Writers in the Storm

Today's authors are very in-the-know about the changes sweeping through the publishing industry. I am so thankful to be pursuing a writing career in these times where the access to amazing resources and generous authors is at our fingertips.

If you don't feel "up to date" and want to read more about the changing state of publishing, it's hard to find a better resource than Kristine Kathryn Rusch and her publishing industry blogs.

Our current brave world of publishing demands that an author build a brand.

What does that mean exactly? Simply put, your brand is the picture that pops into people’s mind when they hear your name.

For established authors, this picture is usually tied to one (or many) of your books. For the new or unpublished author, you need to get started on forming that picture in people's mind as soon as possible. Participation in social media is one of the easiest ways to do this.

I'm interested in exactly how you're participating in this speed-of-light social media world. I see many of you on Twitter and Facebook. I even see a few of you on LinkedIn.

Where are lots of my WITS peeps conspicuously absent?

It's pretty rare for me to see more than a few of my WITS pals in my hashtag chats, with the possible exception of #myWANA. Either we don't keep the same hours or you're hanging out somewhere else (that you'll hopefully mention in the comments, so I can hang out there too!).

The other answer is that you haven't been cued into the hashtag thing yet, which means you're not using social media, especially Twitter, as fully as you could be. (If you're scratching your head, wondering what the hell a hashtag is, please read this post on what Twitter hashtags are and why we need them.)

Note: Be sure to download TweetDeck or HootSuite - they'll help you to enjoy social media a whole lot more. If you choose TweetDeck, I highly recommend Piper Thunstrom's tutorials on TweetDeck. They are AWESOME!

Perhaps you're happy in Facebook, and Twitter is an unknown frontier. Maybe you're already hooked up in Google+...that's part of what this post is about. I want to know where the writers are hangin'.

How do I go about "building a brand?"

For more detailed information on branding, here are some of the best blogs I’ve found on the subject from people who say it far better than I do.

• Jami Gold’s How Do You Decide On Your Author Brand? – Part 1 and Part 2
• Jami has another wonderful post on Branding 101 – Online Brand vs. Author Brand
• An older post from leadership guru Michael Hyatt that still applies – 7 Ways to Build Your Author Brand Online
• Video: Creating Your Author Brand by Joanna Penn
• Kristen Lamb’s must-read post on Bob Mayer’s Blog: Building An Author Brand.
• Bob Mayer discusses Social Media and the Writer in his Publishing Lessons series.

Particularly now that so many authors are going the Indie route with smaller independent publishers or even venturing into self-publishing for their first book, author branding is no
longer a “nice to have.”

Read the posts above and take a look at these two books: Kristen Lamb’s We Are Not Alone: A Writer’s Guide to Social Media, and Bob Mayer’s Warrior Writer. They will put you light years ahead of where you might have gotten on your own. At the very least, they'll get you there faster.

My personal observation is that people are seeking authentic connections and that, by branding themselves, an author is opening themselves up for connecting.

In my own experience on Twitter and both of my blogs, your Followers and your Tweeps become your friends. We spend time with these people, whether it’s chatting on Facebook, having a Worldwide Book Launch Party or sharing Sunday morning coffee. Seemingly disparate people throughout the world are connecting through social media and enjoying the hell out of each other. It’s a beautiful thing.

Perhaps you don’t know where people are gathering on Twitter.

Fret no more…here’s the list of where my Tweeps and I hang out. This is your invitation to hook up with us. Like I said, if you are spending time somewhere else online, we want to know where that is!

#myWANA – This love revolution started on Kristen Lamb’s blog (WANA stands for We Are Not Alone…I’ve linked to the book above)

#weWRITE – Hashtag started by Anna DeStefano and Jenni Talty based on their How We Write Wednesday Series. Note: There are no links allowed in this group – conversation on writing only…you’ll have to post your links elsewhere.

#PubWrite – these tweeps enjoy writing, sharing ideas and frustrations, and the occasional adult beverage.

#amwriting – writers from everywhere hang out here and encourage each other as they write. If this is your hangout, you might also enjoy http://amwriting.org/.

#amediting – writers from everywhere hang out here and encourage each other as they edit their works-in-progress.

#wordmongering – writers do timed sprints of 30 mins at :00 and/or :30 every hour. This is fun 24/7 and participants say they get so much writing done.

#Row80 – Hashtag started by Kait Nolan that I’m participating in. This is a writing challenge that lasts 80 days and requires that you publicly post your goal. For more details go here.

#LifeListClub: Another goals-based hashtag chat. You must publicly state your goals, usually on a page in your site, and then work to achieve them and cheer on others. If you decide you want to be more involved, you can submit to be on the list of writers who blog hop every other Friday. For more details on what the Life List Club is, go here.

#nanowrimo - When November rolls around, the agony and the ecstacy of National Novel Writing Month can be found here. (Until then, we have Row80!)

Note: If I’ve missed any really cool hashtags, please let me know in the comments.

Writing-related hashtag resources that might be helpful to you:

For a great resource on Twitter (and social media and branding), I recommend that you visit Kristen Lamb’s blog and read all of her Twitter Tuesdays posts – TT #2 deals with hashtags and delves a bit deeper on some of the topics here. Plus, when she posts at Dr. Twuth, you need to swallow your beverage before reading.

If you would like to see a list of popular hashtags, go to one of the following sites:

• Specific to writers: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-twitter-hashtags-for-writers/
• http://tagal.us/ is working hard to be the dictionary on hashtags. It is a cool site and worth looking at since a list of tags drops down as you type and the hashtag definition shows in the search results.

What about you? Where do you commune with people on Twitter or Facebook (and why)? Are there groups of writers that you recommend above all others? Please share your discoveries with the rest of us!

~Jenny
More Cowbell: http://jennyhansenauthor.wordpress.com
Twitter: @jhansenwrites

Have you discovered Writers In The Storm on Facebook? We'd love to see you over there! :-)

Today we welcome back Denise Domning, contributing blogger here at WITS, with the fourth in her series detailing her self-publishing journey.

by Denise Domning 

I did it!  I made my deadline!

Kind of.

It’s August 15th and the book, The Men Wars, Book One  Men-ipulation,  is up on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

What about the iPad version?

Well, that’s another story.  I did have it up on Lulu briefly.  I can’t say exactly why I was so uncomfortable with them, but I suspect what bothered me most is that Lulu was a middle man.  Having them standing between me and the iBook version just didn’t feel right.  Then my husband bought the Lulu version and tried to install it on his iPhone.  Lulu doesn’t offer the Apple version.  It only offers the book as a PDF via Adobe digital.  That was it for me.

I pulled the book down and had my son, who owns a Mac (along with six other computers; my niece has my Mac and it’s too far to drive to go borrow it back), start our iBook account.  I can’t do it with this laptop without installing Quicktime and Quicktime has never worked on any of my other computers so I didn’t bother.  Now, No Regrets the Book, LLC (that’s the company Monica and I formed around the book) is in the approval process with Apple.

If you didn’t know, Apple won’t publish a book on iTunes that (1) wasn’t created on a Mac and (2) doesn’t have its own ISBN.  I’m only guessing, but I think they must assume that only publishing companies would buy ISBNs.  Ergo, one of the questions was how many books a month would we be publishing.  Our lowest option was one.  So I had Justin put in “one”.  Who knows?  It might be possible.  Not probable, but possible.

Why didn’t I go with Smashwords like so many other authors?  For the same reason I didn’t feel comfortable with Lulu.  They’re a middle man.  That, and Smashwords wanted me to put up my Word doc, properly formatted of course.  That wasn’t happening.  (Read my last post for my Word issues.)

Instead, I sent my son the link for Sigil for Mac, then sent him the eBook I made in my Sigil for PC.  It should work, or so I read on someone’s blog.  When my son ran the PC version through the Mac version it validated with no errors.  Nice!

Now, this is just my opinion, but I want to state for the record I don’t think much of Calibre.  It’s one of those ebook editors, and it’s one that comes up first on a search.  I didn’t like the way it took control of my computer and wrote itself in with its own directories.  That’s just rude.  Then, when I tried to input my book, it reset all the sizes of the images.  Didn’t ask or anything.  Like I said.  Rude.

Sigil.  Free, easy, clean and it’ll do a search through every file in the whole document.  Now we’re talking!

And we’re still fighting to get the Createspace files uploaded.  So, the book is available on two of our four chosen venues.  We’ve received a stupendous first review and …we sold three copies on the first day.  (And I did not buy one.)  That’s three more copies than I thought we’d sell right away.

Meanwhile, Monica is gearing up to take over from where I left off.  And that’s nice, that’s very nice.  All I had to do was write the book.  She’s going to carry the ball the rest of the way.  Well kind of.  I’m still trying to figure out how to get more reviews and putting together ideas for our ad campaign (a Facebook ad).  I’ve helped her complete her questionnaire for Annie Jennings (our PR person).

And I’m still trying to find out how to reach Howard Stern.

Minor details.  The book is done.  VBG.

How is your self-pub journey going? Are there roadblocks you've encountered that you'd like to share?

by Fae Rowen

Before we get started, I'd like to announce the winner of a six-pack of my cards.   Janel is the lucky commenter.   Janel, if you would e-mail Writers in the Storm with your mailing address, I'll send your cards right away.

And now to today's topic:

Laura proposed this tag-team duo of blogs (AKA throwdown)  with this final challenge: "SO you should work on the one you suck at."  For me, that would be character-driven writing.

Gee, thanks a lot, Laura.  I love you, too.

First, I want to proclaim that I am a plot-driven writer.  Once I get my plot, I think about my characters in terms of who could survive what I'm going to throw at them and why they can survive.  I live in their backstory, flesh it out and revise that backstory until I know enough about the characters to do a first draft.

Did you see those pictures Laura used to show plot-driven movies?  Now I know why I like plot-driven stories.  Hubba-hubba.

But, what if my characters came to me first?  I have to admit, sometimes they do.

But here we go, into the land of character-driven writing.  Maybe I'll suck a little less at it after I study a bit.  Besides, it's always good to have more skills in your toolbox.

First, I need definitions, even though they may be disputed.  Here's what I liked best:

In plot-driven stories, actions propel the story.  An event occurs and the character reacts.  In character-driven stories there is a character trigger, an event occurs, and the character reacts.  (No wonder I write plot-driven...less steps. Ha!)

First, I have to say that I just saw (and enjoyed) the movie, The Help.  Though plot, because of the social time and setting, was important, it was definitely a character-driven movie.  Now I understand this whole throwdown a little better.

As I explored on the web, I was surprised there was so much furor over the two different types of writing.  Who cares what drives your story as long as it's well written?  As Laura wrote in Wednesday's blog, in a character-driven work:

"Characters are more important than what happens."

Hopefully, if you're a character-driven writer, or if (like me) you could use a little help in that arena, the resources below will help you write more compelling stories.

From Fae's library

It's important that you know what makes your character tick.  And get ticked off.  And how they show those emotions. Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon is my gold standard for this.

In character-driven fiction, assuming you have more than one character in your book, you need to know who has the most at stake in the scene. That's the character whose head you need to be in. Write the scene in their point of view.

Orson Scott Card, one of my favorite sci-fi writers, has a wonderful book on Characters & Viewpoint.

To make sure your characters are not one-dimensional, Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon, is helpful. I also refer to What Would Your Character Do? by Eric and Ann Maisel. The Maisels' book contains personality quizzes that can be fun for you to take to find out more about your characters and their triggers.

A couple of fun, and also useful, books are Sun Signs for Writers by Bev Walton-Porter and Love Types by Dr. Alexander Avila.  The first classifies characters with the familiar Aries, Scorpio zodiac labels--which you don't have to reveal in your book.  The second has a test for you (or your character) to determine your love type.  Are you a mystic writer, a general, a wheeler-dealer or another interesting type?

My last two recommendations come from the land of science, where I live.  They are a little "drier" but you can mine them for a wealth of writing gold if you're so inclined.  You don't have to read them at one sitting, after all.  A few pages at a time works just fine.  When you need to work on a new character, you can read the next chunk.  A  free download of  Please Understand Me, Character & Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates contains a self-test for those of you who like that sort of thing.  If you're a Meyers-Briggs afficionado, you don't need this book.

The other is Brain Sex, The Real Difference Between Men & Women by Anne Moir and David Jessel.  Great title, dry scientific reading, so check out some pages before you buy it.  I use it occasionally, but when I need it, it's worth it.

Finally, I have the Archetype Cards deck made by Caroline Myss.  Although I use them in other ways, I shared them with Laura, Jenny and Sharla and they thought they would be a wonderful tool for character development.  Lots of fun, too.

For those of you who can't wait for a book delivery or a trip to the library to try your hand at character-driven writing, here are some web links.  I must warn you that I was surprised to find that most sites about characters and writing offered classes or paid lessons.  These don't.

Simple Machines Forum has an essay about the plot vs character "fight" in the fantasy world (where I write) that is fun and enlightening.

Writers Store has an article by Martha Alderson, M.A. that contains a nifty test to see which kind of a writer you are.  I must admit I don't agree with the plot-driven writer as always being an outliner-structured writer, since I don't write that way.  What fun would it be to know everything that's going to happen in your story before you write it?

At The 15-Minute Movie Method we're told that memorable movies are character-driven and that plot-driven movies are only temporarily entertaining.  (I include this just to show I can be unbiased for two minutes.)  But actually, it got me to thinking that although I may write my novel from the plot-driven perspective, my characters are not cardboard, as The 15-Minute author postulates--forgettable, and therefore I must disagree with that idea.  Heck, you remember Rambo, right?

Now if you want a serious 6-minute Powerpoint lesson, watch Character-driven vs. Plot-driven Writing by Leigh Barbour for definitions and how both styles are written. She shares that Shakespeare was a plot-driven guy!

This link has some interesting situational exercises to complete for your characters.  You can come up with your own ideas (oops, plot-driven sneaks in) after trying these.

Many authors maintain a website that includes a variety of tips for writing.  Try visiting your favorite authors' sites and look for articles, lists or lessons on the craft of writing.  Doesn't it make sense to learn some "how to's" from someone whose reading you enjoy?

Hopefully as I work on my new novel, I'll suck a little less and my beloved critique group won't have to point out that my characters are one-dimensional.  Thanks, Laura.

So, what do you think?  Is it important to know whether you're a plot-driven or character-driven writer?  Do you have a definite preference for what you read?  More importantly, which side wins the throwdown?