Writers in the Storm

Angela Ackerman

Can we all agree that launching a book can be…a bit terrifying?

I’ve released six with co-author Becca Puglisi and we’re about to launch book seven. Those figurative butterflies? Yeah, they never go away. But guess what--this is actually a good thing! A touch of nerves keeps us alert, more apt to be prepared, and will cause us to think deeper about marketing methods that make a book launch easier.

On that note, one of the smartest marketing moves is to build a Street Team. This group of excited and highly motivated individuals have one important mission: to help you, the author, succeed.

Here’s a few things they might do:

• Help brainstorm a marketing launch plan for a book
• Mention any influential connections they have and offer to be the go-between
• Share links, graphics, and content tied to the book to interest potential readers
• Reach out to a library they use to bring in the book (and then reserve and read it)
• Offer up their own blog for a “takeover,” pointing their visitors to the author’s launch event
• Be an early ARC reader (to find any last-minute typos that may need fixing)
• Be an ARC reviewer, ensuring online reviews are building up quickly at release
• Blog a book review (that can then be shared by the author now and in the future)
• Offer to help organize and host marketing initiatives (like host a Twitter chat)
• Interview the author on a blog or have them as a guest on their podcast
• Vlog a book review (so the video can be shared)
• Purchase the book at a strategic time/date so it will most benefit the author
• Review the book at key online sites (Goodreads, Amazon, etc.)
• Offer a guest post spot to the author to blog on a topic that ties into the book
• Share the author’s site, interviews, blog content, etc. to help raise their profile
• Mention the book’s release to newsletter subscribers or even offer a giveaway
• Promote launch event festivities and encourage others to participate (entering giveaways, joining discussions that are topic-focused, etc.)
• Use a specific hashtag for the launch that will draw attention to the event
• Be a champion for the book, recommending it and adding it to relevant lists for discoverability
• Help with coordinating real-world launch activities (a launch party, book signings, etc.)
• And much more. What a Street Team can do is only limited by an author’s imagination!

Building a team is a great idea for so many reasons. The most obvious is that an author can only do so much and create only so large of an impression on their own. But, with an enthusiastic group, they can do much more and reach a greater circle of potential readers.

Each team member is also unique and collectively will have a range of connections, experiences, knowledge, and abilities. They may offer new marketing ideas to try and point the author toward influencers, tools, resources, and sites that may also help.

Finally, the Street Team is the author’s secret weapon when it comes to visibility and discoverability. In our promotion-saturated world, potential readers are bombarded with buy my book! messaging and will have little patience for more of it. Having others promote the book respectfully means doing less self-promotion. 

Let’s Talk About Impostor’s Syndrome, Shall We?

The idea of gathering a street team can seem intimidating. In our brains we think, Gosh, who would want to help me? It’s a lot of work, people are already short on time, I’m not a big name author or anything...and on and on it goes. Freaking Impostor’s Syndrome!

FACT: there are people who care, who want to help us, and who are willing to be our book champions. Ask yourself these questions:

Are there writers you’ve become friendly with that you want to succeed?

Do you have family, friends, and online connections that you’d help if it meant they could follow their passions?

Have you loved a book so much that if an opportunity arose to help the author launch the next one, you’d jump at it?

I’m betting you answered yes to at least two of these which means you’re building authentic relationships with others. Relationships go both ways, so I bet if you ask, people will join your Street Team.

If you’re like me, asking is always the hard part. I love to help others but asking for it in turn? So hard. I have some wounds in this department but I refuse to let that stop me so I ask. You should too.

Build It and They Will Come (2 Steps)

Step 1: Well in advance of a book launch (2-3 months), put out a call for help. Becca and I do this on our blog. We explain we’re launching a book and could really use help. I give some information and provide a sign-up form. Here’s a link to my latest Will You Help? post so you can see how I set this up.

TIP: Click on the form to see what I ask people and how I request permission to use their emails to communicate to comply with GDPR. (And hey, if you like, feel free to sign up. I’d love that!)

ANGELA’S BIG TIP: In the form you’ll notice I ask an optional question about marketing ideas. Do this. It is a great way to find out who has unique talents or connections and to discover new marketing ideas.

WARNING: You’ll notice in the post link above that I don’t give information about the book we’re releasing. Don’t do this UNLESS you have a good reason for doing so AND you have a strong established base of readers. (In our case, the mystery element of the book release is important, but for most launches it won’t be. You will absolutely want people to know about the book you are releasing!) For reference, here’s another Will You Help Us? post for a different launch and we do share information.

Step 2: After you announce you’re creating a street team, share the link on your social channels, wherever you interact with people who love and support what you do. Becca and I share links on Twitter, Facebook, in our newsletter, etc. If you like, ask friends and family to help because the people closest to us are often the most excited to help. Share off and on leading up to your launch because even if people join later, they can still help.

TIP:  Offer your street team members something for helping like a free book copy, a fun street team prize draw, or something else that they can use or will appreciate. Becca and I give away free education via a “Street Team only” writing webinar. 

ANGELA’S BIG TIP: Join someone else’s street team before starting your own. Managing a team effectively is a post in its own and you can learn much by doing. Pay attention to how another author utilizes their team’s superpowers. It will give you ideas on how to work with your own team.

Interested in learning more about street teams and how to run a successful event?

Visit this resource page at Writers Helping Writers. Under the marketing section you’ll find an Insider webinar interview where Jennie Nash of Author Accelerator and I deconstruct a book launch for the Rural and Urban Setting Thesaurus she took part in. We also have a powerful SWIPE FILE that shares our Street Team email communication, marketing strategy for the launch, and examples of graphics and content I asked my team to share. It’s basically a window into street teams and successful book launches. I hope it helps!

Have you ever created a street team to launch a book, or participated in another’s team for their launch?

Angela Ackerman is a writing coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, as well as five others. Her books are available in six languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site Writers Helping Writers, as well as One Stop for Writers, an innovative online library built to help writers elevate their storytelling. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Lisa Hall-Wilson

There’s a pretty basic storytelling flaw that trips up many writers and that’s creating villains/antagonists who aren’t successful. Let’s define what I mean by successful. A successful antagonist moves the story ahead, directly challenges the protagonist, and has a better than 50% chance of success. Without a powerful antagonist, your protagonist has nothing substantial to fight against—there’s little reason to cheer for them.

3 Pillars for a Successful Antagonist

• Does
  the antagonist/villain directly oppose your protagonist’s main plot goal?
• Does
  the antagonist/villain have a head start?
• Are
  there aspects of the villain/antagonist we agree with or can even love?

4 Ways to Make Your Antagonist Menacing

Backstory – Your antagonist needs a past and a history. Evil is grown not born. Even if it never comes out in the story, YOU need to know what made them like this.

Justified – Your antagonist is the hero of their own story and can rationally justify their thoughts and actions. Their actions and motivations are not random or nonsensical.

A Moral Code – Your antagonist can’t be completely bad all the time. Let them rescue kittens, love their moms, never break their word, whatever. Some antagonists have a moral framework they restrict themselves to—they only kidnap and murder men who abuse children, for instance. Other people can fall in love with the antagonist. Anyone can fall in love, but is there something in your antagonist worth loving?

Heighten Tension – I recently binged all 7 seasons of Game of Thrones (the last season has been out for over a year now—so there are spoilers ahead). You know what this TV show does really really well? George Martin has crafted some serious underdogs and overwhelming villains and antagonists. It’s an epic, so there are several protagonists and antagonists.

The Lannisters rule everything pretty much, they are fairly formidable, right. They’re already the richest family and in political power when our story opens—and they have a future game plan for longevity. There’s a steady stream of good guys to cheer for and many of them die trying to defeat the Lannisters. As the series progressed, we see the Lannister power base dwindle, die off, get scattered—loyalties are tested and broken.

But just as we begin to yawn because the chink in the Lannister armor is too big to compensate for, the antagonist who’s lurked in the background for several seasons suddenly emerges and forces the board to rearrange itself. So, the protag team begins season 7 with the numbers to defeat the Lannisters, new allies, and three dragons. By the end of the season, their allies are dwindled and they’re down a dragon. What happened to the third dragon? The white walkers have turned it into a zombie dragon and it fights for them now. BOOM! The board always remains in the favor of the bad guys—the pieces on the board rearrange themselves according to the actions of the antagonist.

If there’s no struggle, if the threat of loss for the main character isn’t imminent and devastating, there’s no underdog to cheer for.

The Problem with Protags who Start Strong

Remember that however strong you make your hero/protagonist, your antagonist needs to be bigger, badder, more threatening, etc.  

Superman is a fabulous hero, but his only weaknesses are kryptonite and his love for Lois. My son argues that Zod is a convincing threat (yes, my 16yo son talks plot and story arc with me if it involves superheroes or comic book movies), but in the first Justice League movie, the bad guys don’t show up until the Kyrptonian leaves and when Superman returns it’s game over. Even the bad guys know it’s over at that point.

You need a villain who’s more powerful, influential, smarter, etc. than your protagonist. The antagonist needs a head start on their evil plans.

Look at Daredevil and Wilson Fisk. Fisk has already got a criminal enterprise and a grand plan before Daredevil ever emerges in Hell’s Kitchen. Fisk has the money, the corrupt cops, the alliances, the influence, the larger-than-life persona to win it all and he very nearly does.

Look at Thanos (at least, what we know of him so far). Infinity War begins with Thanos having defeated the most powerful of the Avengers—Hulk. Thanos has a plan that was begun long long ago. The audience is primed already to know who he is, what he’s about, and how much closer he gets to his goal with each movie. And when Gamora believes she’s killed Thanos, she weeps despite the fact that she hates him.

“As an antagonist, Thanos surprises us with his many 'good' qualities, including his patience, his dignity, his compassion, and the 'philanthropic' motives behind so evil a mission as wiping out half the universe.” – K.M. Weiland

Be Sure You Have an Antagonist and Not Just a Story Obstacle

Sometimes things can get really muddled in story land, and as the writer it's hard to know exactly who or what is the main antagonist. Flip to the beginning of your story. What's the inciting incident? Whatever problem is caused by the inciting incident is the main story problem and whatever is causing or in opposition to the main story problem is the antagonist—generally.

A man is marooned on a mountain in a snow storm. What’s his main story goal? If his main story goal is to survive and get off the mountain, the snow storm (nature) could be a valid antagonist. If his main story goal is to survive the storm, get off the mountain, and kill the person who left him stranded on the mountain, then the snow storm (nature) is merely an obstacle to his goal. Do you see the difference?

An antagonist actively works to prevent the protagonist from reaching their main story goal.

The Difference between a Villain and an Antagonist

The antagonist is the source of the opposing plot movement, and they get to win quite a bit right up until the end of your story. The antagonist is a role. The villain is any character who opposes your protagonist. (Consider Disney’s The Lion King. Scar is the antagonist and the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed are villains. The hyenas oppose Simba but don’t move the plot ahead. Do you see the difference?)

This construction happens in genres like romance a lot. In romance, often you have a hero and heroine who are at odds but must end up together. The antagonist must lose so neither the hero or heroine can serve that role. Instead, there are obstacles to the hero and heroine getting together, so who/what is the antagonist?

In Patricia Brigg’s novel Cry Wolf the main story problem is that Charles knows Anna is fated to be his mate, but she’s terrified of him. It doesn’t really matter what force is keeping your hero and heroine apart—that force becomes the antagonist, but there’s often an ancillary story problem that can have a villain.

Anna’s suffered past abuse and that experience and fear is what keeps her from committing to Charles. There’s a witch trying to kill Charles and his father, and Anna is central to the solution to the witch problem, but the witch isn’t the antagonist. The witch is the villain, but the witch doesn’t directly oppose the main story problem—the witch isn’t preventing Charles and Anna from getting together. Anna’s fear and anxiety are the main antagonists—this is the main story problem that must be overcome, the witch is a story obstacle.

So, for the story to have a satisfying ending, Charles and Anna must defeat both the witch AND Anna’s fear.

Is there an antagonist or villain that you love to hate? I think Loki definitely makes my top 5. Who’s your favorite antagonist or villain?

You can get a copy of my book Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point of View Using Emotional Layers here.

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson was a national award-winning freelance journalist and author who loves mentoring writers. Fascinated by history, fantasy, romance, and faith, Lisa blends those passions into historical and historical-fantasy novels.

Find Lisa’s blog, Beyond Basics for intermediate writers,  at www.lisahallwilson.com.

Janice Hardy

With the new year upon us, a lot of writers are making resolutions to join critique groups to take the next step with their manuscripts and ask for feedback—some for the very first time (and kudos for those on this path).

In the rush to get that feedback, however, we don’t always take the time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the people we’re asking to critique our writing. Sometimes, that leads to feedback that hurts our novels instead of helping them. The newer a writer is to the critique process, the more damaging a “bad crit” can be, so it’s good to know a little bit about who’s reading our work. Because really…

What do you know about the people critiquing your manuscript?

We’ve all heard the horror stories about bad critique groups and brutal critiques, but there are far more good tales of helpful writers than bad. But the smart writer knows what they’re getting into—or at least tries to. Sometimes those bad critiquers sneak in even when we’re vigilant.

Despite this scary-sounding warning, I’m very pro-critique group, and encourage writers to find others to help them. It’s a great way to learn and improve no matter what stage of your writing career you’re at. None of the below questions are set in stone either—they’re just things to think about to help a writer evaluate feedback and critique partners so everyone gets what they need.

Here are a few questions to ask before you dive in:

1. How much experience does the critiquer or reader have?

Someone new to the process doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t do a good job, but they might not know what’s expected of them. It’s not a bad idea to discuss what the group is looking for so everyone gets the feedback they want. For example, someone might think critiquing means:

• Only checking for typos and grammar
• Doing essentially a book review
• Explaining how they would have written it

If this is the type of critique you’re after, that’s fine, but if you expect something different, getting less than you wanted can lead to disappointment and frustration on both sides.

2. Does the critiquer or reader read or write the same genre as you?

Although not necessary, it’s helpful to get feedback from someone who is familiar with the genre and all its expectations. There are rules and tropes for every genre, and someone who doesn’t read that genre won’t know what’s common, clichéd, or required. For example, someone might:

• Give feedback that suits their chosen genre, not
  yours
• Suggest changes that remove or lessen the genre
  aspects readers will expect
• Frequently be confused by things a regular
  reader of that genre would understand
• Suggest things that the genre readers have seen
  over and over, but are new to that reader

It can be quite useful to see how someone new to your genre sees the story, but it can also make a difference in the feedback. If you know that going in, you won’t be blindsided by out-of-the-blue comments and weird suggestions.  

3. What stage of the critiquer’s writing journey are they at?

If you’re looking for someone at a particular level, this matters. But I’ve also met newbie writers who were amazing critiquers and professional authors who did terrible critiques, so again, there are no absolutes with writing. But if you’re at the “revise and resubmit” stage, someone who hasn’t yet finished their first novel might not have learned enough to help you reach the professional level prose you’re after. And if you’re just starting out, someone with advanced knowledge can expect you to know more than you do and not give you detailed enough feedback to help you fix what’s wrong. For example:

• New writers might not feel they have the right
  to critique a more experienced writer and hold back their comments or
  suggestions 
• Established writers might forget what it was
  like starting out and be too harsh—or suggest things far above the new writer’s
  skill or comprehension level
• Writers in the middle might be caught up in the
  rules and overlooking the story aspect (and vice versa)

Having critique partners both a little ahead and behind your skill level makes for a nice balance. The more experienced writers can help you improve, and the the less experienced writers help you understand your own writing better as you help them improve. You learn a lot when you have to explain a technique or aspect of writing to someone.

Of course, even the seemingly well-suited critique partners can be a bad match. Not all critiquers have the same skills or objectives, and “bad crits” can happen at any time.

Some things to consider when you get a bad or miss-the-mark critique:

1. Is the critiquer trying to help you develop the story you want to write?

Some critiquers can get overzealous about an idea and all their feedback pushes the story how they’d write it. While this can lead to ideas you never would have thought of on your own, it can also waylay your story and make it something it doesn’t want to be. This can be particularly dangerous if it’s an established writer or someone whose work you admire—you might go against your own instincts and follow their lead.

Don’t forget—sometimes great advice is wrong for the story you want to tell.

2. Is the critiquer more interested in writing rules than writing a story?

I think we all go through a stage where we get “rule focused” and feel if we follow them exactly all will be well. Eventually we grow past that, but sometimes you get the critiquer who has clearly read every book on writing out there—and feels every rule must be adhered to above all else. The slightest variation from a rule gets noted, even if there’s nothing wrong with the writing, or worse, the “broken rule” is done on purpose for positive effect.

3. Is the critiquer just interested in tearing you down?

There are critiquers out there who would rather rip your work apart to make themselves feel better than try to help you. They attack the writer, not the work, and view writing as a contact sport. It’s not you, it’s them, so don’t let their comments hurt you or your confidence. When you run into these folks, run fast and far and don’t look back.

4. Is the critiquer just interested in praising every word?

On the flip side, some critiquers love everything they read and have nothing constructive to say. While this is great for the ego, it’s not helpful when you’re trying to improve your skills or your novel, especially when you know you have weak areas that need work.

5. Is the critiquer just not your reader?

Not every book is for every reader—just look at the one-star reviews for books you love. And not every critiquer has enough experience or self-awareness to know the difference between a bad book and a not-for-them book.

When getting feedback from critique partners and beta readers, take all of it seriously, but understand where that feedback could be coming from when something seems amiss. It’s possible it’s not an issue with the manuscript but a miss-match between critique styles, skill, or expectations.

Just don’t let that be an excuse to ignore feedback you don’t like (grin).

A heads up if you’re looking for a critique group or partner: I’ve just opened for the Winter 2019 session of Janice Hardy’s Critique Connection Yahoo Group. It’s a private group for writers to find each other and form groups and partnerships.

How well do you know your critique partners? Have you ever gotten feedback you used even though you had doubts about its validity?

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She also writes the Grace Harper series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.