Writers in the Storm

by Lisa Norman

The holidays are coming! As writers, we know this is a powerful gift-giving season, and we hope that people will give our books as gifts. As readers, we treasure these hand-chosen gifts of entertainment or enlightenment, knowing that friends have given us something they know we will love.

But this year, there's a problem...or rather a whole bunch of problems. I'd already been working on this article when I was invited to attend a summit meeting on the state of the publishing industry right now. Every speaker started with, "I want to say something positive. But..."

Have you heard?

There's a paper shortage.

Not a toilet paper shortage...a paper shortage.

The cost of wood has increased. Paper mills were reducing production before the pandemic due to decreased demand, but that demand is increasing.

Problem: the pandemic has made it very difficult to increase production of anything due to labor shortages. We could theoretically import paper, but shipping costs are outrageous and the shortages are global.

Much of the material that would normally become paper that could be printed on is instead being made into cardboard boxes. Book manufacturers are wondering if we can use different grades of material to make the paper used in books. Printers are being allocated only so much paper. The problem isn't with the size of their orders, but how much their suppliers can send. Publishers and printers are having to decide which of the many orders they have that they can fulfill. In essence, they are considering rationing the supplies they have.

I'm not even going to talk about the shortages of packing tape, glue, or the special fibers used in making hardcovers.

There's an ink shortage.

Ethanol is used in making ink. Ethanol is also used in the production of disinfectants and the products we use to sanitize surfaces. Medical environments are being given priority access to this limited resource.

There's also a labor shortage.

People are nervous about returning to work while the pandemic continues to make itself felt. Those who can retire early are taking this opportunity. In the book world, this means that we're dealing with a shortage of people to run the presses, stock the warehouses, and drive the trucks.

The printing industry tends to run on an older workforce.

One statistic quoted in the summit was that 1.2 million people over 55 have retired due to COVID. One printer said that Walmart is paying their employees better than they can afford to, and they get full benefits right away. The manual labor needed to run presses, box up the books, and put them on trucks is getting harder and harder to find.

Many printers have closed their doors or gone bankrupt.

Then there's the shipping crisis.

Shipping prices have increased dramatically over the last year as snarls in the Panama Canal and major shipping ports all over the world have caused disruptions. Bottlenecks are causing shortages of shipping containers, while many shipping containers sit on ships around the world, waiting to be unloaded. The cost of shipping has quadrupled.

And of course, the post office is slowing down, too.

In short, the supply chain is a mess.

Holidays are always busy times for printers.

Publishers know they need to plan print orders carefully around the end of the year. What will be the most popular gift book of the season? They need to make sure those are in stock. Chatter in the publishing industry is growing more concerned as publishers place their holiday orders earlier, hoping to get the stock they need in time.

What does this mean for the book industry?

Ingram, one of the largest printers and wholesale fulfillment centers, has announced that they are raising prices for printing in November. We're seeing other printing venues, many of which rely on printers run by Ingram, raising their printing rates as well.

Ingram has asked publishers to consider switching to a print-on-demand model, the same model used by indie authors and publishers.

Traditional publishing and the distributors that manage their books have decided to increase their large orders and order early for the holidays. They have no intention of switching to print-on-demand except under extreme circumstances. (One statistic showed that during the Black Lives Matter movement, when the NYT bestseller list was full of unpredicted titles, 70% of the books sold during that time were print-on-demand.)

My Thoughts About All This

I've been watching this develop and doing a lot of thinking.

• Print books aren't going away. People love books.
• Print books are going to be more expensive to produce. People are going to have to get used to paying more for the privilege of reading printed books, at least in the short term.
• It is possible that alternative fibers may be used.
• Automation is increasing, so more books can be printed with fewer human hours invested.
• People will need to be patient. Deliveries will be delayed. Giving physical books as gifts may become more of a challenge.

Is there an upside?

Actually, there are a few.

• Book sales are increasing, depending on what genre you're looking at.
• Authors have an opportunity to disrupt the publishing industry as we move into this holiday season.

What if we promote audio and digital products?

Embracing the new normal.

Ebooks and audiobooks have advantages over physical books.

• You can increase the font size or change the playback speed
• An entire library can fit in your pocket
• Better for the planet
• No shipping required

What can we do to make giving an ebook or an audiobook more desirable?

If you want to give something tangible, think inside the box.

What if we create beautiful gift cards for ebooks and wrap them up? Ebooks are generally cheaper than printed books. We can give more books for the same price!

7 Ideas for Enhancing eBooks as Gifts

I polled several groups of authors that I know and we put together some ideas to increase the fun factor of egifts.

1. Put the download link into a QR code. Then work that QR code into the image on a pretty card, making the card interactive and fun. You can do this with a physical or electronic card.
2. Buy a book from a used book store and then put the digital gift code inside as a bookmark -—bonus points if you are giving a book in a series.
3. If your gift comes in the form of a code, create a puzzle that reveals the code: put the puzzle in a card. You can get as creative as you'd like with these, from crossword puzzles to quizzes from other books you know this author loves, or even teasers about the gift. Again, this could be a physical card or an email.
4. Put the gift code in a box of tea or other reader-friendly experience.
5. Give a gift that relates to the book, and attach the ebook code to it.
6. Attach the code to a picture of the book cover. Bonus points for framing the image or being creative in how you use the image.
7. Create an ultimate reader gift: a warm cozy blanket, mug with supplies for their favorite hot beverage, and a gift code for an ebook you know they'll love.

What about the dilemma around the different technologies that people use to buy their ebooks?

We don't have an easy way to guess what format our gift recipient needs. And yet we face this same dilemma when we give sweaters or jewelry — what size does the person wear? We've grown adept at guessing and being sneaky to figure out our loved one's size. Learning our friends' digital preferences can become part of the gift-giving adventure.

BookFunnel or similar tools may offer a solution

If we do know what type of technology our reader loves, we can give them a gift directly from their chosen venue. Not all, but most, ebook retailers offer the option to give an ebook as a gift to someone. They can email it directly to the recipient. Or, if you "give" it to yourself, you can get a code to give to the recipient to redeem.

One more advantage to ebooks, especially for indie authors.

Generally, a higher percentage of the profits from digital goods go to the authors. By making the move to giving digital gifts, we won't only be saving the planet, we'll be feeding the creatives, helping them to continue creating new and exciting stories for us to share with our loved ones.

What do you think? Who's with me in creating a digital gift-giving disruption this holiday season? Let's discuss in the comment section!

Links for more info:

• Where has all the paper gone?
• Global shortage of ethanol effecting solvents and printing inks
• New York Times: Good News, There's a Labor Shortage
• The shipping crisis is getting worse. Here's what that means for holiday shopping
• Mail Delivery Is About To Get Slower And Pricier Just In Time For The Holidays
• Supply Chain Challenges: Put Your Book Orders In Now For The Holidays
• The Features You Need to Build Your Indie Author Business
• Here's a tool to generate QR Codes

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, an indie publishing firm. She teaches for Lawson Writer's Academy.

Upcoming Classes

• November: How To Write a Novel in Evernote
• December: It's a Wonderful Writer's Life
• January: Crazy-Easy Awesome Author Websites!

Top Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

by Becca Puglisi

The change arc. The process whereby, over the course of a story, the protagonist becomes aware of their weakness and evolves in whatever way is necessary for them to achieve their story goal.

Joseph Campbell called this kind of character The Hero with a Thousand Faces because, while each protagonist is different and they each have their own problems, their journey is the same. Their success and happiness are being blocked by a specific flaw that must be dealt with. And most of the time, when their story begins, they're blissfully unaware that there's even a problem.

So how do we turn our ignorant, stuck character into someone who recognizes their fault and actively works to overcome it?

Failure.

Yes, you read that right. Failure is the key to growth.

When a character makes poor choices, acts impulsively, or lets fear get the better of them, things don't end well. Failure generates more (and bigger) problems and conflict—which lead to more chances for them to either dig a deeper hole or climb toward the light.

Failures are learning opportunities. And just like parents have to sometimes let their kids fall down, authors must provide those same chances for our characters if we want them to grow.

Failure Accents the Character's Flaws

The fatal flaw is your character’s antiquated and ineffective approach to dealing with life’s problems. It consists of mental and behavioral components that work in tandem to protect the character from experiencing emotional hurt. For example, someone who believes people will exploit his vulnerability if he lets them get close may embrace unfriendliness. Technically, this approach works; it certainly keeps people from taking advantage of him. But it does a lot of damage because no one is willing to risk a verbal lashing to have a relationship with him. Over time, he’ll feel isolated and lonely and will probably start to doubt his own worth because he can’t seem to build connections with anyone.

At the beginning of the story, your character is likely oblivious to their fatal flaw. But then conflicts arise, and as they maintain a death grip on their ineffective but comfortable old habits, they become aware of the flaw and how it's holding them back.

Just like real-life self-awareness, this is a slow process for our characters. They may not want to see the truth at first, but as each failure brings their weakness into focus, the character eventually becomes aware of it. This is the first step toward growth, and the only way for the character to get there is to fall on their face multiple times.

As authors, we have to provide the conflict scenarios that will provide these important failures.

Failure Highlights the Need for Change

But awareness doesn't necessarily result in change. How often do we recognize a flaw or shortcoming in ourselves and actively take steps to correct it? Your character will react the same way.

With each conflict that comes along, they'll stick with their old ways because those are familiar. But each instance of digging in their heels and refusing to change will create bigger problems—not only for them, but for the important people in their life. And those choices will bring them no closer to reaching their story goal.

It's painful (for them and for us), but these repeated failures are necessary if the character is going to not only recognize their flaw but realize a need for change.

Failure Pushes the Character to Embrace New Methods

Once the character acknowledges that something's got to give, they'll begin altering the way they respond to conflict. Instead of always resorting to dysfunctional methods, they'll toy with new, healthier approaches, taking baby steps toward change.

But while the character is now moving in the right direction, they're still going to struggle and make mistakes. As the story progresses, the character's plight will worsen until they're faced with a situation where half-measures just won't work. They must fully embrace the change they've been flirting with. At this point, the character will finally reject their old, ineffectual habits and replace them with new ones that will allow them to become the person they were meant to be.

“Finally” will always show up toward the end of a character’s arc because growth takes time. The character will need multiple conflict opportunities to face their demons. In the beginning, they'll fail spectacularly, which will reinforce (in their mind) the need to cling to methods that aren't working. Toward the middle, they'll have more successes—but those will only be partial victories. Growth still needs to happen. And then, in the end, once they fully commit to their new way of dealing with conflict, they'll finally be able to win.

This is the one-step-forward-two-steps-back formula that works so well in stories because it mirrors real life. It takes time and courage to see flaws for what they are and choose the hard road of discarding them and their limitations. Success and failure are intermingled, both parts of a process that eventually result in meaningful growth. And conflict is the vehicle through which we provide these necessary opportunities for our characters.

Do you agree or disagree? How does your protagonist handle failure? How many times does your character have to fail before they learn to overcome their fatal flaw? We'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Note: If you're looking for more information on conflict and the role it plays in a character's arc, The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Volume 1) is now available! You can also see the 110 entries (plus a few extras) with a free trial at One Stop for Writers.

About Becca

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Her books have sold over 700,000 copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online resource for authors that's home to the Character Builder and Storyteller's Roadmap tools.

by Lynette M. Burrows

There are writers whose characters jump off the page to live in your head. Lyrical writers can make music on the page that goes straight to your heart. And writers of intricate plots with twists and turns that thrill and delight. Every writer, no matter their experience, has strong skills in at least one area. Every writer also has skills that are weaker. It’s up to you to discover your writing strengths and weaknesses so you can develop more powerful writing.

Why Do This Exercise?

Your strengths are those things that take less energy to do and do well. You can use your strengths to seek opportunities and work more efficiently.

It’s scary to admit you have areas where your writing is weak. Often we think weak is bad. It’s a problem when we focus so much on our weaknesses that it disempowers us. If we focus on our weakness, we lose self-confidence and enthusiasm. As a result, our performance goes down, which reinforces our negative feelings.

Weak doesn’t mean bad. It simply means that skill takes more of your energy and focus to use. That part of writing is not a thing that will help you stand out from the crowd.

Don’t try to “fix” your weaknesses, but don’t ignore them either. Improving your weakest skills will improve your work overall. Improving your strengths will make your work shine. But before you can improve, you must discover your writing strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, you may not be the best judge of your own skills.

Know the Basics

You can’t recognize your strengths and weaknesses if you don’t understand story structure and genre. There are books and courses all over the internet that can teach you story structure. Not to mention, the hundreds of helpful blog posts on Writers in the Storm.

Not every post, book, or course will resonate with you. That’s okay. Keep reading until you find those that speak to you and that you can use. Most importantly, don’t read or follow one way. Learn about many techniques so you can choose what works for you.

It's helpful to deconstruct shorter works while studying story structure. The Christmas Carol is an example of a story with excellent structure as discussed by Janice Hardy right here on Writers in the Storm.

Finding Your Strengths

Start by looking at what comes easiest for you. Trusted first readers can tell you what they like best in your manuscripts even if they don’t use story structure terms.

If you have a trusted mentor or writer’s group—discuss your strengths with them. Be prepared to set aside your immediate and emotional reactions and listen. Listen to what they say and to how it makes you feel.

If you’re published, and you’re able to read your reviews without imploding, your reviews may reveal your strengths and weaknesses. A word of caution: individual reviews are not helpful. Look for a pattern among multiple reviews. If better than 50% they like something, that is probably a strength of yours. If the majority mention something they don’t like, that may be a weakness. (Caution: “pile-ons” are not reliable indicators of either strength or weakness.)

Remember, strengths energize you. Yes, it takes energy to write. But when you are writing from your strengths, it gives back, too. Those are the skills that are your best.

Finding Your Weaknesses

What is the most difficult for you in writing your story? What is missing from your first drafts? Description or dialog? What do your first readers point out as problematic? What is that niggling little doubt you have?

Remember, you aren’t looking to “solve” your weakness. You can improve them, but you are unlikely to turn your weaknesses into strengths.

Try to avoid writing stories or genres that rely on skills where you are weaker. Why make it harder on yourself?

Make an Improvement Plan

Your strengths and weaknesses will be different as a newbie than when you’re a mid-lister and different, or at least more sharply defined when you’ve got a dozen or more books out in the world. Not only that, every book you write may challenge your strengths and weaknesses in different ways.

Whatever your level of experience, make an improvement plan. Don’t try to improve in all areas at once. That’s the way of madness or career burnout and destruction.

Focus on one, or two related, skills. Choose a method for learning. Make a specific, measurable goal. Something like, "I will study using conflict in story by reading and doing exercises from James Scott Bell’s book, Elements of Fiction Writing: Conflict & Suspense, during the next month."

Resources for Improvement

Create an inspiration file (or three) of examples of strong writing. Never copy another author’s exact words, but you can parallel their construction with your own choice of words.

Deconstruct books you admire. Identify the strengths and weaknesses in those books. You can take the book apart for one piece of storytelling or all of them. Try to figure out why the author chose the words, characters, settings, plot twists, etc.

Some great topic-specific posts:

• To improve your understanding of story structure, read “Plot Structures for Pantsers” or “Beginnings to Endings.”
• Need to learn more about conflict aka story stakes? Look no further than “Why the Word Conflict Frustrates so Many Writers." Or, deconstruct conflict-heavy stories by Agatha Christie, or other successful thriller and mystery writers.
• Check out “Six F-words for Compelling Characters” and Character Arcs Made Easy.” Or deconstruct the amazing characters in George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series (books, not the movie).
• Improve dialog with tension-building elements.
• Explore the use of theme or voice. You can study works by Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemmingway, or Neil Gaiman, among others as examples of voice.

Peer-approved classes such as those offered by Margie Lawson’s Writers Academy are also valuable tools for improvement.

Discover Your Writing Strengths and Weaknesses

Don’t be ashamed of your weaknesses or feel you cannot write because of them. Having weaknesses doesn’t mean you can only write at your skill level. It also does not mean you cannot write stories that rely on your weaknesses. But do so understanding that you will have to work much harder to be successful.

Knowing your writing strengths and weaknesses means you can use both to your advantage. You can level up your weaknesses and your strengths.

Your growth will be sporadic. Sometimes in great leaps and other times you measure it in inches. Challenge yourself to discover your writing strengths and weaknesses, work on improving them, and be proud that each book you write is better than the last one.

Everyone please help us welcome Lynette, our newest contributor here at WITS. Also, what do YOU consider to be your biggest writing strengths and weaknesses? Please share and discuss down in the comments!

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows loves hot coffee, reading physical books, and the crack of a 9mm pistol—not all at the same time, though that might be fun! She writes thrilling science fiction readers can't put down.

Her series, The Fellowship Dystopia, presents a frightening familiar American tyranny that never was but could be. In Book One, My Soul to Keep, Miranda discovers dark family secrets, the brutality of the Fellowship way of life, and the deadly reality of rebellion. In Fellowship, the series companion novel, a desperate young man and his siblings hide in the mountains from the government agents who Took their parents. Book two of the series, If I Should Die, will be published in 2022.

Owned by two Yorkshire Terriers, Lynette lives in the land of Oz. You can find her here: Website | Facebook | Twitter