Writers in the Storm

 

Sorry to interrupt this broadcast, but I have to squee....it's my book release day!  Days Made of Glass is my first Women's Fiction, it's a sister-story, about the world's first woman bullfighter. You can click on the photo to be taken to Amazon.

Sorry, Angelina - take it away!

 

 

 

 

Angelina Lopez

For busy authors -- or anyone building a brand or a business -- one of the most daunting tasks we face every day can be sitting down to post to social media.

"What should I say?" we think. "Who's going to care?"

Wouldn't it be phenomenal to sit down every day knowing exactly what you're going to blog, post, and Tweet? And hitting "enter" with the confidence that what you post will reflect your personality and interests, appeal to your fans and move you toward your business goals?

If you're resolving to do better with your social media in 2016, an annual social media calendar is the key to making your New Year's resolution a reality.

Here's how to build one:

Step 1: Make a list of your business goals for 2016.

While writing is a creative endeavor in the search for truth and beauty, and social media is a wonderful forum for giving virtual hugs to your fans, writing is also a job. Social media is the advertisement. So instead of letting social media pull you away from your job, make it work for you. This list will insure that your business goals for that "creative endeavor" are front and center so that you can integrate them into your social media throughout the year.

Step 2: Make a list of your personal and professional events in 2016.

We can forget to post our special events on social media in the midst of a hectic writer's conference or anniversary vacation. And that's the fun stuff -- the stuff our fans love to hear about. Writing these professional and personal dates down now will allow you to remember them later. Sure, you probably won't forget to promote that new book, but seeing it coming up on your social media calendar will remind you to start building a plan for promotion months ahead of time.

Step 3: List holidays/seasonal events that are important to you.

Scroll through the months. What are nationally recognized days that speak to you? Christmas, Hanukkah, spring break, first day of school, National Doughnut Day? Use these days to connect with your fans and to let them know you have the same excitement about Santa, the same relief about the kids going back to school, and the same interest in candied-bacon doughnuts as they do.

Step 4: Write down 4-5 themes that distinguish you.

Themes are the rocket fuel of your social media calendar. Your themes are what distinguish you, your writing and your philosophies from other authors, and they are what will set your social media posts apart from other posts in a fan's stream. Themes -- you're an animal-loving, travel-seeking rock climber who writes sexy small-town contemporaries and loves men in kilts -- give your fans something to hang onto. Staying consistent with your themes gives you a foundation from which you can grow an audience that loves you.

My themes in my annual social media calendar are:

• Social Media/Writing -- Of course.
• Being "In Between" -- Issues of being in my 40s: old enough to have a senior in high school and young enough to still like going to live music shows.
• Ways I Can Help -- How I'm a strategic thinker, storyteller, cheerleader and accountability partner for my clients.
• Fun in D.C. -- Tips on best restaurants, drinks, events and outdoor activities in the D.C. area.
• Community -- Applauding and promoting clients, friends, writers, advice givers and others I admire.

I have a vineyard-owner client whose themes are:

• Evolution of a Vineyard -- Discussing the evolution of this relatively new vineyard.
• The Growing Season -- Tracking the annual cycle of the Pinot Noir vines from pruning to harvest.
• Russian River Valley Winegrowers -- Supporting the winemakers and growers of their area.
• Around the Vineyard -- Celebrating the gophers, family visits, new barn doors and bocce ball games of living on a vineyard.
• To Dos in the Russian River Valley -- Promoting the people, wines, geography and events of Russian River Valley in Sonoma County.

Think big picture when you're developing your themes. Make sure your themes include a mix of professional and personal interests, and -- because social media is "social" -- make sure at least one of your themes focuses on promoting others.

Here are some questions to help you decide your themes:

• What are your books about?
• What do you like to do in your free time?
• What did you study in school?
• How would your friends describe you?
• Is there a cause or charity that you're passionate about?
• Do you have any hobbies?
• What do you day dream about?
• Are there community or writer organizations that you want to support?

Step 5: Build your template.

This step is easy. Click here, fill in your email, and you'll receive the above template to build your annual social media calendar.

Step 6: Enter your business goals at the top of the template under "General."

Installing these goals at the top will insure that they are top of mind as you're developing your social media plan of attack for each month. Make sure your goals are accomplishable within a month (you are only human and you need to sleep), and break large goals, like "Finish a book", into manageable monthly bites, like "Write 20,000 words."

Step 7: Enter your themes on the side of the template.

 

I like to include details about the themes that will jog ideas when I'm filling it in later.

Step 8: Enter your "Events" at the bottom.

Step 9: Fill in the blanks.

Now you will use your themes as a guide for coming up with content ideas for the rest of the year. Wha...?! I know, sounds daunting. But it's easier than you think. And a little blood, sweat and tears now will prevent you from having to bleed, sweat and cry EVERY TIME you sit down to post for the REST OF THE YEAR.

1. Keep your ideas general. This is just your annual calendar. Your ideas can get more specific when you work on your monthly calendar (more on that later). For example, if you love to cook and one of your themes is "Eating Healthy," a February idea could be "Cooking with root vegetables." What will be in the pot? Who knows? But seeing it on your calendar will help focus you when the time comes.
2. Connect the holidays/seasonal events you listed with a theme that focuses on you personally. My "In Between" theme allows me to talk about my personal life. So in it I will talk about my New Year's resolutions in January, Mother's Day in May, the fact that this will be the first Father's Day without my Dad in June, and my son going off to college in August. Connecting my life events to the holidays and seasons gives "me" a platform to talk about "us."
3. Find a category and stick with it. A writer who writes stories about sexy ski bums could fill his social media feed with pictures of awesome ski resorts. He could highlight a different ski area -- Colorado, California, Switzerland, Chile -- every month. A writer who loves to objectify the male body -- I know I do -- can focus on a different body part every month. Like I said, this does not have to be difficult.
4. Don't re-invent the wheel. I have a professional organizing client who uses online tools like Dropbox and Evernote to help people eliminate the paper clutter in their lives. So guess what? In January, she spotlights tips on how to use Evernote. In February, she offers tips on Dropbox. In March, it's another tool, then another and another, until July comes around and we start with Evernote again. Offer information that you already have and don't be afraid to repeat yourself.

Step 10: Putting your annual social media calendar to work.

Your annual social media calendar will:

• Insure you're hitting all of your business goals by highlighting a goal every month
• Provide you with blogging ideas that enrich the message of your website
• Guarantee that your day-to-day social media posts communicate a consistent message of who you are as a writer
• Remind you of important events to insure you're posting and promoting them
• Provide an outline for your monthly social media calendar

Pantsers can take a look at their annual social media calendar whenever they're stuck and instantly have a social media idea to get them back on track. Plotters can use their annual social media calendar to fill out their monthly social media calendars, a day-by-day listing of what they're going to blog and post about so they'll never have to wonder. But THAT is for another blog post (or you can contact me for more info).

May your social media posts be easy and fruitful in 2016!

About Angelina

Angelina M. Lopez is a freelance copywriter and social media manager who helps solopreneurs and small business owners tell their story. She’s the cheerleader, strategy partner, and — if necessary — whip cracker for her clients. In her rare moments of spare time, she aspires to be a fiction writer. She and her family live outside of Washington, D.C.

You can find her EVERYWHERE: on her website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr and Wattpad. If you want to learn about, she needs to know it!

Susan Spann

Happy New Year!

In 2016, my guest posts here at Writers in the Storm will take a look at some vital clauses and concepts authors need to understand before signing a publishing contract or agreeing to self-publishing terms of use.

One of the author’s only chances to terminate a publishing contract unilaterally (a term which means “acting alone,” whether or not the publisher consents) lies in the contract’s “out of print” clause.

All good publishing contracts and self-publishing terms of use state that the contract either terminates automatically or can be terminated, and all rights in the work revert to the author automatically, when the work goes “out of print.” (Sometimes, contracts give the publisher an additional 6-12 months to return the work to “in print” status before allowing the author to terminate the contract.)

Older contracts allow the publisher to decide when a work is “out of print,” but the current industry standard ties out of print status to sales (or, better still, to “royalty-bearing sales”).

When reviewing an “out of print” termination provision, either in a publishing contract or in self-publishing terms of use, the author should look for three important components:

1. How the contract defines “out of print.” At a minimum, the contract should define “out of print” with reference to stated sales numbers.

For example: “For purposes of this Agreement, the Work will be considered out of print if the Publisher fails to sell at least 250 royalty-bearing copies, in the aggregate of all forms and formats, during any period of twelve consecutive months (or longer) during the term of this agreement.”

Beware of clauses that define out of print in the following ways:

• “the Work is no longer available for sale” (or “no longer available through publisher’s standard sales channels”)
• “the publisher determines that the Work is out of print”
• “no copies of the Work remain in Publisher’s warehouse”

All of these can trap an author, and his or her work, in a contract that never ends.

In the days of print-only contracts, publishers could define “out of print” by reference to availability because sales depended on the production of printed books. Ebooks changed this dynamic, however, by making books perpetually “available” as long as an ebook is offered for sale on Amazon or on the publisher’s website.

2. Automatic termination vs. termination by notice. Some contracts state that the agreement automatically terminates when a work goes out of print, while others contain a notice provision requiring the author to notify the publisher of the author’s desire to terminate the agreement if sales fall far enough for the work to be considered out of print. Contracts requiring notice from the author usually also give the publisher a stated period of time (normally 6-12 months) to increase sales and bring the work back into “in print” status before the author’s request to terminate takes effect.

While many authors think an automatic termination provision is better, there are situations where an author wants a work to remain in print despite slow sales. Keeping a work in print means readers can find it (at least in ebook format) and having backlist titles “in print” may be helpful for the author’s career.

Generally speaking, it’s better for the contract to offer the author the option to terminate rather than containing an automatic termination clause. In the case of self-publishing terms of use, the termination should be even simpler—the author should be able to terminate, and revert all rights, at any time and without any complex procedures.

3. A non-ambiguous statement of rights reversion on termination. It isn’t enough for the contract to give the author termination rights when the work goes out of print. The agreement should also include a non-ambiguous statement similar to:

“All rights granted to the publisher herein revert to the author automatically upon termination of this agreement, regardless of the reason for termination.”

Without a clear statement of rights reversion, rights to the work could remain in limbo—or worse, remain with the publisher—even though the contract has (or should have) ended and the work is out of print. Non-responsive publishers can hold authors hostage simply by refusing to send a written reversion of rights or acknowledgement after contract termination. A statement of automatic reversion helps prevent this unpleasant situation.

Read all contracts and self-publishing terms of use carefully, and make certain you know what they mean before you sign or click “accept.”

If you have any questions, get a professional opinion, even if that means paying for an attorney or finding an agent. After you sign, the agreement controls your legal rights and obligations, and often cannot be changed. Take the time to ensure your contract is unambiguous and compliant with current industry standards before you commit yourself and your work to any form of publishing relationship.

What do you think about tying “out of print” status to royalty bearing sales? Do your contracts contain sales-based out of print clauses?

About Susan

Susan Spann writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month and a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for Best First Novel. The fourth Shinobi Mystery will release from Seventh Street Books in August 2016. Susan is the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2015 Writer of the Year, and also a transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. Find her online at http://www.SusanSpann.com, on Twitter (@SusanSpann), and on Facebook (SusanSpannAuthor).

Cathy Lamb

Old Homes With Secrets, Car Living, and Scottish Men in Kilts.

How To Create Compelling Settings In Your Books.

 

I don’t like boring words.

I like scintillating words. Words that are skippy and delicious, or long with multiple syllables that roll like literary candy out of your mouth. Words that make you think, words that sound like what they are, words that dance and tease and have hidden meanings.

I do not like this word: Setting.
Setting.
So boring.  Lifeless. No romance to it. No high jinks. No dynamite.

And yet.

As a writer, the setting is so important in a book.  The setting can increase the tension and the conflict, transport the reader to paradise or to terror, and ratchet up the odds, the mystery, the romance or the thrill ride.

Here are a few thoughts on setting, from my fried writer brain to yours. I apologize for using my books as examples all the way through, but hey.  I know my books best and I know why I used that setting as I did, so hopefully it will be helpful.

 

1. Use setting to heighten a difficult personal struggle and make life even more challenging for your character.

In my latest book, What I Remember Most, the primary setting is a small, western style town in central Oregon surrounded by snow capped mountains. You can almost taste the snowflakes on your tongue and see sexy cowboys galloping by on horses.

But within that setting, my protagonist, Grenadine Scotch Wild, is living in her car. Yes, her car. On the run, away from a husband who has been arrested for embezzlement, fraud, and money laundering and will not tell the officials she’s innocent unless she returns to him. Grenadine’s accounts have been frozen by the government, she’s dead broke, therefore, car living.

Do you have a vision of car living? If not, go and park in your car in a parking lot and sit there for three hours.  Stuffy. Hot. Uncomfortable. How do you sleep? Dangerous. Where do you pee? Yes, that. What a problem.

 

The setting worked because no one wants to live in a car and the readers were rooting for Grenadine to get out of it. She was a sympathetic character, a woman who had lost everything, a woman who was fighting to get out of car living, a woman who was working hard, had no help, and was on her own. And oh, a jail sentence hanging over her head.

Use setting to toss your character into chaos.

 

2. Make your reader shudder. Your setting can be used for tension, horror, angst, crimes. Take them to a place they DON’T want to go. Ever.  Make them uncomfortable. Make them catch their breath.

I put Grenadine in jail for the weekend. I went to jail for three hours on a tour so I could get it right.  Think: Suffocating. Bars. Scary people. Violence. Group showers. Horrible food and who looks good in a blue jumpsuit?

In The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life, I created a small, dusty, cramped house in the middle of nowhere for a crime to take place.  The setting scared me, and I wrote it.

I had an insane asylum in Such A Pretty Face, briefly, where the mother was committed.

Settings can illuminate the plight of your characters, their internal hell and their external challenges.

 

3. Make your reader gleeful. Let your reader live vicariously through your characters in their setting. 

Later, after working as a bartender and as an assistant to a furniture maker, two exhausting jobs, Grenadine finally got enough money together to rent a place.

So what setting did I put her in next?
A cozy remodeled apartment above a red barn in the country.

I described the two decks overlooking the farmland, the magnificent sunset and sunrise views, the animals she sees, the peace and tranquility.

Why this setting?
I would love to live atop a barn, horses below, in the country.  Many of my readers would, too.

In the book I just finished, My Very Best Friend, which almost made me want to go and live in a cabin, alone, in Montana, and mutter to myself, but that is another story, I set it in Scotland.

Imagine: Hot Scotsmen in kilts. Bagpipes. Green rolling hills. Charming villages.

Who wouldn’t want to go to Scotland?

I’ve also set stories on quaint islands, Oregon beach towns, a town along a river, a schoolhouse transformed into a home, Cape Cod, a lavender farm, a tree house, and a Queen Anne house.

Take your reader on a trip with you. They want to go. Their bags are packed and ready.

 

4. Tap your readers’ inner most imaginations. 

In Julia’s Chocolates, Lara is a closet painter. I gave her an attic, then described all the wild, free wheeling paintings in there.

In Such A Pretty Face, Stevie had a garage where she built and painted chairs – huge chairs, with feet and wings and stripes and polka dots.

Grenadine is a collage artist and painter. I gave her a studio on the top floor of her little green house. I described the colorful tables and cheers, the jars full of paints, sequins, fabrics, brushes, lace, etc. The books on art, the plants, the windows.  Being an artist appeals to readers, to their dreams.

Build settings that encourage your readers to think, to be inspired, to dream.  What if…what if I started painting again? Building again? Writing? Making a collage? What if I changed my life? What if I became a new me?

 

5. Relate to your readers’ real lives with your setting.

In A Different Kind Of Normal I created a home that belonged to my character’s ancestors. There was history in that house.  Jaden was walking up the same stairs as her ancestors, looking out the same windows, crying at her kitchen table, which her ancestors had probably cried at, too.

Your readers have homes they love and miss, homes that have prickly memories. They have grandparents, crazy aunts, beloved dead fathers, too. They have Godzilla – type ex spouses and distracted boyfriends.  They have funny pets. They have jobs and bosses they hate in the corporate world. They go to family reunions at the lake and take tranquilizers while they’re there.

They have failing businesses and cliques they have to deal with in the suburbs.

Link your readers’ personal lives to the setting in your story, which will make your book more relatable, and personal, to them.

 

      6.  Know your readers. What do many of them like? Use it.

I think my women readers like lingerie. It’s frilly. Pretty. It inspires passion. So in If You Could See What I See, Meggie had a lingerie company, filled with silk and lace.

In The Last Time I Was Me, Jeanne Stewart gutted and remodeled a dilapidated house. I think my readers like reading about remodeling and décor, new kitchens and paint colors.  They have homes, too.

In Henry’s Sisters, the sisters were running a bakery.  Giant cupcakes, wedding cakes, delicious treats. Yes, I think my readers like bakeries and sweets.

Appeal to your reader via your setting.

 

7. Make your setting something that readers can laugh about.

In Julia’s Chocolates, Julia is out on her Aunt Lydia’s farm.  Aunt Lydia has tons of chickens. Chickens in brightly painted chicken coops, chickens who chase each other, chickens who have quirky personalities. And the roosters, those dandy fellows!

Aunt Lydia also has a wooden rainbow bridge in her front yard, toilets overflowing with flowers, and four foot tall ceramic pigs who each have a nametag.  The pigs are named after men Aunt Lydia doesn’t like.

Her front door is painted black to “ward off seedy men.”

Funny, right? Good. Readers like to laugh.

 

To sum up this huge essay, which I did not intend to be quite so long, write your settings to evoke memories, emotions, thoughts, tears, laughter, etc. from your readers.  You want them to feel. You want them to think. You want them to block everything else out of their life and dive head first into your story.

Use the setting in your books to help them do so.

There is so much more to say about setting, how to use weather, charging rivers, frothing oceans, seasons, evocative or dangerous landscapes, bleak neighborhoods and destitute countries, etc.  but that is enough for today. I have to start writing my new book now, if I can get my brain to work.

I do know the setting, though. It’s a tugboat on a river, complete with ducks who lay eggs in pots on the deck, a blue heron, geese, sailboats, and odd ball neighbors. Including a secretive man who lives two houseboats down…

 About Cathy

 

Cathy Lamb is currently working on her tenth novel. She would rather be slugging coffee and eating chocolate on a sunny beach.

Her latest book is My Very Best Friend.

Email: CathyLamb@frontier.com

Website - http://cathylamb.org/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/AuthorCathyLamb

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cathy.lamb.9

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