a heart-pounding microcosm of life and death.”

———-

Tags:how to write a book description, Market your book, self-publishing
Posted in Book Promotion, Book Trailer, Market Your Book | 14 Comments »

Is Reading in Decline?

September 5, 2012

The Next Generation Reader

While parts of the publishing industry are in crisis, Americans are reading more … at least according to the National Endowment for the Arts’ study, “Reading on the Rise.”

In stark contrast to the downward reading trend some say has characterized the past two decades, that NEA study found the first recorded rise in American reading in 26 years. Great news, certainly.

With Amazon, Nook, Sony, i-Pad and others battling to sell you an ebook reader, reading does not seem to not be in the perilous straits some naysayers might want you to believe.

Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information (think ISBN numbers), released its 2010 annual report on U.S. book publishing, it projected traditional U.S. print output to increase to 316,480 titles.

It is the non-traditional sector, however, that continues its explosive growth, increasing to an amazing 2,776,260 titles … many created by presses catering to self-publishers, such as me.

When I first got my Kindle it was at a time I had always stated I was determined never to replace a printed book with an electronic version. I’d always found pleasure in the look and feel of a book. I still do.

I’m finding, however, that purchasing and reading electronic books is just so … well … convenient. When traveling I always carried three or four books, or more, along with magazines. I might have taken more (I’m a voracious reader) but it was quite a burden.

Now, when I travel, I have all my reading in one small, simple place. On my Kindle. So has this electronic revolution led to the demise of reading? Probably not. Certainly not in my case.

Hopefully, it will encourage people for generations to come to read the good novels already out there, and the great ones yet to be published. What e-Book readers may do is change the industry that has developed around publishing books in print.

I know a lot of people who would prefer to have a paper book in their hands rather than a machine. For a long time, I was one of them.

However, with the ability to buy books on the go and store hundreds of them on an eBook reader rather than a huge bookshelf in your house, there are a lot of positives for people to take from eBook technology and this attitude is becoming less frequent.

Some people will undoubtedly be sad to see the little bookshop they’ve visited all their life disappear, because the demand for ink-on-paper is no longer there. I’ll be one of them. In this sense the e-Book reader is leading to a demise in traditional publishing, but it’s important to remember … people are still reading!

The e-Book reader has both positive and negative effects on the industry surrounding publication, but I have no doubt it will encourage people to continue reading for many years to come.

At the same time, it may knock apart the industry that produces, promotes and sells printed books. So they scream about the demise of books and the decline of reading.

Every generation rewrites an epitaph for the book; all that changes is the culprit. In the late 1700s, French visionary Louis-Sébastien Mercier predicted that by 2440, the sprawling bookstacks of the Royal Library would be condensed into a single volume.

History proved him right in everything but his timing. The future lay not in expanding information, but in compacting it; scaling it somewhere between an iPod and an iPad.

Over two billion people now have Internet access. So the idea of putting ink on paper may well be an antiquated notion. Quaint, from a previous era, like the horse and buggy.

Still, there is something comforting about the physical experience of bookstores. The serendipity of picking up something you never thought about, just because it was on a display, is irreplaceable.

Or, perhaps what I will certainly miss most dearly, should it come to pass, is the ability to just sit and look at the other human beings around you. And, best of all, have an occasional chance conversation with one … in real time, not on the Internet, but face-to-face.