Marketing for an author is all about building your audience. Having people in place to read your work when you have it ready to release. That's what I thought anyway. Boy, was I wrong! Marketing is much more than that. Your goal for marketing is to build your audience (sometimes marketers will call this reach or influence depending on who they're speaking to). But, marketing itself is a lot more complex than just that one goal. I've talked before about some of the goals I have to try to build up my platform (audience). Today's post will cover a few things I learned in a recent continuing education course that covered Facebook. If you've followed any of my recent blogging or progress journals, you know the struggle is real. There is so much conflicting info out there on what you should or shouldn't do it's mind-blowing. What's worse? The info is constantly changing. It's a chore and a half to try to keep up with it all. A good example of this would be the recent Facebook change to its algorithm. Prior to the change, authors were able to get their posts viewed by a wide range of audience with both targeted and organic posting. (Targeted posting is when you make up an ad for Facebook and denote exactly who you want to see it. This could be people in an age range say, 18-45 in a given area like London, or New York. This kind of targeting can be great if you are looking to launch an LGTB novel in say San Fransisco or Dallas. It helps you reach a wider audience in specific areas instead of wasting your money by marketing the post in say, rural Texas. Organic posts are posts that are viewed naturally through normal Facebook channels in your sphere of influence.) However, since the change it has become almost impossible for indie authors who rely on Facebook to get their posts seen by their audience. So, what does that mean for those of us who are not yet established, and are trying to use the community to build our platforms? Does it mean it's an impossible task? Is there nothing that we can do to help ourselves out? No, and No. I wish I could say that I was the one who came up with these answers, but I'm not. During the CE course, the speaker answered them for me. It means that in a push to try to keep people engaged with their services Facebook is trying to change the way we as users get, and participate in information. It means that as an author, I have to change the way I try to interact with people in that medium. This is something I already realized I needed to do, but it is nice to know that I was at least thinking on the correct path. *Gives self a little pat on the shoulder-good girl* (Don't judge. Sometimes you need that self-pat!) Anyway. Here is a list of six ways that we as authors can help get ourselves around that pesky Facebook algorithm problem. Please bear with me, I'm giving them to you as they were given to me. Some of them are self-explanatory, and really do go hand in hand with each other. 1. Post less frequently. When I heard this I thought, What the heck? I had always heard you should keep on a regular posting schedule for ALL your social media. At least three times a week. (This kind of blew my mind.) Apparently, the algorithm has been redesigned to allow more organic conversational posts to appear more often in threads. So no spam. 2. Engagement. Posts with better engagement in the comments will be more easily visible. It doesn't have to be direct engagement with the poster either. Example: You post and get fifty comments, but one of the comments gets an additional 75 comments. These are the types of posts that are far more easily visible through the algorithm. It wants quality over quantity. If you aren't sure what kind of posts GET better engagement I'm working on that and will be doing a post in the future. 3. Facebook live. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of this one. I'm naturally shy, and hate having my picture taken, much less video?!? Ugh! Anyway, users who utilize Facebook live are 75% more likely to see growth in both organic and targeted media posts AND engagement. 4. Asking for comments. We all know someone who does/or has done this. They post things like, show me a gif of what you're doing this weekend, or what's your favorite color? For a while, these posts were all the rage. They got numbers up for both views and engagement. But because of the setup now, such posts will be going the way of spam. 5. Get used to Facebook ads, and utilize them. Also not crazy about this one. As an indie, marketing is so important, but marketing on a budget... well, that's where I'm at right now. But through the ce course, I learned not to rely on Facebook suggestions for ads when I place them. I learned to target them for the best possible audience for what I need to do. If I were going to market for say boat insurance, I'd make sure the ad was seen in a place with heavy lake coverage. You can find out how this works better on your own timeline. You know those pesky ads you see? On the right side of them, there is a box you can look into that will tell you exactly why you are seeing an ad. Pay attention to what those tell you when you see ads for books. You can actually use that info to reverse engineer an ad and target someone else's audience. Sneaky right? 6. Learn messenger. For the foreseeable future, ads through an ad bot on messenger will become more and more common. (Also not a fan of this one. I hate bots.) But by targeting your advertising and using a bot, supposedly you can increase views on your main page by anywhere from 65- 85%. That's a big difference. One other tip that I was given, join Facebook marketing groups. Often they have workarounds available when the algorithms change far quicker than we might be hearing about them otherwise. (I hadn't heard of any tips to work around the algorithm problem until I stumbled on this ce event earlier.) As always, I hope you all find these posts helpful. Happy Writing! -Corbyn
If you've followed along over the last several blog posts, we've not only created a story idea but tested it to see if it could make a novel. Hopefully, by the end of those posts, you're ready to get going on writing that thing. But some of you may not be ready yet. You may feel something is missing, or be concerned that it may not make a good novel. Well, have no fear. The only crap novel is the one you haven't written. Anything else is just a matter of editing/rewrites. Some of you may be sitting there thinking, now what? Well, it's time to flesh this puppy out. That's right, the setting, characters, plot. I'm going to start a little backward. I'm going to run through the How to develop a story idea points for my main antagonist to get a better handle on the character, and what drives him. Mainly, I want to hit the last post of that series for him. The five plot points, you're probably wondering why. Subplots baby! Subplots! If you're not familiar with subplots, or your novel feels light, weak, or like a hot mess on the page, it could be because your subplots are subpar or nonexistent in some cases. Subplots give us a better look at the character and how they interact with their world. They can introduce other kinds of tension into the story (like in a love interest, or sibling rivalry). Or they can be a welcome distraction from constant action involving the main plot. No matter what your goal with your subplot, it should always, always, always add value to the main plot, and help move the story along. If it isn't, then as a writer you don't need to go there. Now for my WIP example: Name: Oliver Halle Jr. age: 44 Ethnicity: Japanese-American Oliver's mother was Japanese/American who was the neighborhood hedgewitch. She taught Oliver what she could while trying to shield him from racial prejudices in the neighborhood. His father was an American soldier who was killed during a training exercise shortly after Oliver's birth. Halle is responsible for the tragedy that befalls my MC. Fifteen years prior, while trying to milk his hedge for power, Halle accidentally caused the death of my MC's cousin and BFF. Currently, Halle is trying to go legit and rise to power in a mainstream coven. He's the right hand of the ailing coven's leader until elections are held. Halle is expected to win by a landslide, providing he can keep his hedge heritage a secret. Halle's magical abilities are extremely limited. He's able to fake a certain level of higher power by his impeccable ability to siphon and hold power in objects like jewels, amulets, clothing. He cannot use ley lines without assistance from an outside object, though like most witches he can feel their presence. He cannot craft new spells but has an uncanny ability to learn spells others have created. Five plot points for this character's subplot: 1. Inciting incident: Hedgewitch escapes police custody, where he's detained as a possible suspect in the abduction of a young girl. On the run, he seeks out his old hedge leader for help, knowing that Halle will help him in order to keep his past secret. 2. Lock in: Halle has a confrontation with his ailing coven leader. The man reminds Halle that he lacks the power to be able to hold a position such as Coven Master. This reminds Halle of all the times he'd been told he would never be good enough, and Halle nearly loses his temper. Instead, Halle decides to do something about his limitations and agrees to help the escape in exchange for some help of his own. 3. Midpoint climax: Halle is confronted by the police and (MC)Aisly. He realizes how dangerously close he is to being caught. He decides to kill two birds with one stone, and aides the police to get rid of the escapee. He puts a plan into motion to finish out the escapee's plot without him. 4. Main climax: Halle decides he needs to buy himself time. He visits MC and threatens her to back off. When she stands up to him, he sets a plan into motion to throw her off his track, or at least slow her down. He instigates an accident which leaves MC's mother in a coma. 5. The missing girls are found, and Halle is linked to them through the escapee. He's forced to make a choice, flee and lose everything, or stay and fight his way out of the situation. This is only one of several possible subplots for this piece. But at least in working through the story, I have an idea of what could happen, and where I should go with this idea. Last, I'd like to talk for a moment about storyboards. If you're not a pantser and need to see your story outlined in a digestible way, I would highly recommend them. Not familiar with a storyboard? If you youtube them, Shaunta Grimes has a video on their creation. A storyboard follows the three-act story. It's divided into eight segments which allow you to put your scenes on sticky notes and move/adjust them along the board as needed. I'm toying with uploading a picture of mine in the future. These can be made out of a white trifold board, but I've gone a step further and created a dry erase board out of an old picture frame. I pulled the white paper out and drew my board on that before hanging it. This gives me a surface I can write on, or move the sticky notes around on. I love it, and it was extremely cheap as I got the frame on sale years ago at Michaels. If you have questions, I'd love to hear from you. What would you like covered next? As always THANK YOU for reading, and Happy writing! -Corbyn
Welcome to Friday. Today will be the last post in this series on developing story ideas. Thank you for sticking it out to the end of these posts. If you're just joining in, you can catch up to the previous posts here: https://www.writingforums.org/blog/corbyn.18335/ You've made it through this week; you deserve a pat on the back. Sometimes weeks are hard, so be sure to indulge in a little, go me time. But first, time to do some more work! I also must apologize as this will be a long post. My last post was about free writing for the situation of your story. If you pulled out your trusty notebook, you should have a whole list of situations that might work for your novel, and after you finished that chore you were probably thinking, now what? Right? Now we're going to test whether or not our character, setting, and situation can support a full-length novel. We do that by plotting out the five major plot points for a novel using the ideas we've already formed. (DON'T PANIC!) I know when I first tried this I was thinking, five plot points?!? How can I work through that with this measly little list of things? Relax, it's not as hard as it sounds. In fact, I'll give you examples along the way. Everyone loves examples right? If you're not familiar with the five major plot points, I'll briefly go over what they entail, but will not be giving this a lot of in-depth discussions. If you'd like to see something like that, or have any other questions, comments or ideas that you'd like me to go over, please leave them below. Our first plot point is the Inciting Incident: This is an unusual thing that happens that might pose a question to your character such as: Will you step into this world? Example Shawshank Redemption: A new bus of fresh fish arrive at the prison. Andy Dufresne is on that bus having been convicted of the murder of his wife, and her lover. Red takes bets on which will break down and cry first. He bets cigarettes on Andy, but later that night when the inmates go "fishing" the head guard drags a newbie into the open area and beats him to death. Andy doesn't make a sound, thus costing Red two packs of cigarettes. Go ahead and brainstorm this for your WIP. Don't worry; these plot points may change as you write. The whole goal is to see if the work we've done so far will support a novel. My WIP: Aisly Dalton is incarcerated for a small-time crime. She's approached her arresting officer to act as an informant for a case he's currently working. She refuses because, in prison, snitches get stitches, and Aisly is already having a tough enough time dealing with her reality. But this Detective offers Aisly something that's very hard to turn down, a chance to get out of jail sooner, rather than later. She's adamant that she can't help this Detective. But Korbyn! She didn't say she would come into the story! How can this be your inciting incident? Which brings me to the next plot point. The Lock In: The lock-in answers the question posed by your inciting incident. Will your character come into the story? This answer is always yes, it may be a begrudging yes, but it is always yes. This plot point typically happens at the end of your novels first act as well. Example Shawshank Redemption: While tarring the prison roof, Andy overhears the head guard Hadley complain about taxes from an inheritance. Andy listens intently before finally getting up the courage to tell the guard that he can help him shelter the money so that the guard gets to keep more of it. He offers to set this up for three beers a piece for his "co-workers." Again, don't worry when you brainstorm your lock-in. You already know that your character will be stepping into the story, and the exact points may change a bit as you sit down to write. My WIP: Upset about recent events in prison, and having realized that the person responsible for much of her troubles (a local coven leader) is not only not in jail, but thriving puts Aisly in a foul mood. She mouths off to the leader of a prison gang and is subsequently jumped- since hurt prisoners can't take work detail shifts she loses her privileges, and her life inside becomes more unbearable. She realizes she might not be able to finish out her time, and opts to take the deal offered to her by the Detective after an unpleasant conversation with the warden. Third, we have the Midpoint Climax: This is the second biggest moment of your whole story. It's the big win for your hero. Or if you're writing a tragedy, it's your characters lowest low. Example Shawshank Redemption: Andy receives book donations from the state. Inside he finds a Mozart record. He locks a guard in the restroom and plays the record over the PA system. Warden Norton arrives and is furious. He orders the head guard to break the door down and gives Andy two weeks in solitary for the stunt. My WIP: Aisly turns up an important piece of evidence on the location of the magic user who's eluding the Detective. Because of this, she's allowed to sit in on the conversation between the Detective and her old coven leader(OCL). Because of this conversation, the OCL is forced to save face and aid the police in the investigation or risk admitting wrongdoing and face legal action. Which threatens to topple the power-hoarding the OCL has been doing to gain prominence in public. This is important because it's the first time Aisly feels empowered, in control of her life, and she gets to stick it to the man. Hang in there; we're almost done! Take a break, stretch, eat a taco (feed your muse chocolate) whatever you need to do! Next up, the Main Climax: This is sometimes called the Dark Night of the soul. It usually happens at the end of your second act. It's your characters lowest low, their most harrowing moment. If you're writing a tragedy, this is your characters highest high. Example Shawshank Redemption: Andy realizes a fellow inmate, Tommy has information that could get him a new trial. Andy asks Warden Norton for help. The Warden tries to persuade Andy that it's just prison talk. Andy assures the Warden that he just wants a new fair trial and that he won't spill the beans about the Warden's money laundering. Norton throws Andy into solitary and has his head guard shoot Tommy, the only man capable of clearing Andy's name. My WIP: Aisly receives a visit from OCL and is warned to stay out of coven business or else. OCL reminds Aisly that there are worse things than being locked in a cage. Aisly receives word from the Detective that her family has been in a horrible accident. Her mother has been hurt and is on life support. The injuries result in Aisly losing her mother, the one person she felt believed in her and was connected to. Finally, the Third Act twist: This changes the tone of your set by the Dark night of the soul so that the story begins to mirror your midpoint climax. Also, it's worth mentioning at this point, your midpoint climax and third act twist usually hammer home your story theme as well. Example Shawshank Redemption: Andy asks for rope. When Red finds out, he's concerned that Andy has finally lost it, and after nearly 20 years in prison, is going to hang himself. The next morning at roll call, Andy is gone. Norton is furious and orders the prison searched. As he's raging in Andy's cell, he throws a rock against a poster, revealing a man-sized hole in the wall. My WIP: Aisly finds the missing magic user (MMU) before he can finish his ritual and slaughter two innocent girls. She's also able to link the MMU to the OCL. Because she's able to link the two, not only is she able to bring down the OCL but she's also able to receive vindication for a past tragedy. Bonus tip: IF you haven't guessed it yet, as I mentioned before your midpoint climax and third act twist often hammer home whatever story theme you are going for. In my case, it's going to be sticking it to the man. My mc has spent most of her last few years of life as a doormat, and she's tired of it. But she doesn't want revenge, she wants justice, and maybe a little piece of mind. How did I come to this realization? By plugging my free writing into these plot points and seeing where it took me. The whole process took a few hours last night of brainstorming. But as you can see, my story idea COULD make a novel. If you've been following along and stuck it out through this massive post, THANK YOU! You rock. I hope this helps you develop your ideas, and I hope now you're sitting there on the other side of your screen thinking, damn. I can write this. As always, Happy writing! -Corbyn
In my last post, we talked about setting. If you haven't read that blog you can do so here: https://www.writingforums.org/blog/corbyn.18335/ I've thought about my list, character, and have decided that I should go with Michigan as the primary setting. I know you're thinking wait a minute, you said Michigan, don't you need to be more specific? Yes. I do, but also no, I don't. I won't be using the entire state, but given the nature of my story, I will need multiple locations in both an urban setting, and around the area. So, I've chosen to make up a fictional prison out of an existing building that is abandoned. If you're curious, I've chosen Michigan Central Station; it's both old and creepy. Which kind of suits my needs and mood right now. You're also probably wondering what prison has to do with magic at this point right? *Inserts evil grin here* That, you'll just have to wait to find out. Today's post is about Situation: If we were writing an article, we would've already nailed down the who (character) and the where (setting) of our piece. You smart cookie you, you guessed it, what is our Situation. It's what happens to entice our character into leaving their cozy world for the uncertainty of our story. Don't be fooled; cozy doesn't mean comfortable here. It just means the world as they know it when the story is opening. If it helps, you can think of these as plot bunnies. Not sure which plot bunnies work for what you're already doing? No problem. I know, I know, you're thinking, but Korbyn. How do I know which plot bunnies are right for my character? Don't sweat it! Grab your notebook, and make another list (I know you're rolling your eyes at me and thinking, god ANOTHER list?) Trust me. Grab that book and put pen to paper. As I mentioned before, I highly recommend doing this on in an actual notebook; there is just something about putting pen to paper that you don't get from a laptop, or word program. I'm going to share my list, but I've left it vague on purpose. If you have questions about how I came up with this list, or what they might be, ask in dm, and I'd be happy to elaborate further. Here is my list so far: · Offered chance at redemption · Dying · Life becomes unbearable · Stick it to the man · Love Sometimes your situation can coincide with the overall theme of the plot, but it doesn't always have to. If you're not sure about themes, let me know, we can cover those later. If there is any way I can help, or you'd like to have a topic covered, please let me know. I'm no expert, but I'm happy to share any and all resources I've stumbled across over the years. I do have a website and have posted a blog there that is different topic wise than this one. As always, thank you for reading, and happy writing! -Corbyn
If you missed it, earlier this week I posted a piece on how to develop a story idea (ok, it was a lot of things and not just that.) If you haven’t checked it out, please do so here, and let me know what you think. https://www.writingforums.org/entry/how-to-develop-a-story-idea-section-1.64210/ If you did the work from that post, you should have your list of characters, and hopefully, you’ve done your free writing so that you know more about your character. You should’ve asked this person(character) a few tough questions to try to figure out who they are. Maybe you’ve even taken that step to find an inspirational photo. To recap, I chose to use the woman who cut herself off from magic. When I started this process, I quickly realized one question caught my attention and drew me to that character specifically. Why would someone willingly cut themselves off from something like magic? Reasons: *tragedy, depression, misery, fear, loss, I knew I didn’t want to go the usual route, blaming it solely on a tragedy. Yes, something bad would’ve happened to drive my character to that point, but it had to be more than that. After all, car accidents happen, but people still muster the courage to get into vehicles. So, what if the thing that happened made her so scared that she was afraid she might hurt someone else again and was something she was lead to believe that she couldn’t control? I also realized I didn’t want to write a young character. I’m tired of reading about twenty-somethings doing things in fictional versions of our world. Who says a woman can’t still kick ass in her thirties or forties? So, here is a brief account of what I have so far: Character name: Aisly Dalton Age: 34 Family: Mother and father divorced after a tragedy happened, both are still living, and character is close to them in a way. She keeps things bottled up and doesn’t talk much about what she goes through, has been institutionalized (mental health possibly) for some time on an unrelated matter, and only talks to the family once a week or through letters. Of course, this left me with many many more questions, but this will at least give a general idea, this process can be pretty lengthy, but it brings me to the real meat of today's post, part 2: Setting. I primarily write urban fantasy. So, in some ways, my setting is already sort of a done deal. Thanks to my character building I also already know that I’m going to need multiple places in the real world that this stories scenes will take place. (More on how I came to that realization in my next blog.) So, much as I did for the character, I brainstormed several places where I might like to write a story. These could be towns, cities, or even states depending on what you’ve come up with so far. Heck, if you were writing a space opera, they could even be space stations, ports- you get the picture. Here’s my list: Colorado Denver Aurora Texas Dallas San Antonio Michigan Detroit Upper P New Mexico Ruidosa Albuquerque Santa Fe I'll be picking one for my next post and sharing that then. If there is some way I can better help you, please let me know. I'll be posting more frequently over the next two weeks or so, I'd like to really get the ball rolling with this story. Also, a big THANK YOU to everyone who reads these. If you'd like free content, check out my website, it's in my signature. Anyone who does and signs up for my email list will be receiving free material, like how to get a jump start on platform building (I've learned some cool things in the last few weeks which I haven't covered here.) And how to DIY materials to save yourself some money as an Indie. As always I hope these posts help some of you and happy writing! -Corbyn
Fake it until you make it: I never understood this statement. It always seemed a little counterproductive to me. But one thing I've learned over the years is to try to see things from a different perspective than my usual one. So that's what I'm doing with this little gem. What does "Fake it until you make it" mean to me? Well, it means showing up every day to do the work for one thing. No excuses. No, but my muse isn't talking to me. No, but the words just won't come. I've been there and done that for several years, languishing and annoyed with the fact that the words. Still. Would not. Come. Fake it until you make it can also mean, do the work until you find your confidence. Usually, it's there all along, just hiding way down deep. You know, so deep you can't see it, and it might as well be non-existent. (No really, it's there, I swear.) Part of my year of doing is showing up to do the work, even when I get in my way, and the words just aren't there. It's hard. Real hard. But if it were easy, more people would do it, right? Because of this, I've decided to share my entire writing process here. How I get my ideas, what I do with them, but most importantly, how I'm going to decide if my current thought will make a novel. Yes, you can do that. You can test your ideas to make sure that they will carry you through to your end goal, a rough draft. That doesn't mean that this "test" will tell you if you've got a good idea, it just helps you flush that concept out so that you hopefully avoid writing yourself into a corner, or worse... write several thousand words to realize you don't have a novel. I wish I could say that I discovered this trick to testing out novel ideas, but I didn't. It came to me in the form of another writers tutorial. If you'd like a copy of the text that I use, I'd be happy to send it to you, and a copy of her plotting course which I received for members of my rl writing group. Just message me, let me know you read this, and of course, supply your email, and I'd be happy to pass it along. Now, the good stuff. Part one of how to develop and test a story idea is Character: You're to free write a vague list of possible characters until you find one that speaks to you on some level. This is my list it doesn't have to be long: Woman has magically neutered herself Man's love interest curses him in an attempt to save her own life Man must make amends to the descendant of a woman he crossed Woman dies and must ferry the dead to keep out of hell For the purposes of this exercise, I'll be using woman has magically neutered herself. Now that I have my base character, I'll be freewriting basics about this person like age, name, occupation. If you prefer to use character sheets that's fine too. Typically before I freewrite, I look for a photo that I feel like could represent what I think this person might look like. I'll be posting the results of that in my next post, and maybe the photo as well before I move onto the next step. As always, I hope this helps some of you and happy writing. -Corbyn
December and now January is in the books. I'm calling a mulligan on January. We should have at least one freebie month tucked under our belt so that we can get a feel for every New Year- Who's with me? January was tough. I've complained about it enough, and most of you know why. So, what did December and January teach me about writing and all the things I've talked about in this new year of - do more? Lesson 1: Blogs. Blogs are a pain in the neck. I'm not a natural blogger. It takes me a while to come up with what I want to say. I know a lot of the time in the past this blog has probably come off as something I typed by the seat of my pants, and I probably did. However, I've made more of an effort to be more thoughtful about posts and better organized. I knew Monday I was in trouble because my idea for this post wasn't coming together, and I had no backup plan. This was not the first time this month that happened. So, I learned a valuable lesson. Yes, plan out ideas for posts, but be more flexible and don't announce your thoughts ahead of time. Why? Because when they fall through you won't look like such a donkey's rear end. Lesson 2: Limited Liability Companies (LLC's) and why you need them. From the previous job I held, I already knew doing an LLC was going to be important. Now, I understand a few of you are on the fence about this but hear me out. Each state has very different laws governing liabilities and even taxes, and in fact sometimes DBA forms (doing business as). I moved from Texas, which had no state income tax, to Michigan which taxes you on everything (literally). In Texas, it would've cost me 20 dollars to submit a DBA form, and I would've been able to form my company Korbyn Blake Books, with little else. I wouldn't have been protected from a lawsuit either. Am I concerned about a trial? No, but it's a good idea to have that protection and not need it than to need it and not have it. Later, having an LLC (or not) could mean the difference between me getting my finances raked over the coals versus the companies on silly matters like merchandising. Do I feel like I could write things that could warrant their own merchandising? No, but if I take the steps now to protect myself, I won't regret it later, and frankly given Michigan's laws, and what a lawsuit happy world we live in its cheaper for me to just get it out of the way. Also, Because of some state laws, it's a requirement to have DBA paperwork which tied to the LLC forms. If I hadn't taken this step I would not have been able to put items up on Amazon because my state requires these types of paperwork in order to open a business account, and your business account must be in order before you can finish out your Amazon forms. Long story short, if you aren't sure you need to do this check with your states (or countries) laws before you make a decision, and of course speak with an accountant or CPA. Lesson 3: Writing/Editing I was fortunate at the beginning of January to be asked to write a review for a new author who had started in a group I was still a member of down in Texas. Based on the file I received, the cover looked great, and I was excited to dig into the text. Two paragraphs in and my excitement waned. Ultimately, I had to message the writer, and apologize because I would not be able to write a fair review of the book. Why, because I couldn't finish more than five pages. I was respectful, and honest when I texted. I explained my point (the text was rife with tense problems, pov shifts, and was frankly a hot mess). Because of my conversation with this writer, he removed the book from Amazon where it had already gone up for sale. That made me feel horrible because I know how much effort that writer put into his work. But I also know it wasn't ready. Two days later I received a message from the author thanking me for my candor. He asked me to review the first chapter again. I agreed, but with one caveat. If I did the review, I wanted to do so as a critique and be able to suggest line by line edits. I asked for this because I realized that this author had never been to a writers group. His only feedback had been from people he knew, and free online writing software. He received an edit done by a "pro" who rarely gave him feedback. I've been in that position. It's horrible for a writer and doesn't help us grow. I'm mentioning this as a lesson because as authors (especially newer ones) it's hard for us to know what quality feedback is. I've done posts on this before, things like show don't tell, and how frustrating it can be to get no feedback at all. Or not knowing what resources will help us improve our writing. If you're a new author please, please, join a writing group. Look for a group of people who all share your same goal. If you want to publish, don't join a group of older people who are writing their memoir for fun. You're not going to get the critique you need to improve. Look for professionals, even if they aren't necessarily in your genre. Look for people who will rip your work to shreds, and then suggest how you could've made it better. Look for people who will give you examples. But above all, don't be afraid to return the favor, even if you aren't sure what you should say. Be honest, and be a reader, above all else we're readers first. If you know you do something a lot, mention it to whoever your reading for so they can look for it too. My biggest pet peeve as a reader was the overuse of the word and. I started there, and now it's passive voice. I realized I talk and write in passive voice, who does that? My point is, put yourself and your work out there. But in doing so, don't rush to throw it up on Amazon before you've had several people you consider professionals read over it first. If I've learned nothing else it's that no matter how many times you edit something, it can always be better, and someone will always catch something everyone else has missed. Does that mean you have to dig at your piece until there isn't anything left? No, but if you have more than a few small issues throughout the entire text of your work, it's just not ready yet. As always, thank you for reading. If you have any questions, I'd love to hear them, and I hope you write on!
Initially, it was my intention this week to post a blog about the feedback I received on marketing, but specifically about platform creation. In doing research, and talking to people, my original thoughts quickly went out the window as I realized there was a more significant issue I needed to tackle. Self-awareness. There, I typed it. (Did anyone else feel like the elephant in the room just became visible? I did.) Self-awareness tends to be this elusive thing that people either aren't talking about or talk about in such a way that it's still not helpful. I've listened to a few talks now done by various motivational speakers, entrepreneurs; you name it, I've probably YouTubed it. What did I learn? Honestly, not much. So why is this a topic that's earned its own blog post? Because even though I haven't quite figured out this whole self-awareness schtick, I think it's pretty darn important. Why? Many people believe that one of the keys to marketing is selling yourself just as much as your product. That statement is even more valid and critical for authors (so I'm told). I'm not good at selling myself. Any of you who've talked to me extensively here can attest to that. But there was a time, in a not so distant past that I was. People often asked for me, for my advice, and would double check the suggestion of our veterinarian with me to make sure it was sound. That was a head trip and a half. So, how does that translate into marketing? Getting the best me out there that I can to help drive sales. It's about knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I've touched briefly on that when I talked about goals vs. lists. But, it's about knowing who you are and who you want to be and reconciling the two. So for me how does that translate to marketing? In part, it comes from making myself release work. Not my novels, but the many shorts that I have written that are now languishing on hard drives. Releasing teaser content will help get my voice out there, all while assisting me in honing skills that will translate to my novels. But ultimately, there is no safety net. The best marketing an author can do is to release work. Each novel's release can help drive sales on previous work and get the word out even more for your readership. I don't have this self-awareness thing in the bag yet, but hopefully, I have enough of a headstart with it to understand basics to get myself into a better marketing position because of it. Up for next weeks blog: A talk with Forum member @Link the Writer on making the most out of your forum time, building support, and his writing journey.
Last week I wrote a post about how I'm trying to think of my writing as a business instead of a hobby. One task in making that happen is to build an author's platform. If you're like me, and I feel like many of you are... this is a daunting thing. Every lecture I've attended on the subject of writing talks about building your audience, or platform. So much so, that I began dreading how to brainstorm this elusive thing almost as much as a query letter. I mean, even as you're reading this you're probably thinking some of the things I did like, I don't have a novel ready, how can I do this? Or, how am I going to get my stuff out there, what's all this mumbo jumbo about mailing lists? I know the prospect at first is immensely daunting. Especially for someone (like me) who isn't very good at branding, or frankly selling themselves. So, here is what I'm doing to try to build a platform, even though I'm not going to be releasing a product until June. You're probably wondering why I'm bothering with it now right? I mean June is months away. That's the thing. Now is the time to start doing all of this marketing stuff, generating buzz, getting yourself a readership. Why? Because if I don't have people chomping at the bit for something I've written now, why would they want to buy anything then? Yes, it all does come down to that. Much like I did for forcing myself to see my writing; differently, I'll be applying the same technique to building my readership base. That means another list (yay don't we just love lists?!?... No really, they're working for me so don't knock it until you've tried it.) I know I'm super insistent here on the list thing, but there is a reason. How many of you have started the year thinking, It's a new year, time to set some goals for myself? Yeah, we all do it, most of the time they involve that ugly, dirty word, you know the one, gym. Yeah, goals don't happen. There full of good intentions, we don't need any stinking good intentions. 2018 is the year we do, not the year we don't follow through. Lists, lists are things you do. If for no other reason than to see that satisfying little cross off (or check mark-which ever floats your boat). So, here's the list: 1. Write one blog post every Weds* (I purposely posted today's late because I didn't want to knock a post down off the main page someone else had already done. I know not a good start. As soon as my website goes live, I'll be posting there, and that won't be an issue.) 2. Talk to fellow forum members about how they've approached building a base. Key questions: If they've had luck with guest author blogs or doing interviews with other authors. (This is the subject of next weeks post in case you're wondering how those discussions went.) 3. Be more active on social media such as Facebook, Twitter (This is a toughie for me, I'm a watcher, not a sharer.) 4. Post videos. (People seem to enjoy the information in smaller bites especially when it comes in the form of video. Also, a toughie because I hate having my photo taken much less video... eek!) 5. Make shorts available as PDF's once my site goes live. 6. Include apps which will help generate a mailing list via the site. (For release info, short stories, and other goodies) 7. Start putting together a team (If you've heard me talk before about street teams I mean those, as well as a group of people knowledgeable in different aspects of the business. For this post, someone who has marketing experience which I can bounce ideas off of.) I'm stopping my list there. Seven is a good start, and many of these items will have to be repeated to get my platform going. *It's important as an author to maintain, and strengthen relationships you've built with other writers. Why? Because some of the best feedback, tips, heck even just life advice you can possibly get comes from everyone else around you. For me, that means writer's groups, and this forum. I can't tell you how instrumental this forum has been to my growth, and my writing journey. Thank you to all of you who've supported me, talked me down, and just generally put up with me when I felt lousy and wasn't sure this was something I can do. You have no idea how greatful I am to this community, but I will probably repeat that until you're all sick of reading it. -Corbyn
As a kid, I never really had a dream or even one particular thing that I really wanted to do. I can remember being eight, or ten and thinking it would be really cool to write. Not just write, but write stories that people really wanted to read. Being that young, and growing up where I did, that was never something that I thought could be a possibility. Sure we were always taught that we could do or be whatever we wanted, but I've always been more of a realist, and couldn't see a way to making that happen. I've talked a good deal here about self-doubt, struggling to get through the writing, and a whole host of other problems that have plagued me. I do this because I know I'm not alone here and because I know how many of you have the same doubts, thoughts, problems. It's really great knowing that we aren't alone. But I hope talking about setting myself up as a writer will help someone just as much as you've helped me get through all those other emotions. Writing is hard. This is not a new statement, but I think it's harder for some of us because we go into it looking at it as if it were some mythical beast we've got to slay. Or a quest that we're trying to reach the end of. Writing for me is hard because I make it that way. It doesn't have to be. I don't have to worry that nobody is going to like what I've done. And getting to that place in my own head where I realize that I'm the one making it what it is has been the longest part of my journey to date. In 2011, I was back in college taking courses I hated. I had to have an elective, so I took a creative writing class. That class changed my life. It didn't teach me to be a better writer, or how to market myself, but it did light that long-dormant spark the eight-year-old version of myself had. It would be cool to write, but even cooler if I wrote stuff people wanted to read. Now, here I am. It's 2018. I've pushed myself to try to learn this craft, and continue to do so. But more than that, I've got a drive that I never had before. A need to do something because I want to, and the determination to see it through. But how do you take that and turn it into something you can do every day? Much like in 2011, it took a talk done by an indy author for me to see that writing every day to support yourself is possible. Don't get me wrong, I knew other people did it, I just couldn't fathom it, or see how it could be done. Thanks to that talk, I realized that again I was over complicating things. (Yes, I saw the pattern there too and am working hard on that.) Being able to do something like writing isn't a mystical problem to solve. Yes, some people are really successful at it, and others are not. Does that mean they are better writers than you? No. Does it mean they even think of themselves as successful? No. I learned that in order for this whole writing thing to work for me I had to do two things. 1. Decide what being successful at it might mean to me. In my case, I would consider it successful if it were something that I could do solely by itself, and that doing so would ensure that I could continue to do it. What does that long thing mean? I had to put a price on what I would need per month to be able to write full time. For me, that means making $2200.00 per month net income. It wouldn't matter what job I was doing, that's the number that I need to make in order to pay all of my bills, and put some money aside for retirement. 2. Start treating my writing like a business and less like a hobby. To do this, I drafted a business plan. As many of you know, I've started freelancing. Most of my gigs have come from freelancing skills I learned at my old job, like being a PA, advertising, content creation for sites or blogs, but some have been from bookwork as well. My freelancing is part of my business plan. I give myself so many hours a week for freelancing, and then the rest of my time and energy goes into writing fiction. This has helped alleviate some of my stress about writing to support myself, or "be successful". I've also started treating my fiction as a business as well. I've posted a little blurb in my Progress Journal on more of that if you're curious about a production schedule. So, I plan to be more active with regard to these efforts through the rest of the year, and on this forum as well. I hope some of this post will be helpful, or at least inspire someone else here to start thinking of their writing in other ways. 2018 is the year to stop saying I'm going to- and to start doing.
I never thought I would find closure in the form of an obituary. I spent years mourning the slow, painful death of my marriage. Sometimes I felt like a failure because I knew it needed to end, that I needed it to, and sometimes I felt like a piece of me was broken and missing. Numb. This was my norm for nearly eight years. You can't imagine how horrible it is dealing with someone who won't let you go but doesn't care about you. This is the main reason I decided to leave my home state. I needed distance, and I needed it badly. On the 25th, I received a call from my Mom. What I thought was going to be the usual Christmas stuff turned into, have you heard from him? I hadn't and was glad for it. Until I found out about some social media posts that were vaguely stating that he was gone. That fact quickly turned into a spiral of worry, dread, anger, and more worry. I tried contacting his family, no one would answer, or return calls. I called the police, hospitals, nobody had any information on where he was, or what if anything happened. Finally, I received a call from a funeral home in Texas. He was there, and the only reason they were calling me was that his mother had been informed she couldn't have his remains because they found out he's still legally married. Now I'm left picking up the pieces of the life of a man who broke me, and mine. Trying to make sure that his last wishes are met in a way that he would want. Trying to deal with his live-in "common law" girlfriend, who doesn't seem to understand you aren't considered a common-law couple in Texas if you're married to someone else. I'm sad that he took his life, that he felt he had no other way, and I feel horrible knowing and feeling a little giddy that I'm free. Finally free, and that at the end of this, it's done. So I sat there, mentally listing what would need to be taken care of. I did what I could to make things right, I sent him home to his mother, and contacted everyone that I could think of who knew him outside of Texas. Sitting there, doing these things, going through these motions, the one thing I couldn't do was write his obituary.
First, Happy Holidays! Secondly, If you follow my modest blog,(and I hope you do,) then you may or may not know that a little over two months ago I moved from my home state of Texas to Michigan. It was more than just a move for me, it was a change in my way of life. A much-needed change. For twelve years I held a position as an office manager/lead technician for a rural Veterinary practice. It was a very high-stress job, and by year ten I knew I would not be able to do it for much longer. It sapped my creativity and made me miserable most days. I was burned out, and I couldn't write. So, I made the move, and the job that I thought was waiting for me here in Michigan wasn't. I tried to find work (and am still looking), but I find myself in an odd situation. I'm either grossly overqualified, or horribly under-qualified for most positions, and I have no degree. So, I turned to freelancing. With so many platforms out there like Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer, it's become easier than ever to get work if you're tenacious enough to hang in there. Because of my freelancing gigs, it's given me time, and a much-needed confidence boost with regard to my writing. It's also teaching me exactly what it means to survive as a writer if you want that to be your sole source of income. I'm gearing up to finish a short story that I'm ghostwriting for someone out of Australia. This will be the second short I've done through Freelancer. The part I like about it is that the higher my ranking there the more I can charge for my services. So while I'm still a relative newbie, I won't always be paid like one. I know some writers can earn quite a bit of money per hour per project. I hope to get there. Right now I'm earning about $15 an hour, which is still better than I was paid at my old position. Which is really nice. I was curious what other's experiences were with regard to freelancing? I look forward to reading your comments!
As writers, we're all acutely familiar with the difficulties involved with overcoming our sometimes crippling self-doubt. It's often a hard-fought battle. In my case, the battle is occasionally won, but never the war. It's hard to remember that self-doubt is all in your own head. Especially when life kicks you in the shins, steals your cupcakes, and pushes you down on your ass like the big bully it can be. That's where I am right now. Wondering how best to get back at the bully. The good fight isn't going so well. Recently I had to move cross country. I made the decision to leave my safety net (job of 11 years) and do this thinking that I had a safety net waiting for me. Someone slashed my net right out from under me. My resulting job hunt has left me shaken in my abilities/skills. I'm at a crossroads. I have literally everything I've worked so hard for the last 11 years to lose, my savings, new home, car, and now no safety net. Do I continue to crawl through the slush piles looking for a job I'm going to hate doing something I'd rather not be doing? Or do I bite the bullet and actually try to write? I've always tried to approach my writing in a very practical way. I never thought I'd be able to really give it the time or attention I wanted, much less be able to do it professionally. Can I even get past my own self-doubt to try to make a go of it? I just don't know. I really hate not knowing.
Sometimes one of the most frustrating parts of writing is simply starting your story. Periodically I do alpha and beta reading for fellow authors on this site, and one of the number one concerns I've run across seems to be how or where to start the story. A good bit of this depends on the type of story you're planning to write. Is it a novel opening, a short story? If it's a novel, what kind? The same goes for short stories. Unfortunately, there is no specific how to write a good opening or magic wand we can wave over our work to say, YES! This is perfect. But there are a few things we can do to make our openings and the rest of our work as good as we possibly can. 1. Know what you want to write. This means knowing the type of story, the genre, and doing your homework. (Uh! I know... homework!?!!) Most successful authors though do their homework. They know what works, or doesn't for their audience and genre. 2. Read. Read everything you can get your hands on, but specifically, in the genre or story style you want to write in. Why? because if you want to write in those places you need to (yes I'm saying it) do your homework and know what types of things are acceptable for the genre or style you want to write in. Does that mean you have to follow all the rules and tropes of the genre, NO. But it will give you a great baseline for how to proceed with your own work. Study how a few different authors write their openings, and descriptions can help strengthen your own work. 3. Hook your reader! It doesn't matter if you're writing a short story or a novel, the most important thing you can hope to do as a writer is hooking your reader into your piece early. If you can hook your reader, you can take them on all sorts of fantastical journeys, and not only will they stick with you until the end (hopefully you've added lots of conflicts to make sure that happens, but hey that's another post) but they will also love you for it, and seek out more of your work. I know you're probably thinking, ok all of those things sound great, but how do I do them, and what do some of them have to do with my opening? Simple, good openings have those three things in common. The Author took the time to cultivate knowledge for their audience while expanding on the scene, characters, and the world in their openings. Not only do good authors do that, but they hook you into their stories and make you want to know more about this world that you're about to peek into. Let's play a little dissection game, shall we? (By the way, I'm no expert at this and I'm going to mess quite a few things up, but bear with me here.) Below I have the openings for two stories that I've read recently. I'll briefly go over each before diving into them and detailing why I believe they make for good openings. I just finished reading a novel by Kim Harrison called A Perfect Blood. So I'll use it as a novel example. It reads as follows: The woman across from me barely sniffed when I slammed the pen down on the counter. She didn't care that I was furious, that I'd been standing in this stupid line for over an hour, that I couldn't get my license renewed or my car registered in my name. I was tired of doing everything through Jenks or Ivy, but DEMON wasn't a species option on the form. Friday morning at the DMV office. God! What had I been thinking? *First and foremost this paragraph tells us a lot of information about the world, even if you've never read the writers other work you can tell that this is an Urban Fantasy novel right off the bat from the use of Demon, and DMV. But it also gives a lot of information about the character as well. How she feels, what she thinks, and that she's got issues both in a mundane task like going to the DMV and with the fact that she's a demon. That's a lot of information in a few lines. I have a friend who writes in the next town over (Ryan McSwain), and he writes short stories. The last one he sent out in his monthly newsletter I found hilarious. It was called: Stop This Rocket, I want to Get Off! His started like this: The intercom clicked to life. "Two minutes until launch." Evelyn tightened her seatbelt. "I can't believe these new Gernsbeck rockets don't use gravity restraints. I hate chasing things around in zero-G." Her handsome companion returned his tray table to the full upright position. It made a difference, considering the cramped nature of their accommodations, but her elbow still poked into his forearm. "True, but at least the time compressor has four-star reviews. I don't mind a tight squeeze if I get back to Earth before everyone I know is dead." *So this little snippet tells us that this is a sci-fi story (even if we haven't seen the title) and that Evelyn is a nervous flyer, and that there could be issues with this flight just from the shoddy parts alone used. It's not as much information as we get from the previous piece, but most of that is due to the fact that this story is a short story, and most of it's told through the conversation of Evelyn and her mysterious fellow passenger. Both of these examples succeed because not only do they set the scenes (a busy suburban DMV, and a questionable rocket ship) but they also give us glimpses into the characters, and more importantly their problems which makes them both relatable, and as a reader we're more likely to sympathize with a relatable character that has problems like flying, or getting their license back, than one we can't understand.
Let me start this blog post by apologizing (yet again ) for not being more active as of late, and by saying how much I've missed being here. This forum has a very positive way of forcing me to look at my writing goals and work in a way that makes me more likely to finish it. That is something I sorely need. Which in a roundabout way brings me to the meat, the good stuff, the actual subject of this post. Last Saturday, I completely fangirled out on not one, but four... yes... FOUR New York Times best-selling authors. (Yes I'm still burying my flaming cheeks beneath the brim of my baseball cap over this one.) It all started at The Panhandle Professional Writers bimonthly meeting. I was thoroughly embarrassed from the get-go, because I hadn't been to a meeting in a few months, and as I walked in I heard a squeal. A very high pitched squeal, as the current President ran over and bear hugged me. I fought my inner voice as it screamed, no my bubble! And managed to hug her back. She proceeded to introduce me to some newcomers by name, and then added she's an indie author who writes urban fantasy and is currently writing a zombie western. This was a little embarrassing for me because I don't actually have anything published, but who wants to correct someone you haven't seen in six months, especially when they only read 500 words and still remember it? The meeting progressed, and a member of a critique group that I participate in came over to talk to me, and the woman sitting behind me. I quickly found out that she is the writer in residence for the local college, and is a New York Times bestselling author of romance novels (Jody Thomas)- color me impressed! I mostly listened to this critique member wax on for thirty minutes, when Jody turned to me and said, "I heard you write Urban Fantasy and are working on an interesting zombie piece for indie publication. I'd love it if you'd come to lunch with us to talk." I went, and not only did I get to pick Jody's brain, but I also got to hang at the cool kid table with three other Times best sellers. To say it was surreal is the understatement of my life. These wonderful, funny, awesome women have more collective writer-oomph in one little finger than I sometimes feel I've ever possessed, but more importantly, they have the credits to prove it. Those women who took pity on a poor newbie writer have more books published and on lists than I may ever complete. It was soo very inspiring, and something I won't soon forget. So, the lesson I took from this experience is... don't be afraid to share your work, yourself, and branch out of your comfort zone more often. You never know who you might find in your local area, and more importantly you never know what kind of friends you might make!