Writers in the Storm

What do your characters do when faced with adversity or an imminent threat? How do they recover from one of life's knock-out punches?

Conflict powers our stories and our character's personal growth arcs, so we throw a lot at our beloved protagonists. How they "catch" what we toss at them defines not only their essential qualities, but how the story will progress. 

Here are five suggestions for getting your characters through tough times. Great news—they'll work in real life for you, too!

1. Focus on what's right in front of them. When you're confronted with something unexpected, do you think about the past? Neither do I. I decide if I'm in danger and go from there. Your character's unexpected event could range from a flat tire in a parking lot to a highwayman pulling her Regency coach to a halt. If that parking lot is empty, and it's after midnight, and there is a knife stuff in the tire, your character better be looking around, melting into the setting and reaching for a cell phone. That's very different from being stopped for the fourth time by a highwayman who steals only kisses. It makes sense to have your character focus on the event, not backstory or what's going to happen tomorrow. 
2. Visualize overcoming the obstacles to their success. Whether or not you practice visualizations, we all ned to show our readers how our characters think and react. Since our job as writers is to throw obstacles at our characters, it is also our job to show how they plan to defeat the actions of others, or the forces of nature, or even their own faults and desires. Build up and redefine the visualizing process as the conflicts become greater to give your reader the satisfaction of participating in your character's success.
3. Recite their personal mantra. May the Force be with you. Now that's a mantra that more than one generation can relate to. My characters don't recite anything so epic (I wish), but they all have a go-to thought or phrase when times get tough. Sometimes the words are a response to a particular situation, words that have been drilled into them from childhood, much like "Yes, ma'am" and "Yes, sir" are giveaways of a military upbringing or growing up in the South. A personal mantra can be a great way to reveal backstory. Or hide it when a character refuses to explain what words they've gasped under their breath. When that backstory is finally revealed, the reader feels as if she's found a small treasure. You, as the reader, know that feeling.
4. Bounce back quickly from the unexpected. Unless you're writing a tear-jerking saga about a character working to overcome one life issue, you probably don't want him mired in dealing with something unexpected for chapter after chapter after chapter. Life is about reacting to the unexpected, and our characters need to show they can recover and move on if we wish to inspire that hope in our readers. This doesn't mean your characters are like kernels of popcorn, popping whenever the environment heats up. It does mean that when they are hit by adversity, they actively engage in problem solving, calling in allies, and doing what's necessary to get their lives back on course. They might even use a combination of methods one, two, and three above.

 5. Up the ante. Even when it hurts to throw your beloved creations near or into the fire, remember that readers love seeing a character survive and thrive against all odds and circumstances. A small unexpected happening can start a chain of life events that ramp up tension and drama for the rest of the pages. Upping the ante provides the opportunity to show the solid core of your character. It is a thing of beauty when my character's growth arc meshes with the plot to reveal the next layer of conflict and the next test of my character's belief system. We don't know the extent of what we can handle until we have to deal with more than we've ever encountered. And that's when we have the opportunity to shine. It's no different for our characters.

How do you move your characters through adversity? Have you drawn on real life experiences to empower your protagonist or, maybe, a villain?

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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.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen.

Penny Sansevieri

As “marketers,” it’s a big part of our job to get more readers, but as you probably have discovered, that’s often a challenge. With so many books and so many titles competing for the same attention, setting yours apart from the pack can be hard.

On the flip side, what if you have a book with limited attention, because your topic isn’t wildly known? How do you drive attention to a book about something that doesn’t have top of mind awareness? The good news is, it’s totally possible. And I’m going to tell you how!

Amazon keywords are a great tool that is often underutilized by authors. By using them correctly, you can draw potential readers to your topic and, in turn, sell more books. And, that’s your main goal as an author. The catch, if you can call it that, to this tool is that you have to know how to use it. The “trick” to this process lies in understanding the needs of your customer.

Consider the steam mop. Ever heard of it? Well if not, you may want to get one. Unless you want to keep cleaning your floors with a regular mop that doesn’t kill germs. Who wants that? And, did you know that you can also clean carpets and rugs with a steam mop?

See what I did there? I got you to go from “What the heck is a steam mop?” to “Well, yeah, I want to keep my floors germ-free!”

The idea here is that you need alignment and that’s where your keywords can take you. Alignment is the idea of bringing two ideas together that may not be obviously related, and then connecting them to sell your idea; in this case, your book.

But first, you need to find out where it hurts, the problem that needs to be solved.

Recently I was doing an Amazon optimization for a book about managing Lyme Disease. Now this is kind of a tough market, because it’s not a big one. There aren’t a ton of Lyme Disease books on Amazon. Reduced competition sounds great, right? In reality, especially Amazon reality, it’s not so great in this case, because any books related to hers have a high sales rank. The bigger the number the lower the number of books sold.

So as I was working on this optimization, it was not as worthwhile to go after “Lyme Disease” as a key word. Instead, I dug deeper into the illness itself and discovered that it’s often shows up as “other” issues—including thyroid problems, arthritis, and other ailments that people often search for. The end result was that I presented the author with a set of keywords that tied the book to those issues. By doing so, we can boost the overall bounce of the book on Amazon and get it in front of readers who may want to consider other options for disease management.

The thing about this strategy, and this is specific to non-fiction, is that you really need to make sure that your book description matches this train of thought. In the Lyme Disease author’s case, I suggested she update the book description to include these other ailments, with the goal of a reader seeing it and saying: “Oh, I hadn’t considered that!”

I followed this same process with a book about teen bullying as it relates to teen suicide. Now there are two things we Americans never like to talk about: death and if we’ve saved enough for retirement. But this author had put her book in the death/suicide category and used these keywords. Needless to say, her book wasn’t doing well. So instead, I suggested that she switch the book to the “teen health” category, which had very few competing titles in it that had 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 shared my thought that she remove all references to “death” and “suicide” from her keywords and instead focus on how parents might be interested in her message. We used new terms like “bullying” and “helping my teen,” which were far more popular.

The key idea here is that your book becomes the end of the road, in terms of their needs. Whether they are looking to be entertained, educated, or enlightened, your book is what they need. However, in order to get them there, you have to meet them much earlier down their path of discovery. Most authors choose keywords, book descriptions, and categories that are too far down the road to reach their readers, that is, too close to the end decision. If you can get to them earlier, you can present your book to them and gain new readers. You’d be surprised how well this works.

And while it’s a tad less obvious, the same is true for boosting visibility of any fiction book. Tying your book to ideas that readers may be interested in – like paranormal elements, specific settings, or other book attributes can help you gain more real estate in those vital search areas.

Understanding Amazon’s Search

So now that we know we need to align ourselves more with the needs of the reader, let’s brush up on how to search. Because Amazon’s search function has also changed.

First, if you’re doing a keyword search on Amazon (to find keywords for your KPD dashboard), I suggest by starting on the Kindle side of the Amazon website. Because not every search is created equal and searching “mystery and suspense” on the main Amazon site instead of digging down into the genre specifically, will net you very different (and largely inaccurate) results. Additionally, searching on the Kindle side of Amazon will give you a much more accurate assessment of keywords. Why? Because so many books are eBook only, that side of Amazon is denser than their print book side.

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

 

Next, type “Kindle eBooks." Looking at the left side bar, scroll down until you see

 

 

 

Then select whatever genre you’re in. For this test, let’s use “Mystery, Thriller & Suspense.”

Once you’ve clicked that, you’ll see this screen:

 

Now right under your genre you’ll see more drop downs, I suggest picking one from this list and, if appropriate, pick one that isn’t too packed with books. So that might be Crime Fiction or Suspense. But again make sure that your book fits into this segment of your genre.

Once you’re there just start typing in your keywords into the search bar, as you start to do this Amazon’s intuitive search will begin to drop down suggestions. Not all of these suggestions are going to be ones you’ll use, but they are certainly a good start.

Ideally you want your keyword string to match the following criteria:

• Make sure that you’re only using a keyword string. Do not opt for single keywords because consumers do not search that way. (You wouldn’t Google with just the word “suspense” either.)
• Don’t assume Amazon’s recommendations (such as those from the above screenshot) are the exact right ones for your book. We’ll go over that in a minute.
• Once you get Amazon’s suggestions, you’ll want to pop over to those pages and see what kinds of books are on there AND what their sales rank is. Because if you are using a keyword string with a very high sales rank, it means that not a lot of people are actually searching on that particular string.
• The other thing to be careful of are a lot of free books cluttering the first page of this keyword string search. So let’s say that you look at “suspense mystery books” and when you do that, you’ll see lots of books on free promotion which will always top the list. Do not look at their sales rank because it’s not an accurate depiction of how this string is actually doing. Instead keep going down the list until you find a book that isn’t on a pricing promo.
• Kindle Unlimited books don’t matter, so don’t worry if the entire search string brings up books that are in Kindle Unlimited, it won’t affect your results.

Ultimately, selecting the right keywords can be a fun challenge. And while it’s not an exact science, I think you’ll find that by following these steps, you’ll be able to get some really strong keywords to give your book a boost. And the good news is that you can constantly refine it. Not seeing a big sweeping change within several weeks of updating your keywords? Take a few minutes to revisit them. In fact, I would recommend giving your Amazon keywords and book description a quick tune up once a quarter or so. Not only does Amazon periodically come up with new categories, but what’s trending changes too. Additionally, you may have new review blurbs that you want to feature, or upcoming book promotions you want to include. So while selecting the perfect keywords is sort of an art form, you can also have some fun digging deeper into your own book to expand your audience. Good luck! I’d love to hear how it goes!

 

ABOUT PENNY

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert and an Adjunct Professor with NYU. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. She is the author of fourteen books, including How to Sell Books by the Truckload. AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through online promotion and their signature program called: The Virtual Author Tour™

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at http://www.amarketingexpert.com. To subscribe to her free newsletter, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@amarketingexpert.com

Copyright @2016 Penny C. Sansevieri

Top photo credit: MariaGodfrida – Pixabay

7 years ago, we posted our first blog. We could have never imagined where WITS would be today. We just heard, in fact, we made the Writers Digest Top 101 Blogs for Writers again this year (pause for squee) and that's thanks to you, our faithful readers. So today, YOU get the present - but before that, I thought we'd take a quick rundown of our most popular posts from the past, in case you missed them:

• Are Your Characters Stylin'? - Descriptive Fashion Phrases and Terms
• Writing About Hair - This and Thin Descriptions
• Submission Tip Checklist
• Writer's Guide to Twitter Pitch Contests
• Genres Explained - by Literary Agents
• Diving Deep into Deep POV
• How to Pitch your Self Published Book to an Agent
• Sexual Tension - It's All in Your Head
• 10 Best Scrivener Features
• Organize Your Novel with Excel

We strive to deliver cutting edge content to writers of all skill levels, so we hope you hang with us for the next seven years!

And now, on to the presents -

Pimp & Promote!

How does this work?

To quote the genie in Aladdin, “There are a few provisos, a couple of quid-pro-quos…"

Pimp out somebody else’s work – this can be a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
OR
Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about – a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.) The rest of us will jump in and “ooooh and ahh” at you, and likely promote your project even further because we’re just so darn excited today.

If you really want to ace this P&P thing, do both...

Ready?  GO!