The Challenges of New, Digital Lit

Note: I've made my latest book, Overshare, available for free download through this Friday, 1/20/12 - it may be informative to download a copy and look at it in the (free) Kindle Reader app or on a Kindle Fire (it's presented in full color, so viewing it on a monochrome Kindle won't give you the full experience) before reading this post.

These days, authors and publishers are beset on all sides by pundits and industry watchers telling them they must innovate, they must redefine the meaning of the word "book", they must experiment with new forms, make use of multimedia and transmedia if they hope to stay relevant in the new, digital frontier of literature and publishing. All of which is well and good, until you take their advice.

The relatively minor transition from hard copy to ebooks has been difficult enough, and there are still plenty of readers who prefer the feel (and even smell!) of "real" books so much that they've sworn they will never switch to using an ereader. There goes a chunk of prospective readers, if you're intending to release something in a digital format.

Next comes the form the experimental content takes. We've all heard of Vooks, "enhanced" ebooks and ebook apps. But how many of us have actually bought, or even seen one for ourselves? Think about it: if those of us who are in the publishing and literature business aren't invested (or in many cases, even interested) in these new forms, why on Earth should we imagine casual readers would be? So now your prospective audience has been whittled down further, to include only those ebook fans who are also interested in experimental, new forms of digital lit.

Finally comes the quality of the content. Once you've brought the experimental digital lit fan to the table, it's much the same as winning over any reader. If your content appeals to the specific tastes and preferences of a given reader, he'll like it and maybe even be so kind as to leave you a nice review on Amazon or Goodreads. If not, he will deem the book a failure. And unless he leaves a negative review somewhere, detailing the reasons for his dislike of the work, you'll never know if it was a failure of form or of content.

Overshare is an exclusively digital release, and it's presented in an unusual form. When the reader "turns" to the first page, she doesn't find the typical chapter heading followed by paragraphs of text. She finds what looks like a Facebook page. After a few such pages, she finds what looks like a Twitter stream. Then a post on the protagonist's blog. And so it continues: social media pages and blog posts, lots of pictures, but nothing else. No narrative is provided, the reader must construct her own.

I've sent out MANY advance review copies of Overshare. The responses seem to fall very clearly into two camps. On the one side, there are the people who rave about it and respond with genuine excitement to its non-narrative, heavily graphic presentation. On the other, there are the people who initially say they've begun to look at it and find it "fascinating", "intriguing", etc., but then never respond in full. Obviously, these readers ultimately did not find the book to their liking, but I'll never know if it was a failure of form or content from their perspective.

This is frustrating, since it's impossible to refine or improve either the form or content of other works going forward if I don't know what needs to be improved. It's also possible that any kind of experimental thing, simply due to its experimental nature, will always create a sharp divide of opinion.

Experimental digital lit is a tough sell. The non-narrative form of Overshare makes it very difficult to promote. While regular users of social media---my target audience---know how to interpret this material right away, others don't know what to make of it. When my own father, who does not use social media, was out for a visit recently, he asked me, "How do I read this book?" One hates to discourage ANY sale, but I have to accept that people outside my target audience aren't likely to "get" Overshare to any extent, and their negative reviews can be a liability.

I thought I could build buzz initially within publishing and author circles, which are presumably more fertile ground for digital lit and experimental lit, and branch out from there to the general, reading public. Dan Holloway ran an interview with me on his eight cuts site, focusing primarily on the non-narrative aspect of the book (e.g., the book demands, or allows, depending on how you look at it, the reader construct his own narrative) and the Creative Commons licensing issues it raises. Joanna Penn ran a guest blog from me on the technical aspects of creating this heavily-formatted, graphics-intensive book. Both pieces generated a lot of reads and some comments, but scarcely bumped the sales needle for the book.

So now, I'm trying a giveaway. While it's always been possible for prospective buyers to view a free excerpt, an excerpt doesn't adequately convey what the book is all about, or how it's supposed to be "read". People viewing the excerpt are just as likely to be confused as prompted to buy the book. When what you've got to offer isn't instantly accessible and doesn't immediately touch on familiar reference points for your target audience, sometimes the only way to get people to take a risk on it is to give it away at first. Even then, some people will decide it's not worth the investment of their time to try the new thing.

But hopefully, many others will try it. And whether they like it or not, some of them will talk about it. Some will blog about it. Some will post reviews. And with any luck, after you've stopped giving it away, the book will have made enough of an impact that it can stand on its own two feet. Time will tell. If you've decided to download Overshare, and I really hope you will, I would very much appreciate your feedback: in the comments section here, in the form of a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or even sent directly to me via email (my address is readily available on my website, Facebook profile, Twitter profile and Blogger profile).

Circling back around to the whole question of whether or not dabbling in experimental digital lit is worthwhile...well, I'd say it depends. If your goal is to maximize the commercial potential of your work (e.g., to make money---and there's nothing wrong with that) as efficiently as possible, then experimentation is not for you. On the other hand, if your financial needs are pretty well covered and more or less every manuscript you write is an experiment of a sort, you may want to give it a try. Those with some tech savvy will have an easier go of the writing, formatting and publishing steps, but once the book goes on sale, we're all in the same, leaky boat.

Is Your New Year's Resolution "Inbox Zero"? Here's How To Do It.

Inbox Zero is that state of digital communications nirvana in which you empty your email inbox, and keep emptying it on a daily basis. This may sound like a pipe dream to many, especially if you've had your email account for many years and your inbox message count is hovering somewhere around 1700, as mine was when I finally bit the bullet and tackled Inbox Zero. But believe me: it can be done, it's not that difficult, and you don't need to worry about the possibility of deleting messages you'll later wish you hadn't. First, let's look at why Inbox Zero is a very, very good idea.

THE WHY

If you're like me, you receive anywhere from 15-40 new emails on a daily basis. Some can be immediately deleted as spam, or filed in some existing folder, but many of them fall into that gray area where you know you'll need to take some action or respond in some way, but can't do so immediately for whatever reason. Maybe you need to do some research, maybe you need to invest some time in crafting a thoughtful reply...whatever. So you make a mental note to deal with those "gray area" emails at your first opportunity, and maybe you even mark them with a star or checkmark or whatever other symbol your email program allows to highlight important messages, then the next load of 15-40 new messages comes in and the "gray area" emails slowly but surely get pushed off your inbox screen and are soon forgotten.

Next thing you know, you've got 1700 emails in your inbox, you know that quite a few of them required a response or action at some point, and you also know that finding them will be a big, hairy pain. And even if you can find them, it's probably too late to take whatever action you had in mind when you first saw them. Meanwhile, the people who sent those emails are thinking you're a huge flake and entirely unreliable. These are not good traits for the reputation of an indie author, for whom building and maintaining a contact network are important.

You've thought about spending a day, or several days, or a week going through your inbox one message at a time and dealing with them once and for all, but it's a daunting task. You can't just summarily delete any messages that are older than a certain date of receipt, because many are from people you really will need to get back in touch with at some future date. You know you've got a problem, but you can't see your way clear to a workable solution.

THE HOW

Here's how you do it.

1) Create a folder called "Old Mail" and archive all messages that are 60 days or older into that folder. This will take a little time, since you'll have to do a search based on your date criteria, mark all the matching messages as "Old Mail" and archive them, but it's a whole lot less work than paging through the actual messages one at a time.

Yes, you will definitely be archiving many messages that really ought to have been deleted instead. But if you don't have the time or desire to look at every one of your inbox messages individually, this is the most efficient tack. Besides, most email providers allow their users gigabytes of storage, so space limitations aren't generally a concern. The important thing is, you haven't deleted anything. So if at any point in the future you desperately need to find the email address of that contact who, back in 2010, offered to interview you when your book was published, you can easily do so by searching your email.

2) Go through the remaining, relatively recent messages in your inbox one at a time, and dispose of them appropriately: reply, and/or file, delete, or report as spam. Again, this will take some time, but MUCH less time than tackling the original virtual stack. If there are any you're filing, but not opening to read because you already know what's in them, be sure to still use the "mark as read" option before filing them away. This will prevent your email system from showing you an alarming count of supposedly new, unread messages for each folder.

2a) Don't be afraid to create LOTS of folders. If you need to create a folder called "Reply After [date of your choosing]", by all means do so. Your goal is to get every single message out of your inbox, whether by replying, filing or deleting. Creating some folders with built-in action triggers in their titles, such as certain dates or events, can be very helpful, since you'll see those folders sitting right there on your email screen every day.

In December I received many emails related to cross-postings for Publetariat and already had content scheduled through the end of the year. Rather than let these emails sit in my inbox, where the old me would've reasoned, "How can I forget about these if I keep them in my inbox?", I created a folder called "Publetariat-Publish In Jan". Now I've got all the relevant emails collected in one handy spot. After everything from the folder's been published, I'll re-label the emails as "Publetariat - Contributors" and archive the messages permanently there.

Be sure to create folders for your personal emails, too. I have folders for "Family", "Shopping", each of my kids' schools, and plenty more.

3) Unsubscribe from any mailing lists that aren't really adding value to your life, or that, despite your best intentions, you know you never actually have the time to read. If there are some you just can't bear to part with, or don't want to unsubscribe from because they're from members of your network and you may need to refer to them at some point in the future, create a folder for each subscription and immediately mark each copy as "read" and file it when a new one comes in.

4) Gaze admiringly at your spiffy, EMPTY inbox and give yourself a pat on the back. And a cookie. You deserve it.

5) Going forward, every time you receive an email dispose of it on a same day basis: reply, and/or file, delete, or report as spam. Create new folders as needed, and dispose of the mail in your action-trigger folders when each trigger occurs.

You will find Inbox Zero becomes addictive. The presence of a mere 4-6 emails in your inbox will seem an unbearable clutter, and you'll long to see that inbox screen empty once again. But most importantly, you'll be back to taking care of business and done with letting important messages and opportunities fall through the cracks.

Overshare Is Now Available!

My new book, Overshare, went on sale in Amazon's Kindle store early this morning, and because it's such an unusual book and I'm really pulling out all the stops...okay, as many stops as I can...to get some momentum going with it early on, I'll be periodically reporting on its progress here.

I first introduced the book and offered a free excerpt from it here, so readers could see what's so unusual about it for themselves. In terms of promotion, I'm primarily focusing on two selling points for the book.

The first is that it's a new kind of ebook, and in that sense, experimental digital literature. On the strength of this aspect, I've reached out to influential bloggers whose area of focus is ebooks, new forms of digital media, and experimental lit with advance review copies. There's been plenty of talk around the interwebs lately from people asking when we're going to start seeing new kinds of digital "books", and when authors are going to start exploiting all the possibilities digital media have to offer. Overshare forms a direct response to those questions, and I'm hoping it will inspire some of these bloggers to discuss whether or not it succeeds in this regard, and why or why not.

The second selling point is the book's very timely and topical subject matter: online privacy as it relates to the use of social media. With recent security lapses on Facebook and the omnipresent news stories of online stalking and bullying, most people who use social media have some degree of concern about what they're putting online. Plenty of real and virtual ink has been spilled on email and social media account hacking as well, but Overshare focuses on a much more disturbing point: that in the course of ordinary use of social media, users typically expose far more about themselves and their lives than they realize or intend.

Due to their very nature, which is to encourage maximum communication and the creation of huge, linked networks of people, social media have the insidious (if unintentional) tendency to lure us into a false sense of privacy and security. Even if you never post any of your private or financial details online, Overshare demonstrates that people can tell much more about you and your life than you probably realize when they take in the full picture of your online activity: Facebook, twitter and blogging. Add some wish lists from Amazon or eBay, some Likes, your Friends lists and shared links, and a total stranger can know as much about you as most of your real-life friends do.

Remember how, as a teen, you'd get an instant and complete picture of a new friend the first time you stepped into his or her bedroom? The sum total of your social media picture is like your teenage self's bedroom, but scaled upward geometrically by the sheer volume of information you (and others) make available online about yourself and your life. I'm emphasizing this aspect of the book in reaching out to people who regularly use social media sites and also like to read. This is only the first day Overshare has been available for purchase, so there's not much else to tell at this point. Stay tuned...

My New "Book" - Overshare

At the bottom of this post, I've provided a link to a pdf excerpt containing the first five chapters of my new "book", Overshare.

For quite a while, many bloggers and digital media mavens have been asking when authors are going to start exploiting the possibilities ebook formats have to offer, and when they're going to start redefining the meaning of the word, "book". My new "book", Overshare, is my answer to those questions. I put "book" in quotes, because this novel takes a form unlike any other ebook you've ever read. I'm calling it a social media novel, because its content consists exclusively of simulated screen shots of the protagonist's public social media updates. This makes reading the book a voyeuristic experience, and has the added bonus of making the read lightning-fast since most of the content consists of images and one- to three-line status updates.

Through this book, I hope to explore today's omnipresent concerns about online security and privacy, and inspire the reader to re-examine his own use of public social media. Perhaps, just as my protagonist Michael Ayres, some readers will find they're revealing far more about what's going on in their lives than they intend. Here's that link to the first 5 chapters of Overshare in pdf format. The file is large, so please allow several seconds for it to load. Here's a link to buy the full book on Amazon.

Enjoy, and please do come back here to comment. Because this book is so different, I anxiously await any and all feedback. =')

I've Added My Indie Catalog to the Amazon Prime Lending Library

If you're an Amazon Prime member and you have a Kindle or Kindle Fire, you can now borrow any of my self-published Kindle books for free under the Amazon Prime Lending Library program!

Just turn on your Kindle or Fire, go to the Kindle Store, and look up Adelaide Einstein (comic fiction, chick lit), Snow Ball (dark, comic mystery), Shorts (collection of shorts and flash fiction) or From Concept to Community (nonfiction, about strategies for maximizing traffic for a new online community on a shoestring budget, using Publetariat.com as an example).

Here's a link to the Prime Lending Library page on Amazon, where you can get more information about the program and instructions for checking out and returning books.

I'll be adding my new book, Overshare, to this program when it's published, too.

Indie Author Guide Webinars!

I've been a guest speaker for numerous webinars and have found them to be an excellent way to deliver presentations. Now that my book, The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use, is coming up on its one year anniversary since release, many of you are hoping to get your books available for sale in Kindle format in time for the holidays, and thousands of folks will soon have completed NaNoWriMo manuscripts and will be looking for next steps, I've decided to launch a series of my own webinars.

The webinars will be offered online, and will be presented with a mix of presentation materials and live chat. No special equipment or phone-in will be required of attendees, and you don't even have to download any software!

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The foundation of my new webinar series is a free, monthly, hourlong Q&A session. This monthly webinar is intended to serve as a supplement to my book, and therefore questions based on specific content from the book will take precedence. However, anyone may attend to get answers to any questions they may have about self-publishing, ebooks, author platform and related topics. The first of these webinars is already scheduled for Sunday, October 2 from 6-7pm PST (9-10pm EST). Register for the free Oct. 2nd Q&A here.

I'm planning to continue this free, monthly Q&A webinar at the same time on the first Sunday of each month, and will promote each webinar in advance on Twitter, Facebook, here and elsewhere.

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In addition to the free, monthly Q&A, I'll be offering more in-depth, webinar training workshops on specific topics of interest to self-publishers.

First up, based on a high level of interest in the topic, will be a webinar on Simplified Kindle Publishing: Step By Step. In this webinar you can get plain English instructions in: how to get your manuscript properly formatted to meet Amazon's Kindle specifications, convert it to Kindle format using free conversion tools, preview the resulting Kindle book (with or without a Kindle) and what to do if there are problems in the file when you preview it.

This presentation is similar to the one I gave at the Writer's Digest Business of Getting Published conference earlier this year, but its content has been revised, simplified and brought totally up to date. If you've got intermediate or better Word skills (can apply paragraph formatting, know how to use Styles, know how to insert a Table of Contents), you can do this!

The registration fee of $24.99 admits you to the 90-minute webinar (approximately 60 minutes of instruction followed by a 30-minute Q&A), during which attendees will also be given access to a free, pdf download of the entire presentation. Why pay for professional conversion services when you can learn how to do it yourself for a fraction of the cost? Get your book out there in Kindle format in time for the holidays, and never pay for professional ebook formatting or conversion services again! This webinar will be held on Sunday, October 9 from 4-5:30pm PST (7-8:30pm EST).

You can register for the Simplified Kindle Publishing Workshop here. Don't delay, as registration is limited to 100 participants. For those who can't attend at the scheduled time, a recording of the webinar will be made available at a discounted price after the presentation.

NOTE: the instruction given in the Kindle Publishing webinar will be specific to Windows PC users, please do not register for it if you are a Mac or Linux user.

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The next webinar workshop will be on the topic of Leveraging Amazon: a survey of all the free marketing and platform tools Amazon offers its authors, how best to use them, and step by step instructions for setting up your Amazon Author page. This webinar will be offered in November, details to follow.

Additional, upcoming webinar workshop topics will include Getting Started With Author Platform, Getting Started With Social Media, and Low- and No-Cost Book Marketing Opportunities. Again, details to be posted here as they become available.

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I'm very excited about this great opportunity to provide you with the tools and skills needed to self-publish and promote your books as effectively as possible, and hope to "meet" many of you in my webinars soon!

Keep Your Characters In The Driver's Seat

Have you ever been watching a movie or reading a book in which a character does or says something that doesn't fit with who that character has been set up to be, and you're left annoyed, wondering why the character behaved or spoke as such? And then the plot continues cranking right along, and if the story's very funny or involving, or there are lots of explosions and cool special effects, you keep watching or reading, but with lower expectations. This is what happens when plot drives character, instead of the other way around.

A common example of this problem is the story that would never get off the starting blocks at all, were it not for some illogical action on the protagonist's part. Otherwise level-headed and pragmatic CPA Polly suddenly decides to ditch the security and status she's come to love in her career, move to the other side of the country and open a cupcake shop---not because she's always yearned to be more of a free spirit, dreamed of being a professional baker, has always wanted to move far away, or any other good reason based in logic or her life cicumstances, but because doing these things will open the door to a series of madcap adventures and romance with a cute industrial restaurant supply sales rep who lives in the new city.

You might wonder why the author doesn't just start the tale in the new location, with Polly getting settled in and looking for a good retail bakery space. The author thinks, in beginning with Polly's 'old' life, he's setting up the necessary background to create a "fish out of water" story and demonstrate an arc of character growth. But in reality, unless there's some very compelling reason for Polly to uproot herself in this way, her behavior and choices read more like authorial convenience than growth.

Perhaps even more annoying is the character who's been well-established, whom you've come to like and root for, right up to the point he does something that makes no sense whatsoever. Suddenly, this fully-realized, three-dimensional person becomes a puppet on a string, being forced to go through certain motions to get the reader or viewer to the next major plot point.

In a thriller, the sweet, kind, but mousy library clerk who's normally scared to walk to the parking lot alone at night nevertheless ventures into the dark basement alone when he hears a strange noise from the top of the stairs. In a sci fi novel, the by-the-book researcher who finds his lab has been breached doesn't report it to the proper authorities, but decides to launch his own, private investigation instead. In a romance, the strong-willed, self-sufficient, feminist heroine melts into a needy puddle of damp lace doilies at the sight of her beloved. In a mystery, the clever and resourceful hero could resolve a case of mistaken identity with a single phone call to one person, yet somehow the idea never occurs to him. I could go on, but do you really want me to?

The reason why this is so irritating to the reader or viewer is that our estimation of a story's believability is based on how well it jibes with our own, real-life experiences and knowledge. Even in a fantasy or sci fi story, we want the behavior of human and humanoid characters to match up with what we know of real-life people. And in real life, character ALWAYS drives plot.

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Every choice that every real person makes every day is a product of who that person is. His motivations, goals, fears, desires, etc. are all rooted in his background and lifetime of experiences to date, and it's his motivations, goals, fears, desires, etc. that dictate his actions.

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The cure for the author-as-puppeteer syndrome is to begin with well-drawn characters, and then keep asking yourself, "Given who she is, what would this character do when confronted with these circumstances?" as opposed to, "What does this character need to do or say to get the story to the next major plot point?" Even in an intricately-plotted novel, characters should never act...well, out of character.

I tend to start with a character and a set of challenging or unusual circumstances, and let character dictate plot. Whatever I believe the character would do next is exactly what happens. If you're going to begin with plot, then you probably need to work backward: rather than creating the character and then asking yourself what she needs to do or say to get to the next plot point, start with an assumption that the character is going to do or say whatever is necessary for the sake of plot, then ask yourself what kind of character would do or say that thing. In so doing, you create the illusion that character is driving plot.