Posts Tagged Amazon
Lies that Can Poison Your Dreams–Don’t Eat the Butt in 2013
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Writing on January 2, 2013
Happy New Year! Today we are going to revisit a favorite series of mine that I call Don’t Eat the Butt. Why? Because typing “butt” makes me giggle. Besides, when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, I guarantee most of you vowed to 1) start your novel 2) finish your novel 3) land an agent 4) self-publish 5) be better about checking in with your parole officer.
Maybe that’s just me 
.
Kristen, Why Are We Talking About “Butts” and What Does This Have to Do with Writing?
We’re getting there! Geesh! Patience.
I like to think about stuff.
A lot of stuff.
Probably far too much stuff.
Anyway, I wonder about the first person who ate an oyster. Was it a dare? Someone lose a bet? What about mushrooms? There are 100,000 known species of mushrooms, yet only 2,000 are edible. How do we know this? Someone had to eat the bad ‘shrooms then pass that knowledge down for posterity (after he stopped seeing snakes).
Who volunteers for this kind of stuff?
But the most fascinating culinary assassin, in my POV, is the puffer fish. There is only ONE TINY PART of the puffer fish that is not deadly. Oh, and if you don’t know how to cut a puffer fish correctly, you can unwittingly unleash deadly poison into the non-poisonous part.
Marty: Wow, crazy, Dude. This puffer fish kind of tastes like chick–…*grabs throat and falls over foaming from the mouth*
Fred: Note to self. Don’t eat the butt.
This idea of the puffer fish made me start thinking about our careers as artists. There are a lot of common misperceptions that can leak poison into our writing dreams if we aren’t careful. Thus, the DETB (Don’t Eat the Butt) lessons are designed to help you guys spot the toxic beliefs that can KILL a writing career. My assistant Chuy (pictured above) is here to help.
In short, Don’t Eat the Butt, It’s Chuy.
This shall be your mantra.
I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. (Romance authors stop sniggering, please. Thank you.)
No butts about it.
bada bump *snare*
Some of us have been there, done that and got the butt-tasting T-shirt. I am here to hand down what I have learned from being stupid enough to eat the literary puffer butt and survive. Watch, listen and LEARN. The smart writer learns from her mistakes, but the wise writer learns from the mistakes of others.
Yeah, you’ve got all these shiny resolutions. Yay, for you. But I am here to help you turn resolutions into reality so we need to get your thinking straight. Battles begin and end with the mind.
Without further ado…
DETB Lie #1 I’m not a real writer until I have
- a finished manuscript
- landed an agent
- am traditionally published
- am selling enough books to quit my day job
- am writing full time
- have spent my retirement funds earning an MFA in Creative Writing
This is crap and don’t eat it. What yahoo decided that we aren’t real writers until we meet some silly outside standard of validation? On what plane of existence does this make ANY professional sense? We are writers the second we decide to take this career decision seriously.
Screw aspiring. Aspiring is for pansies. Takes guts to be a writer..
Think of it this way. As writers we are entrepreneurs (refer to this post). Do entrepreneurs use the term aspiring? I am an aspiring restaurant owner. Oh, I am an aspiring landscaper. I am aspiring housekeeper.
NO.
If I want a house-cleaning business, the second I gather all of my cleaning supplies and a vacuum together in the back of my SUV and print off some business cards, I am a house-cleaning business. Even before my very first client.
In fact, I cannot land my first client until I first call myself a business. Who is going to let me into their house wielding a toilet brush if I approach them with, “Hi, I am an aspiring housekeeper. I’m still learning the best ways to get rid of soap scum, but maybe you can hire me even though I am not, per se a “real” housekeeper?
Again…no.
The title is not something we earn it is who we are. Our title defines our level of commitment.
Here’s a news flash. There is no license requirement to write books (though it might be a good idea).
Profession by Certification
Doctors, lawyers, accountants, and nurses are professions that require outside certification. This is why they cannot call themselves “Doctor” or “Counselor” or “R.N.” until they take certain exams and pass various levels of professional vetting.
When it comes to being a DOCTOR, we are not a REAL DOCTOR until we have gone to medical school.
Profession of Results
Writers are not the same type of profession. We don’t need a license, an MFA, a finished novel, or an agent to call ourselves writers. We are writers when we decide to write.
Now, we might be bad writers, lazy writers, untalented writers, unpublished writers, pre-published writers but we are still real writers. We are a profession defined by results, not intentions or certifications.
Lose the Literary Training Wheels…NOW
Why Writers Fear the Title
When we decide to use the professional title writer, it is a sign to others that we are no longer hobbyists. Others will expect a certain work ethic to go with our title.
I feel many writers fear using a professional title because we invite a new level of accountability. We fear failure and so we hedge with euphemisms like “aspiring author” so that we can goof off and write when the fancy strikes.
We can never become a professional author if we won’t first claim being a real writer. How we define ourselves affects our choices, how we spend our time, and what we are willing to sacrifice. Those who will not first call themselves WRITER are almost certainly doomed to fail.
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work. ~Stephen King
Writers are professionals who treat their writing as if it is their first, second or even a third job. They have a solid work ethic and they know that they have to ante up and take the consequences for better or for worse. They are mature and no longer playing Literary Barbies with their characters.
The world does not reward perfectionists, it rewards finishers.
So best of luck with 2013, and I will do all I can to help you guys grow and mature and have the dreams of your heart.
Remember! Don’t Eat the Butt…It’s Chuy
For those who need some writer love and support, please join us over at WANATribe, the social network for writers. No ads, no spam, all awesome. We have digital Jell-O shots.
We are not alone!
We also have a wonderful lineup of classes at WANA International. Our digital classroom is state of the art. Learn from home and at your own pace. I HIGHLY recommend Agent Secrets taught by Literary Agent Laurie McLean. She is a FABULOUS teacher and is very savvy with the new options in the Digital Age.
What are your thoughts? Opinions? Fears? What keeps you from claiming the professional title?
I love hearing from you!
To prove it and show my love, for the month of January, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).
And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.
At the end of January I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.
The WANA Plan to Save Bookstores & Revive Publishing
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Publishing on May 7, 2012
Last week, we talked about how The Big Six is Dead. So what now? The future seems uncertain for many in the industry. Those who insist on clinging to outdated ways are bound to fall into anachronism. As I like to say, either we are architects of change or artifacts of change.
The only real hope of survival for New York publishing is the bookstore. If there is any hope to breathe life back into big publishing, it will rest with the bookstore. (The Big 6 will never rule like they used to, but they need not go extinct, either.)
Yet, indies have struggled competing against the mega-store B&N. Barnes & Noble has had its own share of woes. Lots of massive stores=too much overhead to be competitive. The 90s were all about excess. Giant stores, giant discounts. In this new world? Giant problem.
What is the answer?
In the future? To quote Seth Godin, “Small is the new big.” Let me explain…
Yes, But Mine Already Has Sparkles
Technology is quickly reaching an asymptote. What is an asymptote? It is a really fancy word you can throw in randomly to impress your friends. Impressed you, didn’t it? Oh, you wanted the definition! Okay, from Wikipedia:
In analytic geometry, an asymptote (/ˈæsɪmptoʊt/) of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as they tend to infinity.
WTH? you might be asking. Give me a moment.
Basically, fifteen years ago when cell phones were the size of your head, could only call local numbers, but each phone call cost $30 if one exceeded three and a half minutes, let’s just say that the cell phone had A LOT of room for improvement.
Only a handful of wealthy techies used the cell phone. They were for executives and they were barely useful.
Over the past two decades, cell phones have become smaller, thinner, prettier. Phones that once could only make calls evolved. By the mid-2000s, cell phones could take pictures and store music, but we still needed a small business loan to pay our phone bill. But then cell phones and cell phone service got leaner, meaner, faster, cheaper, better…and even came with sparkles.
Can’t beat sparkles with a stick.
What are you going to offer me? MORE sparkles. Nah. I’m good.
What About These Days?
Nowadays, cell phones are affordable for everyone. They are no longer a luxury item among the wealthy or the technophiles. Cell phones are as integrated into our lives as indoor plumbing.
And, they aren’t going to change like they used to.
Don’t get me wrong, I know we have many more advances in technology to come, but when it comes to the stuff us regular people are using? Technology is approaching an asymptote, meaning that sure it can improve, but with each improvement moving incrementally smaller toward an infinite curve.
Huh?
It means the changes now aren’t as impressive and don’t move the market the way they used to.
Think of your iPod. When the first mobile music players could only hold TWENTY songs, it was worth running out and paying a small fortune for the one that held FIFTY songs, or A HUNDRED, or even FIVE HUNDRED. But are we going to drop everything to upgrade the iPod that holds a thousand songs for one that can hold five thousand?
Nah. We’re good. Thanks for asking.
This is what the publishing industry is failing to understand. Not only are they stuck in the paper paradigm, but they aren’t—in my humble opinion—fairly appreciating the technology paradigm. The e-reader can only get so good. I had a first generation Nook and I use it to read far more than my new iPad.
Why does this affect big publishing? The technology doesn’t really matter after a certain point. CONTENT DOES. This is why NY should have done everything humanly possible to control as much content as they could. If they would have considered my WANA plan that I offered them a year and a half ago, they might have dominated all of paper AND digital.
Oh well. I tried.
The funny thing is that New York is still courting the ever-elusive “book lover” instead of realizing that technology is creating more book lovers than ever before in human history and whomever is poised to keep the public satiated is going to cash out BIG.
Also, the “book-lovers” that NY really should be going after, rarely venture into libraries or bookstores, they are a new breed with different habits. But, we’ll get back to that in a second.
The Birth of the Digital Age Reader
See, NY believed that the e-book would be like the audio-book, but here is the problem. They failed to appreciate the Diffusion of Innovations Curve. Why am I bringing this up? Well, it explains where we will find the Digital Age Reader.
Man, I am totally geeking you guys out!
Basically when any new technology comes along, it progresses along a fairly predictable curve. The Innovators—those people like me who bought the very first digital camera even though we had to promise a kidney to pay for it—are the first.
We are the geeks and we are the ones who buy all kinds of gadgets FIRST. Then there are the Early Adopters–the friends of the geeks who will either wait for a sale or wait for a cheaper Gen 2. Then there is the Early Majority, the Late Majority and the Laggards (folks who just NOW got a cell phone or joined Facebook).
So Why Didn’t E-Books Go the Way of Audio Books?
It had to do with the nature of the product and the problem it solved. It was a niche product and always would be. Generally speaking, people don’t have time to sit and listen to each other for ten seconds let alone listen to a book for ten hours.
Who does?
People who travel long distances. Okay, well there is a small population of dedicated buyers—ME back when I was in sales and drove 1800 miles a week. Okay, well beyond the traveling salesman? The person traveling on vacation. Well, that’s 1-3 books a year. How often do you get a vacation?
Let’s be honest. It’s hard to go from listening to an e-book back to real life back to listening to a book (picture waiting in a doctor’s office). With an e-book? Smooooooth. A page here a page there. Book after book after book.
Yes, we are an increasingly ADD culture, but we are never so ADD that we can transition seamlessly from an audio book to real life and back again.
Not that talented.
Additionally, audiobooks are more cost prohibitive to make. We need to find someone who has a good voice and good sound equipment to read out book onto a file. E-books? Easy squeezy and getting easier and cheaper by the day.
Reading aloud for recording purposes? Probably the same level of hard regardless of technology.
So, as we see, the signs that audio would remain niche are clear. E-books? They are everywhere. Over the weekend I read two books from three devices. I read from my Nook while we drove so long as it was light, then my iPhone once I ran out of light, then my iPad when I ran out of juice for the iPhone.
Yes, I have a lot of gadgets.
The Big Leap
What publishing didn’t account for was that the e-reader would make the jump from the Innovators and Early Adopters to the fat part of the bell curve. Now my husband who would have never defined himself as a “reader” chews through a book a week on his Evo (or my iPad. ONE DAY I will get to use my own iPad for more than FIVE minutes! 
)
My prediction is that the e-reader will burn through the fat part of the bell curve in the next three years, five tops. Paper is just a bad investment in a world of $5 gas prices. Also, paper is a bad bet in a world that is about to have INSATIABLE demand for content.
Readers want to finish a book and buy another one INSTANTLY and AFFORDABLY. We don’t want to have to make a run to a store to buy a book. We want to hit a button and have it delivered in seconds from outer space.
By failing to appreciate the progress along the curve, NY is hunting for readers in the wrong spot. Keep hunting this way and they will starve and die.
Small is the New Big–Targeting the Digital Age Reader
What cracks me up about New York is not only are they clinging to paper, but, from what I can see, they aren’t even properly understanding the Reader of the Digital Age. They are still “hunting” for readers the exact same way they always have. They are hunting for Old Paradigm Readers at the expense of the far more numerous Digital Age Readers.
Old Paradigm Readers, those who say, “You have my hardback when you pry it from my cold, dead hands” are good to have, but they are only a very small percentage of the population. They are not the readers who will bring publishing into a new Digital Renaissance.
That is the job of the Digital Age Reader.
Instead of Random House cutting loose salespeople with no commission to create “community support” with libraries (that are experiencing more cuts than ever) and indie bookstores (that are struggling in their own right), I might come up with a solution that benefits everyone.
I really dig win-win solutions.
Technology is approaching our fancy word of the day—an asymptote—so that is no longer a viable direction. So if we can’t focus on the technology, then do it the WANA way and focus on people. Think of their lives and their buying habits. Stop trying to make people come to YOU, and go TO THEM, instead.
Think Small to Think BIG
If it were me, and I were an independent bookstore, I would target Target. Target has this new campaign The Shops We Couldn’t Help But Fall In Love With where they bring small stores from other parts of the country to a national store.
The little guy gets help from the big guy. Little guy is happy because he gets to tap into new shoppers in other regions on an unprecedented scale. Shoppers are happy because we are tired of the Age of the Mega Store. We dig little guys.
Instead of trying to compete with Barnes & Noble mega stores, small is the new big.
Target is rumored to be partnering with Apple to sell iPads. What if you could walk out of Target with that iPad full of books promised to keep you up late at night reading? Heck Target stores already have Starbucks, why not add in a small bookstore?
Just situate a bookstore kiosk with touch-screen technology next to the Starbucks, but conveniently close to the display of e-readers. Purchase an e-book at Target and they will give you a gift card to download 5 FREE! titles at their bookstore kiosk.
Now Target doesn’t have to worry about show-rooming (people testing a device at Target but then buying it at home on-line and cheaper) because Target has now offered a value-added. Oh, and Random House can put those salespeople to good use selling the titles that should be featured in the Target special.
Book-sellers still get to do what they love–recommend AWESOME books—without the stuff they don’t love—tearing off the front covers of unsold paper books they are sending to an industrial shredder.
Additionally, book-sellers can now cut down on expensive overhead by partnering with a Target, Wal Mart, Costco, or Kroger Grocery Store (kind of like how Starbucks has a sized-down version for the grocery store near you).
Now, people who buy e-readers will be ten feet away from those most qualified to help them set up their e-reader and then fill the new device all their geeky friends finally talked them into. Booksellers get to sell books they love, writers sell more books and publishers solve the discoverability problem all of us are facing now that “everyone can be published.”
Wake Up! B&N!
Barnes and Noble needs to dump all those giant stores and create small airport-sized stores that will fit nicely inside a Best Buy. Still offer some paper titles, but now cater more to the digital market.
When a grandmother buys a Nook for her granddaughter who is graduating high school, she can stop by the B&N kiosk and have a bookseller help set up the new reader and load up the gift with books guaranteed to make an 18 year-old go SQUEEEEEE!!!!!
Barnes & Noble currently lets Nook owners read anything they want for FREE! for one hour if one is inside the store. Keep doing that at the small version!
With a small kiosk at a Target, think of my husband who really doesn’t want to hang out with me while I rail against the gods as I try on bathing suits. He could bring his e-reader to the Target Starbucks, find a comfy chair, and read something the B&N bookseller recommends. Then, he is likely to BUY it because it’s an impulse thing. Placing bookstores in this way would maximize the impulse buy.
The Digital Age Reader is a different creature. She barely has time to wear makeup, so she LOVES convenience. She LIKES being able to pick up fine wine at her grocery store. It saves gas, and this is really important in a time when it costs a house payment per month to keep gas in the cars.
Trust me, the Digital Age Reader loves it when she can save time and gas. She wants to shop for groceries, but she’d like to load up her e-reader too. In fact she probably already does. She is probably using the paper aisles at the grocery story to “showroom” what she’s going to download on her iPad. I say put those aisles filled with paperbacks to better use and make them a micro-bookstore.
If bookstores retooled in this fashion, everyone wins. The big store keeps people in there shopping longer. It can earn a share of the profits and also not have the hassle of restocking shelves of paper books.
Bookstores have less waste and much more flexibility. They can offer far more titles at Target, Costco, and Best Buy because they aren’t handcuffed by the paper paradigm. Writers win because more titles can be seen at these stores, which solves discoverability. Agents win because they can negotiate more titles into key retail spaces.
Also, get the bookstore, Starbucks and store working together in the WANA way, cross-promoting. Buy so many books at the Target B&N and you get a coupon for $10 off a purchase from Target. Buy your groceries at Target, and earn points you can cash in for FREE! ebooks at their B&N kiosk. Buy certain key titles and get a Free! frappucino.
Work together! We Are Not Alone!
The WANA way saves time, enhances the shopping experience and everybody wins. We buy more books and save more time to….read MORE BOOKS! Publishing doesn’t have to die. Neither does the bookstore. They only die when they fail to be creative…or to listen to others who can help them be creative. In the WANA World, everyone wins.
I love the future.
So what are your thoughts? Would you be more likely to shop at a Target store that had an indie book kiosk? An Amazon kiosk? Maybe a mini-B&N?
I LOVE hearing from you!
And to prove it and show my love, for the month of May, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of May I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
Winner of last week 5 page critique–CJ Carver. Please send your 1250 word Word document to author kristen dot lamb at g mail dot com.
***IMPORTANT MESSAGE–For those who have not gotten back pages. My web site fiasco has been responsible for eating a lot of e-mails. Additionally I get about 400 e-mails a day and the spam folder has a healthy appetite too. It is hard to tell since some people never claim their prize, but I could have very well just not seen your entry. Feel free to e-mail it again and just put CONTEST WINNER in the header so I can spot you easily. (especially if your message is kidnapped by the spam filter).
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.
Big Six Publishing is Dead–Welcome the Massive Three
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Publishing on May 2, 2012
The Reader of the Digital Age–Trust me, he won’t miss paper.
Ah, the times they have changed. The year was 1983 and life was good. Summers filled with trampolines, swimming pools and evening walks to the snow cone stand. Cartoons were only on Saturdays, and if we stayed up too late playing Bloody Mary and toilet-papering the neighbor’s trees and overslept, we were out of luck for another week.
Music stores were a rare treat, a place to spend birthday money or blow our allowance, and a Fox Photo Hut graced virtually every grocery store parking lot. My mother would always turn in the film and then the car would break down and we’d run out of money. No one knows how many of my brother’s baby photos were lost.
What did they DO with all those pictures people couldn’t afford to pick up?
Who would have thought that one day, everyone would walk around typing messages on a phone? Or taking and then sending pictures with that phone? Who would have believed that a computer company would be a larger distributer of music than Tower Records? That car stereos would stream tunes from satellites floating above the Earth’s atmosphere? No more cassette tapes. Who could have envisioned a day that Kodak would be a memory and a home telephone an anachronism?
It is an amazing time, and I can say that Star Trek fans did envision a lot of these changes. Yet, even when we see it coming, it is very surreal to see it actually here. As an avid Trekkie, I do like to think of myself as a Futurist, so today we are going to indulge my future vision.
The Big Six have a new problem…Microsoft.
Yes, it does look like Microsoft is what is going to save Barnes & Noble’s tails. From this article by Felix Salmon on WIRED:
Barnes & Noble has sold a 17.6% stake in its digital and college businesses to Microsoft, for $300 million — a deal which values B&N’s remaining 82.4% stake at $1.4 billion. And while the $300 million is staying in the new joint venture and therefore not available to help the bookstore chain with cashflow issues, the news does mean that Barnes & Noble won’t need to constantly find enormous amounts of money to keep up in the arms race with Amazon. That’s largely Microsoft’s job, now.
So why is this a problem for the Big Six?
The same reason that Apple (a computer company) was a problem for Tower Records, that Sprint (a cell phone company) spelled death for Kodak and that Amazon (an on-line distributor of everything from camping equipment to push-up bras) gave Border’s its mortal blow.
The Big Six are dead. Welcome the Massive Three. More on this in a moment…
The past ten years have been nothing but market Darwinism. The slower species who refused to adapt to the new climate after the comet strike (birth of the Internet coupled with an affordable personal computer) are now being devoured by the faster, hungrier and more agile creatures.
Notice Tower Records, how it defended how music-lovers, “would always want CDs and music stores.” Instead of realizing it was in the “music business” not the CD business, it stood there, dumb and immobile…..*munch* then the Appleosaurus Rex ate it whole.
Then Kodak stood looking at the shiny black hole that was its business plan. It put both feet in and got stuck. Sprint flew out of the sky and took chunk after chunk while the Kodak beast cried foul. “People will always want film pictures!” it wailed as it bled.
All the Kodak beast had to do was grab the digital stick, but it was too stuck. Soon the other digital predators smelled blood and the parsed the Kodak beast until it finally died in a pool of red.
Now we come to the book distributors and publishers. “People will always want paper!” they cry, even as they can smell Border’s bloated, dead storefronts rotting in the sun.
I think the metaphor is clear.
Amazon took out Borders and gave Barnes & Noble a nice flesh wound. The Amazonasaurus also took a nice chunk out of the Big Six. B&N and the Big Six need to ask the hard question.
Will people really always want paper? Did they really always want records and CDs? No. Did they really always want film? No. The view from the cave is nothing but a graveyard of former giants, bleached bones from the rulers of an age that has passed.
Adapt or die is the message. Ah, but the Big Six could have a problem.
See Barnes & Noble has proven it can scrabble with the best of them and even get in some sucker punches below the belt. They had no problem devouring the indie bookstore when it suited them to claw their way to the top of the food chain. Now that it has partnered with Microsoft, should the Big Six be worried?
My opinion? YES.
Barnes and Noble likes being an apex predator. It got a taste for being on top in the 90s, and, make no mistake, it longs to revive the glory days.
Who can blame them?
If I were the Big Six, I would worry big time. Why? Because, the only disposable part of this relationship is…the publishing houses.
I have to say, my hat is off to B&N. That company has moxie. I’ve blogged a number of times how the Big Six should have revisited its relationship with B&N. Once books went digital and e-book sales took off, propping up a paper distributor was just a bad plan.
In my blog Bracing for Impact–The Future of Big Publishing in the New Paradigm I said there was really no reason that the Big Six couldn’t sell directly to the consumer and just distribute the books themselves. I advised that they make the move and go digital. For paper? Focus on POD technology, the consignment model was too inefficient.
Hmmm, a fan of this blog sent the link to that post to the CEO of B&N. Curiouser and curiouser…
I LOVE NY publishing. I have consistently tried to help them. With the model I proposed, New York would never again have wasted money on books that didn’t sell. They could have ruled the Digital Age well. The Big Six would have only sold books that, well…sold. And in my model, they could have partnered with Barnes & Noble and done it together.
Ah, but B&N has a new friend, and you know the saying, “Two is company and three is a crowd.”
Some see Microsoft’s investment as a good thing for publishing. Finally, Amazon is going to get a run for its money. Not only does the Nook now have the backing of the Windows giant, but now consumers don’t need to buy an e-reader to have one.
Now an e-reader will be built into every Microsoft operating system. Kindles and Nooks will eventually be for only the die-hard fans, because readers won’t really need them (kind of like cameras were replaced by our cell phones).
Amazon has been able to gain market share by capitalizing on its Kindle. Ah, but that was before the Microsoftisaurus decided it wanted to get into the publishing business, and, Barnes and Noble, being the crafty survivor, made a big new friend a bad new digital world. Microsoft is investing because it just makes sense.
Amazon shouldn’t be the only one reporting record gains each quarter. While the Microsoft-B&N deal is serious bad juju for Amazon, I think they will weather just fine. Amazon is the very definition of “adaptable.”
I have consistently wondered why New York didn’t grab hold of e-publishing. Why couldn’t the Big Six open digital divisions? Why didn’t they seek out Microsoft? Why couldn’t Random House have a self-publishing division that allowed authors to upload e-books for sale (um, like B&N’s PubIt). Then they could vet out authors, and only “officially” represent those authors who’d met a certain standard (X amount of sales).
I know this new world seems very strange, but it seems as if computer companies are destined to rule the Digital Age, which I suppose only makes sense. It has a bit of poetry to it if one thinks about it.
The Big Six, in my opinion, are in big trouble, because they really are no longer…necessary. This doesn’t make me at all happy to predict. I’ve tried and tried and tried to help, but to no avail. The Big Six might remain for a few more years, but frankly, what advantage do they hold? What do they really have to offer other that a crap load of overhead?
Sure they have a love for the written word that the new giants don’t possess, but then again, Kodak held an unrivaled passion for photography and that didn’t save them from the iPhone.
No matter what way I look at it, I can’t see how the Big Six can remain relevant. The Windows has closed, pardon the pun.
Literary agents and editors have home mortgages to pay, and they’ll go where the money is (and NY is hemorrhaging cash). No one can fault them for wanting to eat and be able to put braces on their kids’ teeth. Cover design? I think Microsoft can handle finding a graphic designer or two.
Oh, and then Microsoft doesn’t have to build in stratospheric Manhattan rents and horrific costs of shipping paper into the book price.
NY once had a sole lock on distribution. Well, that went away. Then, they were the Gatekeepers who offered us the promise of a certain quality (just ignore the Snookie book deal).
Yet, indie has really changed. Some of the best books are coming out of this movement. Additionally, some of NY’s best talent has defected (Bob Mayer, Joe Konrath, and Barry Eisler to name a few) and more are bound to follow. Authors are getting tired of the depressing odds of success in the traditional paradigm, and instead of NY offering its authors a bold new plan for the future (like partnering with Microsoft FIRST), it comes up with brilliant gems like “agency pricing.”
Oh, and then there is the new talent, the fresh ranks. Unpublished writers are seeing their friends self-publish and make thousands of dollars a month and that is very appealing. Logic dictates that some of the best writers who work the hardest and who are the most professional might just try it alone first.
Writers now don’t have to keep querying and hope for gatekeeper approval. We can go to the reader and try our luck there. We might not make enough to live off at first, but, frankly, the slush pile doesn’t give us gas money.
*waves to Amazon*
What I don’t understand is that these companies don’t seem to grasp that the nostalgia card only plays so far. Microsoft understands what the Big Six doesn’t. People won’t always want paper. They want to push a button and a have a book delivered quickly and cheaply from outer space.
In a world where gas is $5 a gallon, why would we want to fight traffic across town to go to a physical bookstore? In a world where we can have hot yummy pizza delivered to our doors in 30 minutes, why would we wait a week for a book in the mail?
Really.
So what do I see? Instead of Big Six, we now have the Massive Three–Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Amazon likely will open physical bookstores (probably in old Borders storefronts). And Microsoft will just use B&N to sell paper and maybe some Nooks. Yes, paper will always be around, it just won’t be the lion’s share like it used to be.
And writers? We are artists and they will always need us to produce the content. We have to adapt as well and this is why I have dedicated the last few years of my life training writers for the Digital Age. It is a WONDERFUL time to be a writer.
Welcome to the future. Beam me up, Scotty!
Okay, so what are your thoughts? Does someone see what advantage the Big Six still holds? How can they pull out of this tail-spin? Do you think I am wrong about the Massive Three? Is this a good thing for writers? Is this bad for writers?
I LOVE hearing from you!
And to prove it and show my love, for the month of May, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of May I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
Note–Will announce the winner Friday. Thanks .
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.
Does Publishing Support the Writer-Artist?
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Social Media Platform on March 14, 2012
On Monday’s post we talked about the importance of craft in the new paradigm, yet there seems to be some assumptions floating around that I feel are flawed, and we need to talk about those today. We are artists, and the ONLY one who can develop and mature an artist is…the artist. We are responsible. We always have been. Just because Amazon is not going to appreciate our art beyond the sales numbers doesn’t mean anything other than Amazon remains what it has always been—a means of getting a product to a consumer, the art to a potential patron.
Yet, I will say the same thing about NY publishing.
They can wax rhapsodic about how they care about developing writers and how they care about writing and art, and I believe they do…but only to a certain point. The second any art becomes a commodity, then no one really cares only about the art. It becomes more about how many units can be sold, and will it be enough to gain back our investment before they cut off the power?
There are bills to pay.
But we will get to that, too, in a moment. But first we need to make sure we all have nice open minds and to do this we need to dispel some myths.
Myth #1
The only people who publish on Amazon are writing junk and weren’t good enough to get a traditional NY deal.
In the comments section on Monday many of you expressed that you were working on your skills, honing your art and holding out for a NY deal. That is awesome and up to the individual artist, but be careful. A lot of terrific and innovative writing has come out of the indie movement.
Sometimes writing won’t get picked up by New York for any number of reasons that have nothing at all to do with the skill level of the writer. Feel free to check out Kait Nolan who was the only indie author nominated for the prestigious DABWAHA award (and you can go vote for her, too).
Myth #2 NY Publishing supports art.
True, Amazon doesn’t have any gatekeepers, thus no way to keep out the truly motivated. But, this does not therefore mean that, by default, NY is a great patron of art.
How?
Some art challenges. It upsets and disrupts the status quo. It transforms us and changes us. Not all art is commercial art.
For instance, I could publish a book of nothing but commas, and on Amazon, no one can stop me. No one would stop me. My book of commas might not be a great use of my free time, but who are you to judge my art? Maybe my book of commas is a challenge to the post-industrial society to take more breaks.
Why are you laughing?
Maybe I yearn to make our culture really think about how they have forgotten to pause in their everyday lives. Perhaps I long to expose all those tiny breaks to appreciate life that you missed because you had e-mails to check or a Facebook page to update. Every comma in my 1,000 page e-book represents a moment you will never get back.
I have them all here. Your lost moments. I captured them like little damsel flies in amber.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I collected your lost moments into one place, a tribute to all the breaks no one wanted. We are a pauseless society always on fast-forward, plunging into the Red Bull-soaked abyss of suffering.
Wow, I really ran with that.
Please look for upcoming book “,”…never in stores, well, for obvious reasons. It is part of a series–”?” “!” and “.” will be released some time after they let me out of the looney bin.
Some Art Cannot Begin as a Commercial Product
I know I am going to get e-mails about this one, but again. Breathe and give me a moment. Some art is meant to please and be aesthetic. It is designed to appeal. But is that the only art? No. Some art is designed to shake things up, to challenge. This kind of art, the kind that disrupts, confronts and even offends is often only appreciated as a commercial item retrospectively.
Trust me. Most people didn’t “get” Dahli at the time, and now his work graces many a T-shirt. The industrial publishing machine is in business to sell goods people want, but if something is a certain type of art, then no one knows they need it…yet. This art will only be appreciated by the society the art changes.
For instance, in Picasso’s time, art had been steeped in realism for centuries. Then Picasso stepped in and shook things up by doing things…differently. He painted a woman with her eye closer to her forehead or a person made of geometric shapes. It forced society to transform, to open its ideas of what it considered beautiful of what it considered to be art.
Of course, now, a century later, even a small schoolchild has seen cubism if only on her mother’s mouse pad near the computer. Modern art was once shocking and of no determined commercial value…but then as society changed, the value did as well. This art, once only appreciated on the fringes of society, over time became more and more commercial.
Writers are Artists
Yes, there are wanna-be-amateur hacks who believe they are being rejected because no one can see their brilliance, yet I would be bold enough to say that there are some genuine artists being rejected by New York, too.
Oooohhhh.
Who is to say that modern digital age society wouldn’t like to read a 130,000 word book written in the verbose style of A Tale of Two Cities? Anyone who shops at Wal Mart truly understands how it can be the best of times and the worst of times. That manuscript that is being rejected for all of its heaviness and lack of commercial appeal might just spark that style of writing back to life.
It could. Why not?
Maybe potential readers are feeling nostalgic. Maybe we were too immature to appreciate The Grapes of Wrath in 11th grade, but now, a book like that is just what we need. Maybe works that read like Jane Eyre would appeal to modern audiences if the stories were modern. Perhaps the unique juxtaposition of a modern world and archaic language would be brilliant.
Worked for the movies! I saw Romeo and Juliet. Lionardo Dicaprio’s performance was stellar.
You might chuckle, but maybe I am right. Yet, the thing is, New York will reject most books that really challenge conventional tastes, so how will we ever know?
Agents will reject these works not because they might not love them, but because they can’t sell them. New York will say these works won’t appeal to reader tastes, and they would be right. New York is in the business of satisfying appetites, not necessarily creating new ones or reviving old ones.
I am in no way saying that New York Publishing doesn’t appreciate art, it just doesn’t always support it. It can’t afford to.
Publishing is Not Necessarily about the Art
Yes, publishing supports some great works of literary genius…ones it believes it can sell. Publishers have overhead and payroll and frankly, they cannot afford to be philanthropists. It isn’t as if they are supported by donations and foundations. Museums have the luxury of being innovative and provocative.
Let’s take Dadaism as an example.
Dadaism was an artistic movement birthed in response to the outbreak of WWI. It was to protest the reason and logic of a bourgeois society. Dadaists believed the misguided values of the time had plunged the world into war. Dada was the antithesis of everything art stood for at the time. Dada had no concern for aesthetics, and their works were intended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics, the Dadaists sought to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.
What this means is that people of the time, regular people buying stuff, probably would not have cared for anything Dada in nature. It was a fringe appetite. If we have a urinal installed in our home, it is a place to use the bathroom. Install it in a display at the Museum of Modern Art and it is an Marcel Duchamp exhibit.
So New York can say they support art, but the fact is they would probably love to, but they can’t. They likely could if they would embrace digital publishing. Maybe my book of commas would be a hit. If NY followed my suggestions, they could take more chances on art. Maybe they could mold tastes instead of trying to predict them and react to them.
Hmm. Food for thought.
Social Media Art–Embrace WANAism
Why my social media teachings are different is that I am not here to make “responsible little marketers” who can sell books as if they were no different than vacuums or light bulbs.
I created WANA (We Are Not Alone) to tear down the establishment that wants writers to run out and automate messages promoting book giveaways on 8 different platforms. WANAism rejects the current system and declares that writers are not car insurance and books are not tacos. My medium is social media, and I create art every day. So do my followers…WANAites. WANAism cannot be measured with metrics, because, while WANA is digital in delivery, it is human at its core.
WANA is here to liberate your inner artist, to show you the truth of the new paradigm, and that is you are free. Writers have a new medium. Social media isn’t a chore, it is a new canvas! I am not a marketing expert; I teach art classes for WordPress 
.
Art is the Divine Part of Our Humanness
What makes us human is this longing to create. No matter what race, creed, religion or place in time, we humans are united by our universal desire to create art, and we will use anything available—stone, canvas, skin, words, paper or Facebook. Doesn’t matter.
Those who follow WANAism understand that technology doesn’t steal our artist spirit, it gives it another medium, much like the invention of cameras and film gave rise to movies…a new way to tell stories. Make social media your art and your attitude will change. It will no longer be a chore to be endured. It will transform into a place to share your artist passion with those who can….appreciate it.
Social media offers a place to give away your art. Not your product…your art. Art is part of who we are so each interaction, each tweet, every blog represents a sample of us, our art, our personal Dada movement.
Amazon Opens the Door for Art
So if I really wanted to make an argument for who did a better job of supporting art, I would have to vote for Amazon. By opening the doors and not using any outside market standard of “acceptable, publishable material” Amazon has liberated the artist to put his art on display. If the world throws digital tomatoes at it, c’est la vie.
Either the world wasn’t ready or the artist wasn’t. Time will prove which was the case.
But…
The daring. The truly original. The writer-artist who creates that very thing that no one knew they needed until they saw it…this writer will be rewarded. He will sell books and his following will grow because his art will affect people. They will feel it and will want to share this experience and pay good money for it because this is always what art does.
This digital paradigm lets indie and self-publishing test the “art” to see if there is an audience for this innovation and create the market (then NY can step in with a deal when the risk makes fiscal sense).
The New Paradigm Liberates the Author-Artist
Until now, the act of publishing a book was so terrifically cost-prohibitive that is truly limited art in our medium. If we created something so original it would revolutionize the world, we had to hope and pray we landed a gatekeeper with vision who was willing to risk her reputation and career. A lot of money was on the line if the art was not embraced in a way that made it commercially viable. Now? Digital makes art possible.
All of us art putting out art…just not all of us will make the commercial cut.
Art vs. Tastes
Let’s even set this notion of art aside and maybe just talk a moment about reader tastes. Tastes can be molded, shaped and changed. In the new digital paradigm we are seeing a resurgence of essentially pulp fiction. Fantasy, sci-fi, erotica, Westerns, novellas, poetry books and all kinds of works are now finding a home now that we have loosed the chains of capital risk.
We no longer need anyone but the artist to invest, and the readers either come…or they don’t.
Maybe we are a Picasso that later will be embraced by millions and generate wide-spread commercial interest, but we could just as easily be a giant sculpture crafted from used diapers that a handful will think is brilliant and provocative…but no one will want to take home and display in their living room.
Thing is, in this Brave New World we all get our own exhibit.
Thoughts? Reactions? Are you elated? Horrified? Do you think writers should shape and create reader tastes or publishers? I want to hear from you! And yes, I am putting my art out there every week, hoping that even if you don’t agree, you will walk away somehow changed . Off to go do revisions on “,” and I will let you know when you can pre-order copies .
I LOVE hearing from you!
And to prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.
This Week’s Mash-Up of Awesomeness
10 Myths about Forensics Spread by TV
Protecting Our Writing Time by Elizabeth Craig
I’ll Get to It…Eventually by Alan Orloff
How Does a Publishing Auction Work? by Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner
What is More Fairly Priced at 99 Cents? Nonfiction or a Novel? by Edward Nawotka over at Publishing Persectives
What is an Author Platform? by Jane Friedman
The Controversy Over Controversy by Amber West
What’s Better than a Fight? over at More Blogging Cowbell
Writers in a Gilded Cage–Only Art Can Set Us Free
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Writing on March 12, 2012
There are a lot of blogs out there that I love and respect for the best information. Any of you who have been following this blog for any amount of time know I am a huge fan of NYTBSA Bob Mayer. He really does go out of his way to help writers, and I can say that I have learned a ton from his books and workshops. Frankly, I would never have made it as a writer without his teachings about conquering fear (another blog for another day).
Last week, Bob had a post, The Secret Handshake of Success that, in part, sparked my last Wednesday blog The Modern Author–A New Breed of Writer for the Digital Age of Publishing. I believe that, in the Digital Age, we have to up our game, and knowledge is power. But the most powerful knowledge of all in this new paradigm?
Knowing our craft.
We are in the Age of the Artist, and we have a choice what type of writer we want to be. Do we desire to be an assembly-line writer cranking out cheap 99 cent commodities? Or do we desire to be artists? There are only two choices for writers of the Digital Age–win by being more ordinary, standard and cheaper, or win by being more creative and more remarkable.
There is a race to the bottom going on over at Amazon. We writers traded our day jobs that made us feel like cheap, interchangeable cogs in a faceless machine for a new promise that if we worked hard enough we would be rewarded. Many are grasping the promise of being able to make a living doing what they love, being artists…and Amazon is feeding that dream.
But here is what I see.
Amazon will be more than happy to make us cheap, interchangeable cogs in a faceless machine. They make money off quantity. If millions of first-time writers are willing to slave for hundreds of hours just to sell their art for 99 cents to all their friends and family, Amazon is still happy, because if a million writers sell their books to a hundred people, that is still a really healthy chunk of change. Thus, in effect, we traded one cage for another.
And Amazon will even come up with programs like KDP select to help artists give their wares away for FREE! in return for the ever-elusive “exposure” as if this alone is the magical element that will free us from our gilded cage.
A better cover, or a Goodreads campaign or more tweeting and we will be able to quit the day job…or not.
And this is how Amazon will keep authors on the treadmill, the carrot always just out of reach. Eventually most will wear out and give up, but no worries. There will be new hopefuls there to take their place. Amazon doesn’t care about us as artists. They care about getting a commodity (books) to consumers as cheaply as possible. Does this make Amazon evil? No. It is business.
Ah, but here is where writers have a choice. Do we desire to be part of the Chinese cheap plastic toy business, where we rely on mass quantities to make our profit? Or are we in the business of Faberge eggs? Or are we somewhere in between?
What will make Amazon respect us and readers more willing to part with more money to read our books is simple…execution. The better we are at our art, the more our words change people and transform them, the more power we hold.
The difference is in the art, and art is refined by practice and….training.
Writers line up for the latest social media class that is guaranteed to get them “exposure,” yet the craft classes languish. I have seen this at conferences. My blogging class has a line out the door (and I am grateful), and the agent panels are standing room only. But what about the class designed to hone dialogue or develop multi-dimensional characters?
*insert crickets chirping*
This past weekend, I dissolved my writing workshop. Every Saturday I would drive an hour and a half and give up 2-4 hours to train and develop writers from idea to completion–so roughly 5.5 hours of my time. I have not had my Saturdays free in four years. Yet why did I have to shut down my workshop?
Lack of interest.
Members of the group were busy with their lives, and the workshop just never seemed to be a priority that could outpace helping friends move or showing a house or cleaning out the garage or attending a nephew’s birthday party…and I grew weary of showing week after week for a nearly empty room. It was a tremendously sad day for me. I’d worked very hard to put together a system to train authors who could take an idea, make it original, then plot and write an excellent manuscript in less than six months. In three years of running the workshop, TWO members have listened and done all the steps in my process…and one has one of the top agents in the world, and the other is being considered by the Maass agency.
Craft matters. Yes, I am a social media expert, and I believe that we need a platform, but we must remember we are artists first. Artists can learn in all kinds of ways. We can learn by doing it wrong… a lot and then one day we “get it.” Something clicks and we stop writing dreadful books and go to merely writing crappy books, but one day actually land on writing a good book OR we can go to those who are willing to share their knowledge and train us in our art. Both methods work.
Being an artist is what will make publishing respect us. It is what will make Amazon value our contribution. Trust me, the authors that sign with Amazon as Publisher get treated very differently. If we are selling thousands of books a week, Amazon will play nicer, because, when we take our business elsewhere, it will hurt. But if we are only selling 500 books? A thousand? What bargaining power is that? It isn’t, and the gilded cage will grow smaller as Amazon helps itself to a higher and higher percentage of the royalties because they can.
It is our choice how we unlock the gilded cage, but only art will set us free.
Below is another vlog–WRITING 101. Yes, BONUS! Here are more of my thoughts and what craft means to the Digital Age Author…
watch?v=OnAbPbuFohw&context=C48bcf57ADvjVQa1PpcFMCFmtmol1hTuBYwFIy-TmWSTqw583JwD4=
So what are your thoughts on craft? Do you feel that I am out of line? By the way, I am NOT bashing Amazon. It is a business and it is up to us to do our part to make sure they don’t take advantage, because ANYONE is capable of taking advantage of us if we don’t put down boundaries and make them appreciate our value…which is why I closed my workshop. But how do you feel as artists? What resources would you recommend?
I LOVE hearing from you!
And to prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
Last Week’s Winner of 5 Page Critique is Victoria Lindstrom. Please send your 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T isn’t FREE!!!
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Publishing, Self-Publishing on February 1, 2012
Last week in What’s the Problem with FREE!? we talked about how giving away FREE! downloads of our books can actually do more harm than good. I also gave an example of the software company that refused to offer anything for FREE! back in the dot.com boom in the 90s when all the competition was handing out goodies left and right. When every other dot.com was giving away golf shirts, trips, goodies and software for FREE! this company stood firm and offered nothing…for nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, this company gave away FREE! stuff. They just didn’t give it away for free .
Free! is Best When It Isn’t Free
I read J.A. Konrath’s and Bob Mayer’s blogs because both of them provide a lot of valuable insight for the writing professional. At first it might seem that Konrath and Mayer and I would disagree, that we would be at odds. Why? Because Konrath and Mayer will be the first to give us writers a digital kick in our digital @$$ to get off Twitter and Facebook to write more books. They make no bones about telling writers to get back to work and WRITE! Me, being a Social Media Expert Jedi, should be aghast.
What? How can you tell writers to get their tuchus off Twitter? Twitter is the best thing since Gummy Bears! And Facebook? What are you communists in league with SOPA to keep writers from sharing that video with the dancing squirrel?
Actually, I agree with Konrath and Mayer and it is one of the reasons WANA methods look VERY different from most social media approaches. See, I am not here to make you guys social media experts. I am here merely to help you use this tool called social media in the most time-effective way, because the best thing you can do to become a successful author or even a brand is to write more books. Write as many books as you can! Good books.
Write! Write like the wind! This is true for ALL authors—traditional, indie and self-pubbed. The more books we have for sale the greater our odds of success. And don’t think I am telling people to churn out crap just to have more books. There is nothing further from the truth. In fact, I dedicate every Monday on this blog to help y’all grow to be better and better writers. But few things can help our writing abilities like…um, writing.
Rocket science, right?
I just taught an on-line class about branding. I had all kinds of questions about Google Ads, Goodreads, Pinterest, blog tours, etc. to sell books and brand. My answer? Don’t become an expert at social media, become an expert at writing good books. Social media is a means not an end. The one critical ingredient to ALL author brands? BOOKS. GOOD BOOKS. The more, the better. Successful authors are not judged on the quality of their fan page. They are judged by the quality of their books.
Okay, you guys got the point. WRITE!
Yes, sometimes it might seem that I am beating a dead horse, but this is really critical. Konrath and Mayer had a distinctive advantage when they decided to self-publish. If, for no other reason? They had a lot of good books to offer. Why does this matter? Well, for today’s purposes, it has to do with FREE!
FREE! has More Power the More Titles We Have to Offer
FREE! is what can hook a long-term commitment. We can give a teaser to gain passion and loyalty. Yet, we can only do this if we have more than one title for sale. A potential customer (reader) sees that we have more than one book for sale. Ah, but one is FREE! This makes a reader a bit more excited since now…
FREE! is in Context of NOT-FREE!
Value is relative. If readers go to a site and an author has her one and only manuscript up to give-away, we might bite for the FREE! download. But, when we go to an author page and there are ten titles for sale, all for 4.99, yet one is FREE!, naturally we feel better about our decision to bite on the FREE!. Also, because this pricing was given in context, as humans, we will place more value on the download so we are more likely to read this one FIRST.
This is one of the reasons that authors like Konrath, Mayer and Eisler have done so well. Not only were they offering vetted titles, but they offered a lot of them, thus their product (the book) could be judged in context. John Locke, the successful self-published author, didn’t have vetted titles, but he did offer A LOT of them. Thus, those who liked Locke’s FREE! book now had a whole list of other his titles for sale.
FREE! is only valued when consumers believe it costs us (the giver) something.
Go back to the example I gave last week. I have a half a dozen magnet calendars I got for FREE! in my junk drawer. Does any of this make me want to do business with any of these real estate agents? No…because in my mind it really didn’t cost them anything. But what about the agent who sent me a $100 Lowes gift card? (Our agent sent us this after we closed on our house). That man will have my loyalty FOREVER, because he gave something that cost him, even though I know he made money off the sale of our house. He didn’t have to send $100 gift card. He could have sent us a calendar and a thank you note like my mom’s realtor did to her. But he didn’t and he now has a customer for LIFE.
This is why multiple books for sale help the impact of FREE! Since we have other titles for sale at a higher price, then it is perceived (by the consumer) that we are taking a loss when we offer something for FREE! This creates the reciprocity that is critical for driving sales. Reciprocity is very often negated when an author gives away her one and only manuscript for FREE!
FREE! is Most Effective When We Maintain Our Negotiating Power
If all we have is one book…then we give it away, the power has just completely shifted over to the reader. We are completely at the mercy that he or she will be compelled to talk about our book. Since we have no other titles for sale, we have nothing else to gain, other than maybe some ranking on Amazon. But even then, that only worked well when everyone wasn’t giving stuff away for FREE! We are in a position of weakness, of need. Not the best place to earn R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
FREE! is Most Powerful as a Part of a Quid Pro Quo
I’m not, per se against giving away books for FREE!, but I do think that there are smarter ways to go about doing this. As I stated earlier, FREE is best when it isn’t FREE!
In fact, FREE! can actually be a wonderful tool to get customers to spend MORE money…but the clincher is we have to have more than one book to offer.
Since it would be almost irresponsible for me NOT to mention Amazon at some point during this discussion, we will use them as an example. A while back Amazon.com started offering FREE! shipping on orders over a certain amount.
Thus, a person who purchased a book for $14.95 might pay an extra $3.95 for shipping. In total, the customer would be out less than $20. But, if they bought another book for a total of $29.95…they would get their shipping for FREE! Many people probably didn’t even want or need the second book, but the power of FREE! proved just too much to resist. And obviously this tactic works because Amazon still offers FREE! shipping when we consumers jump through various hoops (all of which are, of course, profitable for Amazon).
This is why it is critical to write more and more and more books, especially if you are self-published, because then you can use FREE! to its maximum advantage.
Bundled is Better
A good way to gain more sales traction? Bundling. Buy two books for $4.99 and get a FREE! download of another short story, novel, whatever. This kind of FREE! makes readers very happy. Consumers are then lured to put out money to get the FREE! I happen to be very blessed to be part of Who Dares Wins Publishing and they do these types of deals regularly and it is a win-win for authors and readers.
FREE! Needs a Perceived Value
FREE! doesn’t have to be in the form of books or downloads. Heck, offer FREE! shipping on orders over a certain amount. Why reinvent the wheel? Copy what works, and, if Amazon has done this successfully, then so can we. Yet, again, this only works when we have more than one title for sale.
My Biggest Gripe About FREE!
I think writers, especially self-published writers, get overly fascinated with marketing, and the allure of FREE! only makes this worse. I see far too many writers uploading that ONE manuscript and then spending every spare waking moment, promoting that one book to the point of being viewed as spam. They tweet with every imaginable hashtag, “Come get my book for FREE! FREE NOW! A book for FREE!” ….and after the 40th time we get this tweet, we are willing to pay the writer to stop tweeting.
They remind me of gamblers chasing their losses. Because ONE DAY they had X number of downloads, they are back at the track trying to make that number appear again. If we run around handing our one and only manuscript for FREE! then what good does it gain us? I am sure there is some good that can come from it, but not the real game-changing benefit that I want all of you to enjoy.
If we study the success stories, especially in indie publishing, the winners always had multiple titles—J.A. Konrath, Bob Mayer, John Locke, Amanda Hocking, H.P. Mallory, etc. So Mayer and Konrath are correct—write, then write some more. Less tweeting and more writing.
When we have more than one book to sell, FREE! becomes a pricing strategy, not a desperate cry for attention.
Yes, I am the social media expert for writers, because I will be honest enough to tell you guys that the point to all this tweeting and blogging and FBing is to drive enough book sales that we can lose the day job and do what we love. We can’t do this with one book. The odds of this are about the same as getting mugged and hit by lightning on the same day. If we are spending too much time on social media, then we aren’t writing more books. Thus, social media is no longer a powerful advantage…and neither is FREE!
So what are your thoughts? Opinions? What are your experiences with FREE!? Any thoughts, suggestions? Recipes for killer chocolate martinis?
I LOVE hearing from you!
And to prove it and show my love, for the month of January, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of January I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great book.
Winner’s Circle
Winner of last week’s 5-Page Critique is Tahlia Newland. Please send your 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.
Ginger Club is the winner of last month’s 15 page critique. Please send your 3750 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.
Congratulations!
Mash-Up of Awesomeness
Porter Anderson’s Writing on the Ether is a WONDERFUL resource for the best information in this industry.
Joe Konrath’s blog is another wonderful resource.
Colin Falconer had an AWESOME blog Historical or Fiction?
Friesen Press has a great post that I need to print and STUDY, Take the Busyness out of Business.
The real way to build a social network by Reid Hoffman over at CNN Money
The Big Reasons Indie Authors aren’t Taken Seriously at Huffington Post
Red Pen of Domm, Why Blog Hits Don’t Matter Though I don’t agree 100% we actually agree on a lot. We can have 10 zillion hits and they are all bots or random clicks. Quality trumps quantity and I agree.
We Are Not Alone–An Indie Cinderella Story
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Publishing, Self-Publishing, Social Media Platform, Success on July 13, 2011
Welcome to WANA Wednesday, based off my best-selling books, We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer. This is the day I dedicate to teaching you guys how to rock it hard when it comes to social media. Writing is hard. Building a platform is hard. Some days it will feel as if you are doing all this work, and yet it’s all for nothing. So, today I want to share some social media successes with you to keep you encouraged.
There are all kinds of social media gurus who claim to have the answers. There are books to show how Such-and-Such-Author sold a zillion books in five months. All that is great. We can always learn something, but, before we commit to any social media strategy, we need to ask some tough questions.
First, can the methods be duplicated? Just because one person sells 1000 books a day with his hands tied behind his back means little if that method hasn’t worked for others. Other questions we might ask are, “Can the approach work for an unpublished no-name author who has never recieved the traditional publishing seal of approval? Can the approach work for a new author with only one or two titles? Can this method work for the writer who breaks out in hives at the mention of the words sales or marketing?”
I can’t speak for any other methods, but I am here to give good news. Yes, WANA methods have put my books at the top of the best-selling list. That’s good news for me, but what about you guys? The GREAT news is that WANA has worked for others as well. Authors with good books that no one wanted and that no one noticed until social media completed the success equation. We will hear from one of those WANA success stories in a moment.
There are those who will say that all that matters is a good book. For the past four years, I have said that we live in a society inundated with too many choices. I felt a good book was not enough. I deeply believed that we had to find a way to generate word of mouth, too. Writers needed more. We needed a good book AND a social media approach that 1) was more than just a new way to spam people 2) that would generate a community vested in our success 3) that could offer us exponential exposure 4) that left time to write more books and have a life and 5) that didn’t try to change our personality.
So I created WANA.
The big news in world publishing this past week has been that a British writing duo, Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, have signed a six-figure, four-book deal with Harper Collins. So what?
What makes this team interesting is that this deal was not earned the traditional way through the query process. This was an indie writing partnership with two books that the UK agents and publishers didn’t want. Rejected so many times these guys actually gave up writing. For over ten years! Then, earlier this year they gave it another shot and self-published. No agent, no publisher, no hype. The books the gatekeepers didn’t want to know shot from nowhere to, literally, #1 and #2 simultaneously, in the Kindle UK chart. In June alone they sold over 40,000 e-books.
And when they hit the top spot the gatekeepers suddenly forgot these books were rubbish and came running, cash at the ready. Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, congratulations! Read their story here.
Ah, keep reading. I have more good news. Voss and Edwards weren’t the first to use social media to launch their books up the charts. Bizarrely another writing partnership, writing under the pen-name Saffina Desforges, had led the way with another novel the gatekeepers rejected time and time again. Sugar & Spice hit #2 in the Kindle UK charts no less than three times, and is on target to sell 100,000 e-books by the end of summer. That’s with just one title! They are currently in discussion with one of New York’s most prestigious agents.
But apart from being indie thriller-writing male-female partnerships with two guys called Mark who have conquered the Kindle UK charts with books the gatekeepers rejected, what do these two writing teams have in common?
Their success was down to the way they used social media to beat the odds and achieve sales most authors can only dream of. Mark Williams is here today to explain how the Saffina Desforges team have achieved nearly 100,000 sales with just one book using social media, with a little help from yours truly and We Are Not Alone. Thank you, Mark for sharing your story…
***
Saffina who? If you’re reading this in the US then you probably haven’t yet heard of Saffina Desforges. If you’re a regular on Amazon’s Kindle UK site, on the other hand, it will have been hard not to have heard of her. Our e-book has dominated the British best-seller charts, with sales not far short of 100,000, has been # 1 in six genres, and has reached # 2 in the main Kindle UK chart three times.
And it’s all Kristen Lamb’s fault.
Let me explain. It all began last year when two writers over in England, Sarah Griffiths and I, completed a gritty crime thriller we had been co-writing, and sent it off to the UK agents in eager anticipation.
Now of course we weren’t complete amateurs. We occasionally dipped into Kristen’s blog and had stolen a few ideas. For instance, establishing a brand.
Sarah created the pseudonym Saffina Desforges for us. Google Sarah Griffiths or Mark Williams and a thousand different people show up with that name. Google Saffina Desforges… First page all the way! So Sarah became Saffina.
We set up a website as per Kristen’s advice, and thought about buying WANA. But hey, let the publisher do all that promo stuff later. We’ve got a name and a website. The rest is easy. Agent. Publisher. Fame and fortune. Sorted!
If only…
You all know how the system works. You send off your precious manuscript. The agent falls about laughing and sends it back. You tweak it, send it off to another. Repeat until someone gives in. Give in? Us? Not
a chance.
So now our walls are covered with beautifully-framed rejection slips from some of the most prestigious agents in the UK. At one point we were on course to exceed John Grisham for knock-backs. Stephen King’s legendary fifty rejections was in our sights. We greeted each rejection with faux-joy, reminding ourselves just how illiterate agents are, and then we sat quietly in dark closets and sulked for a few days. All the while quietly joking to ourselves that the next email or phone call would be from a top New York agent.
Hey, we’re writers! Fantasising is what we do!
But after a while we realised the fatal flaw in the send-reject-send-again strategy. If the agent doesn’t tell you why they rejected it (which nine times out of ten they don’t) then what do you tweak before sending it to the next? You might be making it worse, not better. And there comes a time when you think, “There must be another way.”
So we stuck it on Amazon.
Well, why not? It was cheaper than sending out to yet another agent, and this was eight weeks before Christmas. We could be in the top five by then. Or at least the top fifty… Not that we were ambitious or anything. We’d have settled for the top five hundred. Of course by Christmas we weren’t even in the top five gazillion. We were nowhere. So far out in the charts it was unreal. In fact our book did absolutely nothing for almost three months. It was nine weeks before we even got our first review! So much for friends and family buying up a hundred copies each and writing glowing accolades.
John and Jenny No-Pals, that was us.
Then Saffi got hold of a copy of Kristen Lamb’s We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and excitedly told me how it was going to soar us into the charts.
Yeah, right. I mean, I read Kristen’s blog occasionally, and I had set up an old blog myself (not that any-one knew it existed). But what’s all this stuff about Facebook and Twitter? Don’t we have enough distractions as it is?
So while I tried to sell our rejection slips on eBay, Saffi started out on the WANA route to world domination. New blog; facebook page; twitter account; new shoes; make-over; night out with the girls. Things I just never would have thought were needed to promote a book.
Meanwhile our sales were consistent. Consistently non-existent, that is. With three full months on Amazon you could count our sales on the fingers of a rattle-snake. Then in early February we actually started selling. Not many, sure, but readers were actually finding us. Was Kristen’s WANA actually working? Were the new shoes paying off? All we knew was we were selling a few more than before.
So we looked into WANA again, and took it a bit more seriously. Saffi said she needed two new pairs of shoe and every weekend out on the town with the girls. I wasn’t convinced. Did Kristen really say that? All I knew was, we were selling. Hey, I’ll have some new shoes, too!
Darn. Apparently I was only allowed a new blog. But I was happy. Instead of just Mark Williams, it was now Mark Williams International. No longer a name. Now a brand.
So?
So put Mark Williams into google and get a zillion Mark Williams hits. None of them me. Put Mark Williams International into google…
And Saffi of course went the whole hog, with two blogs, facebook pages, twitter accounts, the works. She started going through WANA page by page, finding out about hashtags and pingbacks and all that stuff. And so many new shoes!
But if Kristen says a girl needs new shoes to sell, who was I to argue? We were selling. That was good enough for me. Of course, having a blog and nothing to blog about is no fun, so we tried out some more crazy WANA ideas, like TEAM. You know, sharing your cyberspace and helping others. What goes around comes around.
We invited guests, reviewed other writers’ works, and wrote about things that might interest fellow writers and readers. After a while I reluctantly signed up to Facebook, and even later Twitter, while Saffi was busy with all the rest of the stuff in WANA.
By mid February we were actually selling in double figures every day, and making some headway in the smaller categories on Amazon. By the end of February we were getting top movers and shakers places. Not just in the charts, but climbing rapidly. We were selling hundreds a week. I emailed Saffi and said, “Re-read WANA and do everything in there, twice!”
So she did.
The owner of the local shoe-shop took early retirement to Barbados. But in between trying on shoes Saffi kept at it with all the other WANA stuff. And we kept climbing. And climbing. And climbing. We were leap frogging big names. Writers we’d actually heard of. Writers we’d paid to read! Suddenly we were in the top hundred across all categories. The top fifty. The top twenty! And still the sales numbers were rising. The top ten! The top five! We actually got to #2. Three times!
As I write this we are still in the top fifty, selling thousands a week. With the debut novel by the unknown author that all the UK agents had rejected! Oh, and that crazy dream about being called up by a New York agent? Out of the blue one of the most prestigious agencies in New York called us! Yes, they called us, on the
other side of the Atlantic! Nothing signed yet, but some very interesting discussions going on about our new series of crime thrillers.
Will it be your turn next? Dare to dream!
Yes, of course having a good book that readers will love is a big factor. But you might have the best novel ever written in literary history. If no-one knows it exists, no-one will ever buy it. Kristen can show you how to make sure people know your book exists.
Oh, and for those still wondering, Kristen doesn’t really suggest new shoes as part of the plan. But buy a pair anyway, along with WANA. It worked for us!
***
Congratulations Mark and Saffy! Thank you so much for sharing your story, and it gives me tears that I could help you realize your dreams. If you guys are the Indie Cinderella Story, then I am thrilled I could be your WANA Fairy Godmother .
I hope all of you reading this feel encouraged. I know I ask a lot of you and sometimes it just feels like you are throwing a ton of effort into a black hole. I just have to say that hard work, great writing, and a solid social media platform built on a clear author brand is the formula for success, no matter what publishing route you choose to take.
Happy writing!
Mash-Up of Awesomeness
Lessons form The Green Lantern and how NOT to plot a story. LOVED this post by Jami Gold.
6 Tips to Avoid Death by Critique by Roni Loren
What Separates Man from Pen Monkey Yes, I am a total Chuck Wendig fangirl, but this man is pure GENIUS
For the romance authors. I highly recommend Anna Destefano’s post about some important changes in the industry. Anna always has great posts and is an awesome teacher when it comes to the craft. Social media is wonderful, but at the core we need to write great books.
The Myth of Having More Time Someday by Jody Hedlund.
3 Tips for Reclaiming “Alone Time” by Tawna Fenske
The Right Way, the Wrong Way & the Smart Way
Posted by Author Kristen Lamb in Social Media Platform on May 11, 2011
I have been doing social media for a number of years, and it has been wonderful to see how writers have embraced technology. I remember back in 2006 I had a hard enough time getting many writers to learn to use e-mail, let alone join Facebook. Yet, it was really only in 2009 that I started thinking of myself as an expert. Namely I watched a lot of social media people teach tactics that were more likely to give writers permanent hair loss than anything. They were trying to overlay a Corporate America template on to a writer’s career. Not a good fit.
Kind of like watching me try to put on size zero skinny jeans…lots of grunting and pain and the end result ain’t pretty.
Anyway, writers finally did perk up to the fact that they needed to be on social media, yet we had an information vacuum. Many writers took off doing the best they could, and, in the process, made a lot of errors. Hey, I was one of them. Need I remind you of texaswriterchik?
*slaps forehead*
The thing is, I am teaching writers how to do this social media platform thing the correct way. This is all great and wonderful if you are new and haven’t started building. For others? I see the digital blood drain from your face when I give the bad news:
I’m sorry, but your platform needs major reconstructive surgery. I need to put your brand in a temporary coma so it doesn’t die while we do the transplants. Do you have insurance?
Some people suck it up, bite on some leather and resolve to get it over with. Others? Denial is more than a river in Africa.
I hear a lot of, “Writers just need to do what works for them.”
Yes….but, um, no.
I will use an example to illustrate. Say I want to make chocolate cake. My end goal is a chocolate cake. So I set out cooking, but I don’t want to use butter, and I don’t like eggs, and definitely no flour and I just can’t bring myself to use chocolate. Instead, I want to use vanilla pudding, and slices of bananas and top it off with vanilla wafer cookies and LOTS of whipped cream.
So you say, “Wait, but you aren’t making chocolate cake.”
And I say, “Well this is how I make chocolate cake.”
And you say, “But, you just made banana pudding. That’s NOT chocolate cake.”
And I get huffy and reply, “Stop judging me. Maybe YOU make chocolate cake differently, but everyone needs to do what works for them.”
You would think I was a lunatic. Yes, I made a dessert….but I didn’t make a chocolate cake.
If our end goal is to brand our name, which it should be…then there are right and wrong ways to go about this. My lessons are to make our name alone a bankable asset. Our NAME will have the power to drive book sales so we have more time to write, or prank call or even make origami monkeys.
There is a HUGE difference between having a social media presence and becoming a brand. And I know I am about to do some sacred cow-tipping, but it needs to be done.
My new book, Are You There, Blog? It’s Me Writer is a great book to teach you all you ever wanted to know about blogging to build an author brand. There is little point to contributing content to the Internet if it doesn’t build our brand.
Tweeting under a cutesy moniker. We have discussed this one before, but some people are new (here is the post). Every time we tweet, that is an “advertisement” that contributes to building our brand. The only acceptable Twitter handle is the name that will be on the front of our books. Period. If we are tweeting under @FairyGirl, we are contributing great content—blogs, articles, conversation—but we have the WRONG name top-of-mind. Readers cannot buy a book by Fairy Girl, so all that tweeting is wasted effort.
Writing on Group Blogs at the Expense of Our Author Blog I have run into writers who were very prolific, contributing to multiple group blogs. Group blogs are wonderful. They can help us learn to blog better and can offer accountability. Yet, if we are writing for three different group blogs, but then not blogging on our own site? That is BAD. Group blogs will not brand an individual author. Yes, we will have a social media presence…but that isn’t a brand. I read a lot of WONDERFUL group blogs, but the name of the group is what will be top of mind. Writers in the Storm, Adventures in Children’s Publishing, and Writer Unboxed are three of the best group blogs, but I would be hard-pressed to give the names of the contributors. And, the ones I can name have their own separate blogs that buttress their brand.
I care very much about you guys, and I want all of you to be successful. But part of caring is giving the truth. When we decide to go from hobbyist to professional, we sometimes have to make the tough choices. We have to say no to friends, family, kids and pets. We have to spend time working when we would rather play. If we are contributing to a bunch of group blogs, but our own blog is infested with dust bunnies and spam bots? We might need to make a choice. Hang out with friends? Or build our career?
Our own brand is paramount. The more bankable our name, the more books we sell. The more books we sell, the more successful (and enjoyable) our writing career will be.
There are right ways and wrong ways and smart ways to build a brand. Can we brand ourselves by only blogging on group blogs? Sure. Anything is possible. I could theoretically take I-35 south from Texas and get to Canada. It involves a very tedious journey through South America over Antarctica, up the other side of the globe and over the North Pole. The Earth IS round. I will get to Canada eventually, BUT the odds of me giving up and going home are far more likely than me reaching Canada.
Is my taking I-35 South WRONG? Technically, no. But it is a formula to give up.
Many writers find social media to be a huge time suck, namely because they either have no plan or they have a flawed plan. I used to think it was a time-suck, too. But I wasn’t approaching social media correctly. I have made all the dumb mistakes so you don’t have to .
My two books have hit the top of multiple best-seller lists using the methods I am teaching. And I am not the only one who has experienced this kind of dramatic success. I have a stack of testimonials. Yes, we are free to do social media any way we please. No Facebook police will drag us to digital jail. But I think most of us would rather spend more time writing and less time trying to Bond-O a faulty platform.
What are some tough choices you guys have had to make for your writing? What are some tough choices you face, but maybe don’t know what to do? Have any advice or suggestions? Put them in the comments!
If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of May I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!
Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.
Important Announcements
Make sure you join our LOVE REVOLUTION over on Twitter by following and participating in the #MyWANA Twibe. Read this post to understand how this #MyWANA will totally transform your life and your author platform.
My book We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media hit THREE best-seller lists on Kindle yesterday. #2 in Computers & Technology, #13 in Authorship and #17 in Advertising. THANK YOU!!!!! This book is recommended by some of the biggest authors AND agents in New York, so make sure you pick up a copy if you don’t have one already.
Also, if you want to learn how to blog or even how to take your blogging to a level you never dreamed possible…get your copy of Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer today. This book hit #1 on the best-selling list in less than 48 hours thanks to all of YOU!!!!! Not only will this book help you learn to blog, but you will be having so much fun, you will forget you were supposed to be learning.
Happy writing!
Until next time….
This Week’s Mash-Up of Awesomeness
The peeps on MyWANA found this nifty little site. A Writer Thesaurus to help us ALWAYS find the right word.
The Red Shoes–A Fairy Tale of Addiction and Compulsion
You guys just KNOW I had to list the wonderful blog, 5 Reasons Kristen Lamb Rocks
Screenwriting Guru Michael Hauge on Character Development
Finding a balance between showing and telling by the AWESOME Jody Hedlund
Writing with Passion–How that Led to My First Book by the wonderful Natalie Markey
In the world of e-publishing, where is Microsoft?
Villains Dissected by Terrell Mims
On Muderati–Characterization–Controlled Hallucination or Craft?
Great blog by Albert Berg on the Fear of Failure
For more AMAZING posts, make sure you connect with #MyWANA for the best people and posts in the industry
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