Indie Life Blog Hop: Lawrence Block's Gone Indie!!!

Written for the Indie Life blog hop. Visit the link if you'd like to participate in this monthly blog event.

Being an indie writer has been making great strides in respectability lately. Especially now that famed mystery author Lawrence Block has gone indie for some of his books.

  He'd done an indie book before, Write for your Life, to go with some seminars he was then conducting. But he also decided to go the indie route for a collection of Matt Scudder short stories. (Link: Anne R. Allen's Blog: Lawrence Block talks self-publishing.)

And now, he's self-published a Bernie Rhodenbarr novel--- the first since 2004. I didn't know it was self-published until my own copy arrived. (Links: Lawrence Block: Look Who's Back, Mystery Fanfare: A dialogue between Bernie and Larry on Self-Publishing.)

Lawrence Block, I would say, is doing indie right. He has his credentials as a writer well-established through years of traditionally publishing his books. He has a reader base for both the Matt Scudder series and the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, both of which have fans looking for more.

Sometimes the new indie author forgets that the first thing he has to do is establish those writing credentials--- to prove to the world that he really can write. There are too many books and ebooks out there written as a get-rich-scheme or by a tag-along NaNoWriMo writer, that show no skill at all as a writer. Readers who pick up such books come away with the conclusion that the indie writer, like the old-style vanity press writer, is someone who just cannot write well enough to do the job.

Traditional publishing--- somewhere, somehow, in a forum with a gatekeeper that doesn't publish dreck, establishes those writing credentials. So would a well-written blog that has sufficient traffic to make it authoritative. Or being invited to post articles on a well-regarded website.

Without these credentials, most indie authors don't sell well. By continuing to write well and publishing many novels and short stories, eventually the good indie writer will pick up fans.  In time, success at the level enjoyed by Hugh Howey may come along.

Lawrence Block's indie books:
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) (Volume 11)

The Night and The Music: The Matthew Scudder Stories

Has your initial opinion about indie (self-published) fiction changed recently? In which direction? What factors led to the change?

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Indie Life: Competing With the Slush Pile

 This post is part of the Indie Life blog hop.

Writing life in the old days--- back then, every publisher had a slush pile. This was a backlog of unsolicited manuscripts that arrived at every publishers' door. Some low-wage employee of the publisher would be assigned to sort through the slush manuscripts.

Most slush pile manuscripts could be disposed of after a glance at the first page. Failures in spelling and grammar, clumsy sentences with unfathomable meanings, and just an air of mind-numbingly dull about the manuscript told the tale. Such manuscripts were, rightly, sent back after this slight evaluation.

Other manuscripts needed more attention before the reader could tell they weren't what was wanted, and this was the place to be for a new writer. Your manuscript was deemed worthy of a bit of attention and you might warrant a personal note on the rejection slip. Those notes meant you were a real writer, and that someone out there thought you ought to keep trying, that someday you would produce a manuscript that would make some publisher some money.

The slush-pile days are over at most publishers. Given today's minimum wage laws and soon-to-be-required benefits, nearly all publishers reckon they can't afford to hire someone to read their way through a slush pile, and so they issue a decree that only agented manuscripts are accepted. And most agents don't want slush pile manuscripts, either.

But for the indie writer, the slush pile still exists--- and if we are not part of it, we are competing with it.

Now, for most of us indie writers we spend a lot of time cocooned in a virtual world of other indie and small press writers. We don't contact non-writing readers much until our writing career takes off and we start to get fans coming to our blogs and author Facebook and Twitter pages. But ask a reader who has tried an indie book or two, and chances are you will hear some slush-pile novel horror stories.

Indie books, conclude the reader, are bad, and they will stick with traditionally published books from now on. But the traditionally published world also has their slush-pile-worthy books. They are just hidden away, and not out there competing with well-written books for readership.

This is what you must do to compete with the slush pile: You must make your book stand out from the pack in three ways.

1. You must know enough about spelling, grammar and sentence structure that you can ensure your manuscript is correct. You may have beta readers and hired editors to catch mistakes for you--- but if you don't know the rules yourself, you have no way to know if they are correct. If your school education shortchanged you in this area--- in other words, if you are under 50--- you need to educate yourself. Errors in this area are a well-known mark of the slush-pile writer.

2. The average reader may be ignorant of a lot of things. He may think that World War 2 was fought between the armed forces of Adolf Hitler and George Washington. He may think that Shakespeare was just some dead white guy who wrote boring stuff. But even the most ill-informed of readers expects their authors to be filled to the brim with correct information, and if they catch you in an error of fact, they will assume you are just another slush-pile writer not worth reading. Enhance your education by reading books on cultural literacy and history-for-dummies, and then read on from there.

3. It's not enough to be correctly spelled and culturally literate. You need to show, right from the start, that you are not a bore. This means dumping the prologue about the hundred-year elven war or the history of your main character from the date of his grandfather's birth and other bits of tedium writers fiddle with before they get down to the beef of it. Concentrate on the central story. And don't whine about how some other writer got away with prologues and genealogies and such and is a famous writer. YOU are not a famous writer, and you are not going to be one if you can't convince skeptical readers you are not going to bore them to death.

The writer in the old days had to convince one reader at a publisher's office that he was a competent writer. You, as an indie writer, have to convince reader after reader after reader of the same thing. Your first few chapters that are made available as a free sample have to show your prowess in the three areas mentioned above. And the rest of your book must match it. Do this, and you will rise above the indie fiction slush pile. Don't do it, and you are condemned to be a part of the slush pile other indie writers are complaining about.

I will 'like' your Facebook author page (unless it's porny or something). Just go to MY page (link below) and post a comment 'hey, you said you'd like my author page' and give your author page link. I will 'like' the page as soon as I see that (with my personal account, so that it counts). Feel free to 'like' my page in return.
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Nick Thacker's Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan

Kitten Aerobics Instructor

While wandering around the social media sites for no real reason this morning, I came across a marketing plan for the self-published book, which you can find at the link below:

The Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan - LiveHacked

I read through the whole plan, which runs to about 4000 words. It seems like a sound plan, very well organized. I am planning a launch of the ebook edition of Where the Opium Cactus Grows, and it gave me some ideas.

Mind you, launching a poetry ebook isn't quite the same thing, particularly when the real-book form has been on the market, unlaunched and largely unnoticed, for two years. But I think I shall make up a modest marketing plan based on this one.

To find blogs where I might guest post I might start mentioning the possibility on my Sunday poetry posts which are shared on Poetry Pantry. I'm not sure any of those poetry blogs has reach, though. More than just mine alone though.

Another thing I shall do is I intend to make a shorter version of the book--- perhaps call it 'Opium Cactus Greatest Hits Album which shall be made available for free. It will contain the poems from Opium Cactus I've designated as 'shareable'--- the ones on even-numbered pages of my book. I set that policy so I'd have plenty of poems from the book to share, and plenty of poems that the purchaser of the book alone would have access to.

Of course, many enthusiastic would-be indie authors will try the book marketing plan and complain that it doesn't work. Here is why:

1. Spelling errors. Authors who can't be bothered to learn spelling or good English usage will not impress in their social media and blog work. And if they have not paid to have their book corrected before publication, that will scream out 'bad writing!' as well.

2. Clumsy hard-sell book-spam based marketing. Like the sad fellows who join Facebook groups, post a book spam post, and move on to the next group, and then get upset when their post is removed for not following the rules, saying they are so busy with their 'book launch' they can't be bothered to learn the rules of each group they are spamming.

3. Not helping others. You want people to do you a favor and buy your book? What are you willing to do for others? The least you could do is be friendly and interact with them (as best you can, if you have an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger Syndrome).

4. Lousy writing. Nothing will make up for the clumsy, boring, wordy writing of the amateur who hasn't yet seriously studied the craft. The answer: DON'T self-publish until you have a good reason to believe you HAVE learned your craft, at least well enough to start being published. How do you know if you are ready? In my case, it was when my voracious reading gave me the discernment to start noticing really bad books, or bad elements in so-so book, and I was able to transfer this discernment into looking at what I wrote (which some people have a hard time doing.)

What do you think? Have you participated in a book launch--- your own or someone else's? How did that work out?

My Book: Where the Opium Cactus Grows

My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Young Writers and the Self-Publishing Trap

Before the internet age, the common trap for the young/beginning writer was the vanity press. A vanity press advertised in magazines, saying they wanted writers to submit to them. They accepted all novels, no matter how flawed. And then they ask you for money.

They claimed that was how publishing worked. You had to pay to get published if you wanted to be the next Norman Mailer.

So young writers paid, and ended up with a garage full of books that didn't sell because bookstores didn't carry vanity press books, and libraries wouldn't even accept them as gifts. And if the young writer mentioned that vanity press book as a writing credit, he was written off as an amateur.

Self-publishing today is not the same thing. They don't, as a rule, lie to you in order to sell you on publishing with them. And there are respected traditionally-published writers who self-publish now, such as Holly Lisle who has used self-publishing to get some of her old novels back into print. A very few writers have even found self-publishing an entryway to a writing career, as in Hugh Howey, whose self-published book 'Wool' won a traditional publisher's contract for a print book version.

But for the young/beginning writer, self-publishing can be a trap. Perhaps you participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and you finish a novel. Then you find out you can get it self-published. Perhaps people tell you that no one has a chance with the traditional publishers, you HAVE to self-publish.

Then it gets expensive. The self-publishers tend to sell you editing and proof-reading services, cover art services, perhaps special book promotion services. So even with a 'free' self-publishing option you end up sinking hundreds into self-publishing that first novel. And it doesn't sell, except to your mom and your cousin Bill.

So you panic and read a few articles on using social media to promote your book. You end up being a book-spammer--- putting your book promo up on message boards and internet groups, causing many to vow never to buy anything you write because of your rudeness. And you sell a few more books. Only your self-promoting is taking up all your writing time and you don't know when you will start your next book. Your energies are absorbed in selling this one.

This is a special problem for the teen writer. The teenager simply doesn't have the life experience to avoid making some glaring mistakes. And the skills of the teen writer are not what they will be after a few more years of practice. The teen-written first novel rarely can compete with books written by more mature writers.

This isn't to say that what the teen writer produces is worthless. Fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote a story as a teen that went on to become the start of her Darkover series--- a wonderful series she went on with for the rest of her life. But the teen-written version was not what got published. She re-wrote extensively at a more mature age, and this became one of her first published books. Years later when she had improved her skills still more, she was so embarrassed by the lack of quality of that version, called 'Sword of Aldones', that she retold that part of the Darkover story in a new novel 'Sharra's Exile'.

So--- you have your just-finished Nano novel in your hands. What do you do? Now, I'm not saying you can't use a firm like Lulu.com to make a few copies of the book, either print or ebook, to share with your writing friends. That can be fun. But DON'T at this point decide you are a published writer.

Your next task is to put that novel away for a few months and begin your second. Check that first novel again. How does it compare to what you are writing now? If you still think it measures up, look up some traditional royalty-paying publishers and submit. You will be rejected. Your second and third and fourth novel will be rejected too. But the rejection letters will get nicer.

As well as continuing to write, you must continue to improve your writing skills by reading the best books on writing, and doing writing exercises. 

When should you self-publish? I firmly believe that you ought to have something published in a traditional way before you are ready to turn to self publishing. It doesn't have to be a novel. In my case, I published a story in a national 'confession' magazine, several poems in small press periodicals, and a column in a local humor newspaper. I then had confirmation that I was able to judge accurately when something I had written was polished enough for publication.

 To get that publication experience you may have to experiment with writing forms that aren't really your writing goal. You may have to try out some small press publishers. You might have to do as I did and volunteer to write a column somewhere. Write thoughtful letters to the editor of your local paper and see if your letter gets published, and what the reaction is. Just find SOME way to get your writing tested by the real world.

The main thing is, DON'T fall into the trap of publishing an unpolished, beginner's novel through self-publishing and then self-promote the hell out of it. That is self-defeating. Be patient, and in time if you choose to self-publish, your self-published novel will stand out from the others in a GOOD way.


This blog post originally published on Facebook.
 http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Hugh Howey, Indie Author Success Story

In the May/June issue of Writer's Digest, there is a most inspirational story about indie author Hugh Howey, who recently scored a triumph in getting a print-only deal from a book publisher, which allows him to continue to sell the book in e-book form himself.

The book in question, Wool, started out life as a short story Howey put out as an e-book. Readers demanded sequels, and in time the story turned into a novel and was selling over 20,000 e-book copies a month.

The first installment of Wool is available as a free e-book on Amazon.com. The omnibus edition of the whole thing is not that expensive, so I downloaded a copy for my Kindle.

The story is a sci-fi set in a grim future where humans live in a silo--- a large, contained habitat--- because the outside world is toxic. (If this was meant as an enviromentalist-extremist sermon, Howey wisely keeps that to himself.) The main characters of the story begin to suspect that they are not being told the truth about their world, but to know that can mark one for death by being put out in the toxic environment to clean the sensors.

The novel is not unflawed--- what novel is? My main suggestion for improvement is that the author should have cut down the word count in each scene to get rid of all the superfluous words and make the whole thing tighter. But the story is sufficiently compelling to overcome the problem of wordiness which is so often fatal to a work of fiction. 

I enjoy the novel so far. As for the Writer's Digest article, I found it very useful, and inspired my current effort to write short stories. I mean, if Howey can turn short stories into successful e-books, leading to successful novels and a major contract, why not me?

Author Holly Lisle's gone Indie

Holly Lisle, author of 32 sci-fi and fantasy books, has announced she is quitting Big Publishing to go indie.

This will without doubt be a success for her, as her blog has a large following and she's been self-publishing her non-fiction for a while now.  But I think it will also be a good thing for all indie authors as it will bring more attention to the fact that indie publishing today is quite different than the old school vanity presses.

I remember years ago reading the author Laurence Block's advice to young writers. He said that in his early years, writers got started writing short stories for the many paying markets that then existed. He said that though the publishing world had changed since then, young writers would continue to find venues in which to serve out a writing apprenticeship.

Publishing has changed again. Now the unpublished writer will be serving out his apprenticeship in the world of blogging and indie publishing--- perhaps publishing early novels and short stories through Smashwords, or novels in real-book form through Lulu.com--- both free options. A blog, I believe, is essential for such an indie writer. It provides proof to the potential reader of your book that you are indeed able to write the English language without a net. It also provides immediate feedback.

I have reasons that have nothing to do with writing that make it essential that I be an indie writer. I have one poetry book out, Where the Opium Cactus Grows, which is published by Lulu.com. I had said I was going to publish most or all of the poems from the book on this blog. I still intend to do that, and I also want to provide at least most of 'Opium Cactus' as a free ebook through Smashwords.

I also have my new web fiction novel Taliesin, and may be publishing some short fiction on this blog and/or in ebook form.

Through my blog and related activities I've had the opportunity to meet other indie authors such as:
Amanda Borenstadt: Syzygy
Tracy Krauss: And The Beat Goes On
Michael Anthony Lee: Horker's Law (The Six Books of Magic)

One advantage of indie publishing is that you can create your own little niche-genre, and that actually will help you out in gaining a readership. Christian science fiction, especially that with hard science fiction elements, is not welcomed at major Christian publishers (or secular SF ones), but is a natural for indie publishing.

One thing you can do to help your indie writer friends is to purchase/download your indie fiction from Amazon.com. This helps the book climb in sales on that site. Reviewing and tagging indie books is also a mitzvah you can do for your indie writer friends.