Writers in the Storm

by Colleen M. Story

You know what it’s like to be a frustrated writer.

It goes something like this.

Jenna put out three different freebies on her website to attract new subscribers to her newsletters. None of them were as successful as she hoped. After months of work, she’s only increased her subscriber list by 10.

Scott spent a couple of years on his self-published novel. He had high hopes that it would sell well. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Scott doesn’t get it. It was his best work yet.

Amy has been blogging regularly but after six months, her readership has gone nowhere. She’s worked hard and it’s like she’s throwing her posts to the wind.

All three of these writers are frustrated for the same reason.

Can you guess what it is?

3 Reasons Why You May Think You’re a Frustrated Writer

If you could ask these writers to tell you why they feel frustrated, you’d likely hear one of these three answers: 

1. I worked really hard on these projects. It doesn’t make sense that they wouldn’t do well.
2. I did what “they say” to do and it still didn’t work.
3. It’s just “not fair” out there—it’s too hard to succeed.

These statements are true. The writers did work hard and did what “they said” to do. And yes, the market is tough and it’s hard to succeed.

But if you dig a little deeper, you can see that these reasons don’t get at the true source of the frustration. Working hard, doing what other successful writers say to do, or dealing with a difficult industry isn’t the reason these writers are frustrated—because those aren’t the reasons the writers failed.

These writers are all frustrated because they did what they thought they needed to do to succeed, but instead, they failed.

They could simply say, “I failed, and I’m frustrated.”

Now we are getting closer to the truth—and better yet, closer to a place where the writers can begin to figure out why they failed.

A Frustrated Writer Needs to Start by Admitting Failure

As long as you remain caught up in frustration, your writing career will stagnate. To get back on track, start by putting everything aside—your hard work, your good intentions, your disappointment—and just say it out loud:

“I failed.”

It’s okay. It’s no big deal. Writers fail all the time. The more we can embrace it, the braver we'll become, and the better we'll be able to handle the ups and downs of the job.

You’re frustrated because you failed. Okay. Now what?

Why Frustrated Writers Feel Frustrated

The next question you need to ask yourself is: Why did I fail?

Because of one very common reason why all writers fail: they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Confucius said: “True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.”

But that’s not easy to do. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know. Know what I mean?

Let’s take Jenna. She doesn’t know why her freebies didn’t work to attract subscribers. There are many potential reasons:

• The freebies were not well targeted to her audience.
• The freebies didn’t solve a problem for her readers.
• The freebies did not have attractive, attention-getting titles.
• Her website design didn’t allow for an easy way to get the freebie.

How about Scott? His book didn’t sell well. Some potential reasons:

• The title didn’t appeal to the market.
• The book needed more editing.
• The cover didn’t attract attention.
• He didn’t do enough to advertise the book when he launched it.
• He hadn’t built up his platform enough to get his book off the ground.

Amy, too, could be facing several roadblocks to her blog succeeding:

• The blog headlines aren't "clickable."
• The blogs don’t appeal to her target audience.
• The blogs lack subheads and other elements that make them easy to read.
• She’s not advertising or sharing the blogs enough.
• She hasn’t found a “niche” that works for her.

For these three writers, any or all of these issues may apply. The one commonality is that the writers don’t know what the problem is.

And that is definitely frustrating!

How to Say Goodbye to Your Inner Frustrated Writer!

The first step is to realize that the problem is a lack of knowledge. It’s not that you’re not good enough to be a successful writer (as many writers feel when they’re frustrated). It’s not that there’s something else wrong with you. It’s just that you need to learn more.

In other words, it’s time to go back to educating yourself.

Anytime you feel frustrated—particularly if you start slipping into self-doubt—ask yourself, “How can I learn more about this?”

If you're not sure how here are a few suggestions:

1. Sign up for a workshop.

Today, there are online workshops available that address just about every facet of a writer’s life. You can find workshops on building your email list, self-publishing, launching your book, creating a successful blog, finding your niche, and more.

If the success you were expecting doesn’t come your way, don’t assume that it was bad luck, the market, or your lack of abilities. Instead, educate yourself—the sooner, the better!

2. Read a book.

Just as you can find a workshop for just about everything you need to learn as a writer, so too can you find a book that will address it. There are books on marketing your work, building your online platform, increasing your email subscribers, and more. Buy a few and start reading!

3. Listen to podcasts.

Podcasts exploded over the past decade, and there are a lot of them out there now that cater to writers. You can start with those, then don't be afraid to branch out to other topic areas. Check out the straight marketing podcasts, the "grow your online business" podcasts and the entrepreneurial podcasts. You're likely to learn something from all of these too.

4. Get help from someone who succeeded.

Do you know someone who has succeeded at what you’re trying to do? See if they may be willing to help you. Maybe you can hire that person to be a mentor, or even just to spend an hour with you.

This can provide you with a huge step up. While you can read books, listen to podcasts, and take courses, there’s nothing like getting some personal attention from someone who knows the ropes.

Jenna, for instance, could have a mentor look over her freebies and her website and potentially give her some insights that would practically guarantee that her next freebie would be much more successful.

That’s money and time well spent.

5. Get your writing friends to help.

Your writing friends can be a great resource for helping you to overcome frustration.

Sometimes, all you have to do is reach out to 5-10 fellow writers with one request: Will you help me?

Most writers are more than happy to say “yes.”

Scott, for instance, could ask his friends to look over his book, his description, his cover, and his website, and offer their thoughts as to why his launch didn’t go as well as he hoped.

Amy could ask her writing friends to read 2-4 of her blogs and offer their input as to why they may not be attracting other readers.

This can be a scary thing to do. None of us want to admit that we failed—or that we need help, for that matter.

But if you can find the courage, you will probably be rewarded with some very helpful suggestions. And remember—there’s not a single writer out there who hasn’t failed at one time or another.

Not all of your friends’ ideas will be useful. But you may be surprised at what you discover. Particularly if you hear the same suggestion from two or more writers, take that suggestion seriously.

Then arm yourself with your new knowledge and go back and try again. Because once you have an idea of what you need to do, your frustration will fade—and you’ll be one more step closer to success.

How do you ditch your inner frustrated writer?

Note: To Unlock the Key to Your Writing Motivation, check out Colleen’s FREE quiz and report here. You’ll also get FREE chapters of her writing books!

About Colleen

In her new release, Your Writing Matters, Colleen M. Story helps writers determine whether writing is part of their life’s purpose. Her book on author platforms, Writer Get Noticed!, was a gold-medal winner in the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards, and Overwhelmed Writer Rescue was named Book by Book Publicity’s Best Writing/Publishing Book. Her novel, Loreena’s Gift, was a Foreword Reviews' INDIES Book of the Year Awards winner, among others.

Find more at her author website and Writing and Wellness, and connect with her on Twitter and YouTube.

Top Image Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

by Penny C. Sansevieri

If you want to market a book, you really need to consider using every tool in your workshop and every trick in your magician’s hat to get your book into readers’ hands. So let’s put politics aside for the length of this post in order to discuss how to use an old chestnut book marketing strategy in our new normal life as Masked Book Marketers.

In-person book events are possible again!

They won’t look or maybe feel the way they did in the past, but I’m okay with that. I’m just happy that we can be in shared spaces and interact with one another again because adding author events to your book marketing arsenal is a great way to build your local fan base and plant seeds for future sales and long-term support.

Your first step is to check your state’s current protocols on in-person gatherings; then craft your pitch to event locations keeping those protocols in mind and including relevant information that addresses any key issues (for example, your own vaccination status).

Once you have an event (or several!) on the books, use the below checklist to ensure you’re covered and ready to entertain your fans!

Events Require (You Guessed It) Book Marketing

Don’t expect the store to promote you. Be proactive and the store will really appreciate it.

Send a confirmation email to the bookstore or event location a few weeks in advance. No doubt the location already has you on their calendar, but it makes you look professional and on top of your game.

Confirm how books will be handled. If you’re doing a non-bookstore event, check on the process of getting the books to them. Ask if they need ordering information. Be prepared if they ask you to bring books yourself. If you’re appearing at a bookstore, you won’t have to worry about this, but non-bookstore venues may need a bit more help.

In addition, do some research to find out their policies – masks, vaccinations, distancing – so that you can ask any questions you might have. The prepared you are, the better your event will be!

Share with EVERYONE!

Ask for the store’s media contacts list. Most venues automatically notify local newspapers, but let the store/location know that you want to help out.

Begin contacting local media. Some require you submit information for their online events calendar a few weeks out – sometimes longer.

Post your event on Facebook, invite your network, and be sure to tag the venue if they have a social media presence. You should know how to do this from your other book marketing strategies, like promoting a new release!

Post an event on Goodreads and invite your network. Sure, many aren’t local, but you never know how these things can grow.

Send an email to all your personal and professional contacts and encourage them to forward and share event information. This is another book marketing basic that you should be very comfortable with.

Before the Event

Get bookmarks and/or postcards printed. Be sure to have the location, date, and time on these if making them specifically for the event.

You might also consider designing or ordering masks that coordinate with your book cover. We have a few authors who have done amazing things with this. Even if your book doesn’t lend itself to mask haberdashery, you can still choose one in a color or a theme that compliments your book.

If the bookstore or venue has agreed to let you put up signage or even banner stands, get that printed. Will you be doing multiple events? Get a few printed but ask the printing company to leave a blank space at the bottom so you can fill in the location, date and time.

You’ll want to get custom-order items in right away so you don’t have to pay for expedited shipping.

Remember, a busy table with lots of “stuff” on it is enticing: people get curious, so give them another reason to come over.

What to Bring to Your Event

As event day approaches, you may also want to consider what to bring the day of!

Hand out bookmarks. I’ve even autographed one or two when people hesitate to buy a book. More often than not, they return later to buy a copy just because I gave them a bookmark. Personal connections are powerful.

Postcard-sized handouts can also be fun, but you don’t really need postcards AND bookmarks. Consider which is more appropriate for your event and, potentially, for your book. Generally, if you have a non-fiction book and a business or consulting practice tied to it, a postcard will give you more space to promote your business.

Whether it’s chocolate or some other food that specifically ties into your book, snacks tend to keep people lingering at your table. This is particularly good if you aren’t doing a Q&A or a presentation of some sort.

If you’re in a giving mood or if you have a book that might tie well to small bottles of hand sanitizer, these can be an excellent freebie for non-grazing table-shoppers.

Always have a reason for them to leave their email. If you don’t have a strong newsletter (generally this works better for non-fiction), consider doing a drawing for a gift card to the store.

During Your Signing

Don’t sit down unless you have to. If you’re delivering a talk, be sure to greet folks as they come in and sit down. Even if you’re not formally speaking, move around your table and spark up conversations; invite people over for a piece of chocolate.

Smile, talk, and most of all, have fun! This is no time to be shy.

If no one shows up, remember, that’s okay. It has happened to all of us at one time or another. Really!

If there are books left over, let the bookstore manager know you’d like to sign them. This way, people who missed the event can still a copy of your signed book. This is an excellent book marketing strategy that you can expand on: leave a signed book or two at different places in town, like your salon or barber, your favorite coffee shop, etc.

Don’t feel confined to the signing time; feel free to stay longer if people are still showing up. I can assure you the venue won’t care unless they’re trying to close for the evening.

After Your Signing

Send a thank you note to the person in charge of coordinating your event. Don’t send an e-mail. Send a handwritten note. It will go a lot further!

Write anyone who signed up for your newsletter or entered your contest, thank them for stopping by and encourage them to find you on social media as well.

Book marketing isn’t just about slapping people in the face with your brand and product, it’s about personal connections; take pride and joy in making those whenever you can. Readers who feel connected to you are more apt to buy.

The Takeaway

Events are fantastic ways to spread the message about your book, build a loyal fan base, and get in the habit of speaking in front of crowds.

They’re also a really dynamic piece of your book marketing plan. Think about it, you probably do a lot of online book marketing, but how much do you really do in person, with real people?

Regardless of whether your first event is amazing or just so-so, keep on planning more. Get creative and brainstorm a list of unique venues. Now that we can be more safely social with strangers (who may become fans!), you owe it to yourself and your book to put literally put both of you out there and trust that if you build it, future fans will come.

Good luck!

About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a bestselling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine. 

Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon Optimization programs as well as Social Media/Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of 18 books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon: 2021 Amazon Ads Powerhouse Edition, Revise and Re-Release Your Book, 5-Minute Book Marketing, and Red Hot Internet Publicity, which has been called the "leading guide to everything Internet." Her next book From Book to Bestseller is due out this fall.

AME has had dozens of books on top bestseller lists, including those of The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. 

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com.

Top Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by James R. Preston

First person is alive and well in the twenty-first century.

For those of you who are newer writers, I'll start off with a brief review of the four types of Point of View with some examples of first person POV, historical and modern, as well as the limitations (myths) — perceived and real — of first person. And finally, a trip into uncharted territory where we look at the most modern iteration of first person. 

Defining Point of View 

Image by Leon_Ting from Pixabay

“You talkin’ to me?” Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver fame stood in front of the mirror and asked that over and over, and it’s a question you’ll have to consider for your story: Who does the talking?

Who tells your story? Well, you do, of course but there are at least four major ways of speaking to your readers. They’re easy to tell apart because of the pronouns.

• First Person — usually, but not always, your protagonist tells the story. “I suspected she was trouble the minute she walked into my seedy office, reached into her purse and pulled out a large, rusty machete.”

• Second person — The pronoun is “you.” Second person is rarely used for fiction, but fairly common in nonfiction, particularly self-help books. “You must always watch out for hostile women with large handbags.”

• Third person — the pronouns are “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.” “She looked at the woman with the rusty knife and said, ‘Put the knife down before I have to hurt you.’”

There are two flavors of third person — limited and omniscient.

In the first case you follow only one character around, describing what they see and what they think about it. “She looked at the other woman and said, ‘Put the knife down before I have to hurt you.’ She knew she could get to the loaded Glock 14 in its holster hidden under her desk, but she wondered — was she prepared to shoot?”

Using third person omniscient we also look inside the head of the blonde with the machete.

“The only thing she could think of was that she had a chipped nail. Oh, well. The machete would distract the other woman from the bad manicure.”

This example illustrates not only third person omniscient but also a trap you want to avoid: getting inside too many characters’ heads in the same scene. For more on what is called “head-hopping” use the Search box. Several Writers in the Storm contributors have posted excellent essays on the topic. 

I’ve read that editors don’t like first person. Maybe that's true, but they sure buy a lot of it. This POV goes back a long way — all the way to Moby Dick — and continues to draw in readers. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, author of The Martian, is one of the best (IMHO), This recent best-selling novel is in first person. 

Does the narrator have to be the protagonist for first person?  No. Usually they are, but remember Dr. Watson, and the narrator of Stephen King’s brilliant Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption are not the main characters.

Myths About First Person

Myth #1:

Once you’ve picked first person you must stick to it all the way through.

Nope. It is true that most first-person stories stay that way from beginning to end, but that’s not a rule. Faulkner uses multiple narrators in The Sound and the Fury. Think of Stephen King’s Christine, where the first third of the book is the protagonist talking, then the middle veers off and follows several characters, and the last part is first person again. So, it can be done, but as I type those words, I think it’s one of those “Don’t try this at home,” things.  King is unquestionably some kind of mutant genius; he made it work, but I don’t think I could. 

Myth #2:  

First person is so confining. I’d like to use it but I feel like it’s a straightjacket.

Well, yes. Following one person around for 100,000 words can be a bit claustrophobic, but there are alternatives. Slipping in a journal entry or an email that your hero finds, allows another voice. And of course, dialog unstraps that straightjacket.

Myth #3:

Serious literary books are never first person.

I am a confirmed genre writer, about as far from literary as possible, but I would suggest The Henna Artist by Alia Joshi, as thoughtful and well-written a first person story as any I’ve read in years. (Full disclosure: I haven’t finished it, but, wow, this woman can write!)

Picking a Point of View

And now for the most important question:

How do you choose the POV for your story?

I could offer a bunch of questions to ask yourself like:

• How long the story will be?
• How many important characters are there who want to talk? And so on.

I’ve got a simpler way to at least get an idea — just look at your bookshelves.

Do you like huge novels with a hundred major and minor characters? If James Clavell’s Noble House is one of your favorite books, you probably lean toward third person. 

Or do you love fast-paced thrillers like James Lee Burke’s Another Kind of Eden, where the hero tells you what happened? Then first person may well be for you.

Kids Today

I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and it jumped out at me watching the Olympics, where the announcer said that 3x3 basketball had been invented for young people with short attention spans.

Give me a break. Old people have been complaining about kids since Plato. The generation gap is the theme of “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Modern kids’ attention spans are the same as yours and mine. I know because they love first person stories. Long, complex, first person stories.

I give you the uncharted territory of computer games. There are a lot of them, but Halo is the example I’ll use because I’ve played it (with a lot of help from a twenty-something gamer friend). It’s called a First Person Shooter (FPS) and if you think all computer games are simply running and shooting monsters, think again.

In a FPS you actually look out through the eyes of your character. It’s as if you were inside Sam Spade’s head — literally — watching as the events of The Maltese Falcon unfold. And if you talk to gamers like I do, you will hear over and over what makes a good game.

Not graphics.

Not weapons.

Not slimy aliens.

Its story. One common denominator between almost every award-winning, best-selling computer game is the tale it tells. You’ve got to have a good, complex, story with complex characters (the artificial intelligence named “Cortana” in Halo comes to mind) if you want to find an audience.

Halo is set in the far future, where a super soldier called the Master Chief is created — think Steve Rogers being rebuilt into Captain America — and then later put into cryogenic storage.

Hundreds of years after that he’s thawed out because humanity is fighting some nasty aliens called the Covenant. Then a really nasty alien parasite called the Flood attacks both Covenant and humanity, which results in an uneasy truce because the Flood eats anything — human, alien, pets, you name it. Master Chief makes friends with a Covenant alien, all the while knowing that someday he might have to kill him. It’s way, way more than running and shooting despite the FPS categorization.

It’s a story, one that you see literally through the eyes of the Master Chief.

Story is what has made this game and its sequels bestsellers. It doesn’t look like a novel, but it has chapters, dialog, characters you root for, and ethical decisions that have consequences.

Attention span? I’ll give you attention span.

Another twenty-something gamer friend got a new game — the story is too complicated to go into here, but it’s post-apocalypse, set in the subways under Moscow — and got to the end after seventeen hours straight. That’s right. You start at 6:00 pm and at 6:00 am you’re going strong.

I’ll close by adding a word to your vocabulary. When my friend was guiding me through Halo, much of our dialogue was,

“James, look behind you!”

“What?”

“Too late!”

In gamer talk, he was my Sherpa, like Tenzing and Sir Edmund Hillary. It’s called Sherpa-ing.

Side note on Sherpa-ing... That’s what Writers in the Storm does. We Sherpa new writers and each other as we navigate the landscape of the writing world.

Fun suggestion: Find a gamer and ask them if they’ve Sherpa’d anybody lately. They’ll be impressed.

Do some research. Look into games like Dead Space, or my personal favorite, Half Life. Arma III is excellent, but I advise against playing this one if it’s your first game — it’s hard! All these games have great stories. I’m not listing some others that my friends don’t play because “the stories suck.” Those developers needed better writers. Hint, hint.

Experiencing first person in this new world might inform your own writing, or at least you’ll have something to talk to twenty-somethings about. (If you are a twenty-something, you probably already know all this.)

Homework

Search Writers in the Storm for Point of View. There’s a wealth of information.

For games, check out www.steam.com.

Ok, it’s your turn. Tell us what point of view you used in your current manuscript and why you chose it. Have you ever had to change your POV part way through the book?

* * * * * *

About James

James R. Preston is the author of the multiple-award-winning Surf City Mysteries. He is currently at work on the sixth, called Remains To Be Seen. His most recent works are Crashpad and Buzzkill, two historical novellas set in the 1960’s at Cal State Long Beach. Kirkus Reviews called Buzzkill “A historical thriller enriched by characters who sparkle and refuse to be forgotten.”

His webpage is www.jamesrpreston.com. He can be reached at james@jamesrpreston.com.

Top image is a Semmick photo via Shutterstock.