Writers in the Storm

Fae Rowen

It's been almost ten years  since I hosted my first writers' retreat. It was a low-key get together for my five-person critique group, which had been meeting for just a few months. 

We already met weekly for face-to-face chapter critiques, but we wanted time to discuss writing, trade ideas and things we'd learned from books, conferences, and hard work. I volunteered my house and the food (breakfast and lunch).

I made sure all the food was prepared—a quiche and fruit salad for breakfast and a salad bar for lunch, with chocolate goodies for dessert. I wouldn't have to spend any time "in the kitchen" other than to set out our meals, and I knew everyone would help.

It turned out that life interrupted and only two of us ended up spending our writers' retreat day together. That turned out to be a really good thing. At that time, Laura Drake and I didn't know each other that well.

I'd gone through my library and pulled out the craft books that I had duplicates of. I also had a Goal-Motivation-Conflict poster board, gridded off for placing sticky notes for plotting. I piled up my stack of RWA chapter newsletters, a couple of thesauruses, a dictionary and notes with craft and industry tips. Laura brought craft books she no longer needed and magazines, along with books she really liked. 

We looked through each other's offerings and pulled out things we wanted to keep. Actually I think I took all her stuff and she took all mine. It was like an exciting yard sale, because we got to share what we loved and convince each other of the value of our reference books. We talked about plotting—we're both still pantsers—and GMC. We shared our dreams of getting agents and publishing lots of books.

Then we wrote, working on our WIPs for the next critique group. Laura took her laptop outside to one of my lounge chairs. I wrote on my "big" computer in the house. After lunch, we printed and read each other's work. 

We had more time to dig into word choice, GMC, setting, dialogue and emotions then we did in our regular critique group meetings. By the end of the day, we agreed that we'd had a productive day, with lots of takeaway to be discovered in the weeks and months ahead with our "new" books and magazine articles.

Not only did I get to learn more about Laura as a person, I was energized by her enthusiasm, our sharing, and the hope of more DIY Writers' Retreats to come. 

We still "do" writers' retreats at conferences, classes, and at her house and my house. We share what we've learned since we last saw each other. I remember how excited she was after reading Lisa Cron's first book! I look forward to her excitement and enthusiasm when I'm feeling stuck. I enjoy the challenge of working together on sticky plot elements of her stories. But most of all, I enjoy spending time with a friend who really gets what it means to be a writer. Who doesn't look shocked when I talk about my characters as if they are real.

Looking back, we were very much beginners, even though we'd both finished three books. We knew some things, others not so much.

Why did our DIY Writers' Retreat turn out so well?

• We had no expectations of what the takeaway would be
• We were open to learn and share
• We were excited about our writing
• We were committed to our writing
• We were open to building a friendship
• We had gone through our own resources to pick out the best to share
• We weren't afraid of what the other would think since we'd been in a critique group together for a few months 
• After our retreat, we continued to talk about what we learned, from each other's materials to new ideas that entered our larger writing community

I bet you have materials in a closet or a box in your garage that you could share with a small group of other writers. If you're in a critique group and haven't tried a day or afternoon/evening writers' retreat, think about putting one together. You might be pleasantly surprised at how it can energize your group. 

If you're not in a critique group, try to find one to three writers who are in your same general skill area. Genre doesn't matter. Invite three or four people to your home. Schedule at least four hours. Six is better, depending on the number of attendees. I think a good rule of thumb would be to plan for two hours per person, so everyone has time to share and feel heard without rushing. The fewer distractions at your meeting place, the better. You don't have to supply all the food, everyone could bring something for a potluck lunch for a retreat that starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m.

Good luck!

Have you hosted or participated in a do-it-yourself Writers' Retreat? What suggestions do you have? Do you have questions?

ABOUT FAE:

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes that she can live anywhere but the present. As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

P.R.I.S.M., Fae's debut book, a young adult science fiction romance story of survival, betrayal, resolve, deceit, and love is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

by Penny Sansevieri

Especially around the holidays, take a moment and tweak your keywords/keyword strings in Amazon. Maybe you can’t incorporate any holiday - or Christmas-specific keywords, but tweak the keywords during the holidays and find the strongest ones for your market. Oftentimes searches that include “gifts for…” ramp up in popularity around this time.                                              

Amazon Keyword Strings That Pull in More Buyers

You might be surprised by how often Amazon keywords associated with a particular book are weak, or at least lack the strength for optimal performance. Using keyword strings correctly, you can draw potential readers to your topic and ultimately sell more books.

As with all tools, you must know how to use keyword strings correctly and effectively. And the trick is understanding how you pull in buyers.

Have you heard of frankincense oil? No, this isn’t a Christmas quiz. Frankincense is an essential oil that’s popping up in studies as an effective alternative cancer treatment. Frankincense reportedly actually kills cancer cells. And more than 35 percent of all adults will be diagnosed with cancer at some point. Are you interested in learning more?

See what I did there? I likely got you to go from, “Did she forget the topic of this post?” to, “I need to look this up.”

The concept of bringing together two ideas that aren’t obviously related and then using them to generate sales is known as alignment. Granted, the example I’m using touches on a serious health topic, but use the same concept across the board. This is what your keywords can do for you when you use them properly.

First, you need to figure out the problem that needs to be solved. The problem might not be what you think!

Alignment in Book Marketing

Case study: Lyme disease

I recently performed an Amazon optimization for a book about managing Lyme disease. Lyme disease is a tough market, because it’s not a big one. Despite an increase in Lyme awareness, there aren’t a ton of Lyme disease books on Amazon. Reduced competition might sound great. In reality, especially Amazon reality, reduced competition isn’t all that great. You can tell because all the books related to Lyme disease have a high-numbered sales rank. And the bigger the number, the smaller the number of books sold.

As I built recommendations for this author to improve her Amazon performance, I found it simply wasn’t as worthwhile to use “Lyme disease” as a target keyword. Instead, I dug deeper into the illness itself and discovered that Lyme disease often mimics other issues. The laundry list of other issues includes thyroid problems, arthritis, and other ailments that are more frequent search terms. What is the solution? We presented the author with a set of Amazon keywords tying her book to those issues. Ultimately, adding the more frequently used search terms gets the book in front of readers looking for new ideas for managing their illnesses and symptoms.

Following this practice for just about any nonfiction book, we can boost the overall bounce of the book on Amazon.

This particular strategy is specific to nonfiction. To make your keyword strings effective, it’s critical that your book description also matches this train of thought. In the Lyme disease author’s case, I suggested she update the book description to include these other ailments. The idea readers from a new audience see the book and think, “Oh, I hadn’t considered that!” Ultimately, they purchase the book.

Case study: Teen suicide

There are two things we Americans never like to talk about: Death and money, especially whether we’ve saved enough money for retirement. I followed the same keyword process with a book about teen bullying relating the subject to teen suicide. For obvious reasons, this author put her book in the death/suicide category and used those keywords. Her book wasn’t selling well. My suggestions to turn things around included switching the book to the teen health category, which had few competing titles with great sales ranks.

Note: That’s the difference between low numbers in a category or keyword search. If you have low competition and a low sales rank (low means you’re selling a ton of books), that’s golden!

Additionally, I suggested that she remove all references to “death” and “suicide” from her Amazon keywords. Instead, we focused on how parents might be interested in her message. New terms like “bullying” and “helping my teen” continue to prove far more popular.

Alignment and Fiction

Follow a similar path for your works of fiction, too. While it’s a tad less obvious, you can achieve alignment by tying your book to ideas that interest your readers, like paranormal elements, specific settings, or complex family relationships they can relate to.

Understanding Amazon’s Search

We’ve learned about alignment. Now it’s time to learn more about Amazon’s search function and how it has changed.

One of the first things you should do is find keywords to use on your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) dashboard.

Start with a keyword search on the Kindle side of the Amazon website. Not every search is created equal. Searching “mystery and suspense” on the main Amazon site instead of digging down into the Kindle area specifically nets you very different (and largely inaccurate) results. Additionally, searching on the Kindle side of Amazon offers a much more accurate assessment of Amazon keywords. Searching the Kindle side also provides better data, because so many books are available in an e-book-only format.

First, select Kindle Store from the dropdown, leaving the search bar blank, and click the orange Search button.

Next, click “Kindle books.”

Next, select your book’s genre. For this test, use “Mystery, Thriller & Suspense.”

When you’re there, you see this screen:

Under your genre, you see more drop-downs. Pick one from this list. If appropriate, pick an option that isn’t too packed with books. In this case, chose Crime Fiction or Suspense. Again, make sure your book fits into this segment of your genre.

When you enter the genre, start typing your keywords strings into the search bar. As you enter keywords, Amazon’s intuitive search begins to drop down suggestions. You won’t want to use every suggestion, but the list gives you a place to start.

Amazon Keyword Guidelines

As you refine your keyword strings, you want them to follow these guidelines:

Use multiple words, called a “keyword string.” Consumers don’t search using single keywords. Think about how you might Google your book. You don’t search with just the word “suspense” there either.

Don’t assume Amazon’s recommendations, such as those from the above screenshot, are the perfect keywords for your book. We’ll go over that in a minute.

• As you review Amazon’s suggestions, visit those pages to see what kind of books are in the results, AND check their sales rank. If you use a keyword string with a very high sales rank, few people actually search that particular string. Again, the lower the number, the better on Amazon. A book ranking 15,000 performs much better than a book ranking 1,500,000.
• The other thing to be careful about is when a lot of free books clutter the first page of this keyword string search. When you look at “suspense mystery books,” you see lots of books on free promotion. Free books always top the list. Ignore free books’ ranks, because the free books don’t give you an accurate idea of how this string of Amazon keywords actually performs. Instead, keep going down the list until you find a book that isn’t on a pricing promo.
• Kindle Unlimited books don’t matter; they don’t affect your results.

I know this is a lot of information to consider, but think of this project as a fun challenge. Strike that—it’s a challenge that can make you more money! Sounds better by the second, right? The best part is, there’s no limit on how often you can update your Amazon keywords.

If you’re still confused, check out my latest edition of How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon.

Additionally, if you’re looking for more great ideas on ramping up your holiday book sales, I have a great book with 50 tips that show you the way. You can get it here.

Have you tried changing Keywords? Did it help your sales?

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Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and Adjunct Professor at NYU, is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. To learn more, visit www.amarketingexpert.com

by Sarah Cy

 

Have you ever noticed that many of the world’s most successful writers are also the most prolific?

• Horror writer, Steven King famously writes 2,000 words a day, and over the course of his career he’s written nearly one hundred books (and counting).
• Romance writer, Barbara Cartland produced over 720 novels in 75 years, winning a Guinness World Record for most novels written in a single year (23!).
• And celebrated Sci-Fi writer, Isaac Asimov produced 500 published works in his career, writing in a variety of forms, from books to short stories, screenplays, and more.

What about you? How many books/articles/screenplays have you written so far?

What? Less than 500? Tsk. Tsk.

Just kidding. It’s okay if you feel like you can’t quite compete with King, Cartland, or Asimov. Writing that much, after all, is not easy. And we all have lives to live, families to spend time with, bodies to take care of.

But guess what? So did King, Cartland, and Asimov (and many other writers like them).

You can become a more prolific writer than you are right now, if you follow these four tips:

1) Gather (a Lot of) Ideas

Writers need ideas the way bricklayers need bricks. Without them, we have nothing to write about. But fortunately for us, ideas are everywhere. Here are three great places to find them:

Published content

The most obvious places to look for your next brilliant idea, is previously existing content: books, audiobooks, podcasts, Youtube videos, classes, etc. 

Anytime you are consuming content, turn on your writer brain and keep a notebook to catch the thousands of stray ideas that may be triggered by your reading.

Life stories

Mine your own and others’ stories for valuable material.

People love to talk about themselves, so not only will you collect fascinating ideas for your writing, you’ll be doing them a huge favor if you take the time to listen. Win-win!

Existing feedback

Another place to look for ideas is in the comments and reviews section on Amazon, Goodreads, or writing blogs.

Writing is about serving reader’s needs and answering their questions. So find out what those needs and questions are — straight from the horse’s mouth. 

Your collection system

Don’t forget to use a note-taking system to capture and organize ideas. You need to be able to review and access your raw material quickly and easily when you start writing.

2) Limit Yourself

In one Calvin and Hobbes comic, Hobbes asks Calvin when he will finish writing his story. 

Calvin says, “I’m waiting for inspiration.”

Hobbes asks what that entails. Calvin replies: “Last-minute panic.”

Can you relate? There is something about last-minute panic that brings out the “best” in us.

But why wait for outside deadlines when you can create your own? The following are two practical ways to do just that:

Limit your time and/or word count

Give yourself three months to finish your first draft, set a timer to write two pages in ten minutes, or set a daily minimum word count goal.

The key is to make the limit real. For example: some people post goals on social media, or giving their friend a check to their least favorite charity with instructions to mail it if they don’t hit the goal.

Another way to create constraints is to participate in a program with others. NaNoWriMo and Story A Day  challenge writers to produce a certain quantity of words or stories within a certain time.

If you’re feeling sadistic, you can also try Write or Die, which deletes your work if you stop typing. 

Limit your environment

Get rid of distractions. Clean your physical and virtual spaces. Clear your table, your desktop, and extra internet tabs.

Keeping yourself focused will go a long way toward helping you write more than you thought possible.

3) Work on Multiple Projects

Have you ever watched eating contest competitors consume a beverage or side dish alongside the main item?

It doesn’t make sense, at first — shouldn’t they be trying to conserve stomach space?

But there’s a reason for this: Variety.

Eating a massive amount isn’t easy, but add to that the mind-numbing sameness of one food-type, and it’s enough to make a person throw in the napkin…er, towel.

It’s the same with writing.

If you want to be a prolific writer, you should have a few works-in-progress going at the same time.

That way, when you don’t feel like writing your novel, you can switch to poetry.

When blogging bores you, you can brainstorm songs for your musical.

When editorials make you scream, you can work on your short stories.

It helps if the different projects you are working on are creative in different ways. You can even work on projects in different languages. 

Novelty gives your writing brain a second wind, so use variety to prevent boredom and increase your productivity.

4) The Most Important Tip: Plan Ahead

If you’re serious about writing, you will need to know what writing project you are working on and set aside time to get it done.

According to Hofstadter’s Law, people tend to underestimate the time it takes for them to accomplish large projects (such as novels).

But people also procrastinate to fill time (Parkinson’s Law). Experiment with your writing speed and find out what works for you. 

Consider your health as well: It’s hard to write when you’re sick or tired. So plan to get enough sleep, exercise, and family time to keep your brain running. 

Why Should You be a Prolific Writer? 

Prolificacy is practice. Practice leads to skillful writing, and skillful writing leads to success.

Of course, writing prolifically is not your main goal as a writer. But mastering prolificacy can help you achieve other goals—reaching more readers, earning more money, etc.

Being a prolific writer is a matter of will and skill, and you can be more productive than you currently are, if you so desire.

So what are you waiting for?

The world is looking forward to your next book…and the next…and the next…and the next…

You got this!

Do any of these resonate with you? have you tried any of them?

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Sarah Cy is a blogger, copywriter and writing coach. Her mission is to inspire readers and writers through succinct, sincere, (and sometimes silly) writing. Get her free Write Purpose Manifesto to learn about writing to change lives--including your own!