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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
What To Do With Your Stale-Dated Prose
Ah, progress. Had telephones existed in Verona of old, Romeo and Juliet would've been able to synchronize their plans perfectly and avoid all that mistaken suicide business. Consider the movie, It's A Wonderful Life: if security cameras had been mounted in the Bedford Falls Building and Loan, George Bailey and his scatterbrained Uncle Billy would've known in a matter of hours what became of the missing $8,000, and Clarence the apprentice angel would've had to find another way to earn his wings. Underwater radar and GPS technologies could've reduced Moby Dick to a short story. My point is, changes in technology and social norms can eliminate certain kinds of problems and conflicts, create previously unforeseen problems and conflicts, and more generally affect the way people behave.
Many writers and authors are jumping into the indie fray these days, dusting off old manuscripts and shorts that have yet to find a home with a traditional publisher, giving them a cursory once-over and forging ahead with indie publication. I applaud these efforts, and hope they continue. But a word of warning: that pre-publication once-over needs to a be a bit more thorough if your material is contemporary, but more than a few years old.
If your upper-middle-class dad gets lost when he hits the road in his brand-new SUV, the reader will be wondering why he doesn't just use his car's (or phone's) GPS to get back on track. Similarly, if your characters' pop culture references include The Oprah Winfrey Show and the post-divorce exploits of Lady Di, those references are dated and the reader will notice.
You may think, "So what if the reader becomes aware at some point that the book was written years ago; it's not like they're going to stop reading it, or think it's a bad book just because of that." I don't disagree, but with all the distractions of the modern world's wonderland of electronics, technology, social media and noise of all kinds, it's already a big enough challenge to get and keep your reader's attention. Anything that takes the reader out of your story world for any reason is to be avoided, even if it's only for the moment or two it takes the reader to mentally observe, "Nobody uses Thomas Guide road map books anymore; this story must've been written a long time ago." Far worse for the reader is the supposedly contemporary story in which the central conflict or source of tension would be easily eliminated with some modern (and common) convenience or other, like caller ID or the internet.
However, stale-dated prose doesn't necessarily require an extensive rewrite. It just calls for the author to manage reader expectations. The simplest fix is to insert subtle cues and signposts in the beginning pages that will let the reader know your story takes place in the recent past. This may be as simple as editing to highlight the anachronisms, rather than merely observing them in passing. If you make a point of the fact that your protagonist works in the Twin Towers in New York, the reader will immediately know the story must take place prior to 9/11/2001 and therefore won't expect to find anything that happened, was invented, or was popularized after that year.
Stories that were intended to be of-the-moment when they were written will probably require a more extensive edit to update or eliminate dated references. For example, your story about the impending doom of Y2K will no longer work as the straightforward thriller you had in mind when you wrote it. You can either take it in the direction of satire or comedy, or change the threat to something people are still worried about today: 2012, anyone?
Finally, don't lose sight of editorial repercussions. If you decide to change your protagonist's paranoia about Y2K to paranoia about 2012 for example, make sure you update all such references throughout the manuscript to maintain consistency.
Many writers and authors are jumping into the indie fray these days, dusting off old manuscripts and shorts that have yet to find a home with a traditional publisher, giving them a cursory once-over and forging ahead with indie publication. I applaud these efforts, and hope they continue. But a word of warning: that pre-publication once-over needs to a be a bit more thorough if your material is contemporary, but more than a few years old.
If your upper-middle-class dad gets lost when he hits the road in his brand-new SUV, the reader will be wondering why he doesn't just use his car's (or phone's) GPS to get back on track. Similarly, if your characters' pop culture references include The Oprah Winfrey Show and the post-divorce exploits of Lady Di, those references are dated and the reader will notice.
You may think, "So what if the reader becomes aware at some point that the book was written years ago; it's not like they're going to stop reading it, or think it's a bad book just because of that." I don't disagree, but with all the distractions of the modern world's wonderland of electronics, technology, social media and noise of all kinds, it's already a big enough challenge to get and keep your reader's attention. Anything that takes the reader out of your story world for any reason is to be avoided, even if it's only for the moment or two it takes the reader to mentally observe, "Nobody uses Thomas Guide road map books anymore; this story must've been written a long time ago." Far worse for the reader is the supposedly contemporary story in which the central conflict or source of tension would be easily eliminated with some modern (and common) convenience or other, like caller ID or the internet.
However, stale-dated prose doesn't necessarily require an extensive rewrite. It just calls for the author to manage reader expectations. The simplest fix is to insert subtle cues and signposts in the beginning pages that will let the reader know your story takes place in the recent past. This may be as simple as editing to highlight the anachronisms, rather than merely observing them in passing. If you make a point of the fact that your protagonist works in the Twin Towers in New York, the reader will immediately know the story must take place prior to 9/11/2001 and therefore won't expect to find anything that happened, was invented, or was popularized after that year.
Stories that were intended to be of-the-moment when they were written will probably require a more extensive edit to update or eliminate dated references. For example, your story about the impending doom of Y2K will no longer work as the straightforward thriller you had in mind when you wrote it. You can either take it in the direction of satire or comedy, or change the threat to something people are still worried about today: 2012, anyone?
Finally, don't lose sight of editorial repercussions. If you decide to change your protagonist's paranoia about Y2K to paranoia about 2012 for example, make sure you update all such references throughout the manuscript to maintain consistency.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Publisher, Sell To Thyself!
I'm always astounded by the hard-sell and oversell antics of some indie authors. While I often advise indie authors that they must be able to take off their Author hat and put on a Publisher hat, the thing is, no matter which of those two hats they're wearing they should always have a Reader beanie on underneath.
While I wouldn't ever advise a writer to engineer his or her fiction to suit a given demographic, this is definitely required when it comes to nonfiction. You must do this in order to identify your target audience and ensure your book contains the information or reference material that audience will want. But having said that, I'll go on to say that even fiction authors---even literary fiction authors---would do well to give a thought to the reader as they lovingly craft their prose. You want to see your vision brought to vivid life on the page, certainly, but you don't want to confuse or bore your readers in the process.
It's even more critical to keep your Reader beanie on nice and snug when you go to don your Publisher hat. This is necessary because among other things, you still must identify your target audience, regardless of whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, in order to develop an efficient and effective marketing plan. You need to figure out who's most likely to be interested in your book, and where and how to reach those people. But this doesn't mean that once you've done so, you should go all full-bore, Mad Men, Marketing Exec From Hell on them.
Author and Publisher you may be, but you're also still a human being and a consumer. You still shake your head in annoyance at the pile of junk mail, junk email, junk fax and even junk Facebook and Twitter flowing into your life on a daily basis, don't you? So why on Earth would you ever risk being counted among the purveyors of that junk?
How is it possible that the Author who chuckles to herself at over-the-top marketing hype in advertisements for weight loss aids will nevertheless splatter "MY BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!" in gigantic, flashing red letters two inches tall on her author website?
How can the Author who complains about all the pointless piano-playing cat videos his Facebook friends post to his wall go on to blast all his Twitter followers with twice-daily reminders of his book's current availability and sales rank on Amazon?
Why does the Author who's sick of all the spam comments left on her blog turn around and post a so-called review of someone else's book in which she devotes as much time to plugging her own book as talking about the book she's supposedly reviewing?
Yes, you must get the word out about your book. But you most do so with some consideration for the people on the receiving end. When in doubt about a given tactic you're about to employ, put yourself in the shoes of a non-writing, non-publishing, ordinary consumer and imagine how your tactic will be received under those circumstances. Don't overthink it, just go back to the Golden Rule: advertise how you'd want to be advertised to.
While I wouldn't ever advise a writer to engineer his or her fiction to suit a given demographic, this is definitely required when it comes to nonfiction. You must do this in order to identify your target audience and ensure your book contains the information or reference material that audience will want. But having said that, I'll go on to say that even fiction authors---even literary fiction authors---would do well to give a thought to the reader as they lovingly craft their prose. You want to see your vision brought to vivid life on the page, certainly, but you don't want to confuse or bore your readers in the process.
It's even more critical to keep your Reader beanie on nice and snug when you go to don your Publisher hat. This is necessary because among other things, you still must identify your target audience, regardless of whether your book is fiction or nonfiction, in order to develop an efficient and effective marketing plan. You need to figure out who's most likely to be interested in your book, and where and how to reach those people. But this doesn't mean that once you've done so, you should go all full-bore, Mad Men, Marketing Exec From Hell on them.
Author and Publisher you may be, but you're also still a human being and a consumer. You still shake your head in annoyance at the pile of junk mail, junk email, junk fax and even junk Facebook and Twitter flowing into your life on a daily basis, don't you? So why on Earth would you ever risk being counted among the purveyors of that junk?
How is it possible that the Author who chuckles to herself at over-the-top marketing hype in advertisements for weight loss aids will nevertheless splatter "MY BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!" in gigantic, flashing red letters two inches tall on her author website?
How can the Author who complains about all the pointless piano-playing cat videos his Facebook friends post to his wall go on to blast all his Twitter followers with twice-daily reminders of his book's current availability and sales rank on Amazon?
Why does the Author who's sick of all the spam comments left on her blog turn around and post a so-called review of someone else's book in which she devotes as much time to plugging her own book as talking about the book she's supposedly reviewing?
Yes, you must get the word out about your book. But you most do so with some consideration for the people on the receiving end. When in doubt about a given tactic you're about to employ, put yourself in the shoes of a non-writing, non-publishing, ordinary consumer and imagine how your tactic will be received under those circumstances. Don't overthink it, just go back to the Golden Rule: advertise how you'd want to be advertised to.
Monday, July 25, 2011
6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid
Dialogue is an area where many writers struggle. This is pretty ironic when you consider that words are writers' stock in trade, and unless a given writer is mute, he or she has been plying that trade since about the age of eleven months. Yet while most of us communicate normally and without much difficulty in our everyday lives, for some reason many of us have a tendency to go all flowery, choppy, melodramatic or wooden when it comes time to put words in our characters' mouths. Avoiding the following dialogue traps will go a long way toward making your dialogue more natural and believable.
1. No two people talk exactly the same. In believable stories, as in life, each person will have his or her own rhythms of speech, pet phrases and regional or family expressions. This doesn't mean each character should broadcast his geographic or cultural background with every sentence, however. It just means that if, by about a quarter of the way through the book, a reader can't tell your characters apart merely based on their dialogue, you haven't made each character's "voice" distinctive. The important thing here is to be subtle when drawing those distinctions. If you're not sure what this means or how to go about it, here's an exercise to try: the next time you're in a crowded, public place, pay attention to the bits and pieces of conversation floating all around you. Notice how different people express the same thoughts differently.
For example, where one person might say, "I called Sally," another might say, "I phoned Sally," or, "I rang Sally." Where Joe (in his forties) says, "That whole night was a waste of time," Jake (a twentysomething) might say, "Two words: epic fail," and Steve (an ex-military man) might say, "FUBAR, all the way, man." Thinking about your characters' backgrounds, histories, and even biases and motivations when constructing their dialogue will help in making their voices distinct from one another.
2. Life is not a movie. While heated exchanges, adamant diatribes and weepy heart-to-hearts all have their bit to contribute in various stories, they should be used sparingly if you don't want your novel to read like a soap opera script. If you're prone to succumb to melodrama in your dialogue, try reading it aloud. If the words feel or sound unnatural coming out of your own mouth, they shouldn't be coming out of your characters' mouths, either. Of course there's some wiggle room here if you're writing something historical, a fantasy, sci-fi, or anything else with purposely unusual language.
3. Men and women communicate differently. This really boils down to a single, simple concept. Speaking in gross generalizations, the masculine communication style is based on utility, whereas the feminine communication style is about socialization.
In the masculine, words are used to accomplish some goal. The goal is usually imparting necessary---and that word, "necessary", is key here---information, but it can also be to quickly size up a person or situation, or to establish or reinforce the pecking order (e.g., teasing). Generally speaking, believable masculine characters talk less than feminine characters, and get to the point pretty quickly. With feminine characters, a given conversation need not have an intrinsic point: the point of the conversation may simply be for the feminine characters to hear and be heard, and feel validated by one another as a result. But having said that, I'd caution against too much mutual navel-gazing on the part of your feminine characters, lest you bore your readers.
4. In general, the words should not draw attention to themselves. Dialogue should never take your reader out of the story, for any reason. If your reader must reach for a dictionary or fire up some device that has access to Wikipedia in order to understand what the heck that character is talking about, that reader is being pulled out of the story world.
While particularly intellectual characters may employ five-dollar words at times, try to err on the side of conservatism in that area. If you can substitute a word or phrase that's better-known, though still only rarely used in everyday conversation, make the change. Similarly, if a given character wants everyone to think she's worldly and well-traveled she may pepper her speech with foreign words, and that's appropriate. Just make sure the foreign words are familiar to most readers, or that their meaning is adequately conveyed through context.
5. Dialogue that's used for exposition will sound stilted 99.99% of the time---so don't do it! As a general guideline, characters should NEVER say things to one another only for the purpose of conveying necessary information or background to the reader. If a given character might just as well open his bit of talking with, "Well, since the reader probably doesn't know anything about particle physics, let me give you a thumbnail sketch of string theory," then you're doing something wrong. Find a way to get the expository into your story in other ways: through actions, settings, and so on. Consider the following example.
Michael was physically and mentally abused for years at the hands of his mother and as a result, he has a great deal of trouble extending trust to any females. This history informs the character and actions of Michael, but is not a central focus of the story at hand. When Michael visits a new girlfriend's home for the first time, one writer might include a confrontation between the two characters in which the girlfriend voices concerns about Michael's unwillingness to open up to her and Michael responds by spilling his guts about his mother. A better writer will have Michael flinch when the girlfriend removes her belt while changing out of her work clothes, when she playfully quotes an overbearing female movie or TV character, or when she reaches for the knife block while preparing dinner, and then have the girlfriend notice this.
6. When in doubt, read it out...loud. This goes back to trap #2, but it bears repeating.
1. No two people talk exactly the same. In believable stories, as in life, each person will have his or her own rhythms of speech, pet phrases and regional or family expressions. This doesn't mean each character should broadcast his geographic or cultural background with every sentence, however. It just means that if, by about a quarter of the way through the book, a reader can't tell your characters apart merely based on their dialogue, you haven't made each character's "voice" distinctive. The important thing here is to be subtle when drawing those distinctions. If you're not sure what this means or how to go about it, here's an exercise to try: the next time you're in a crowded, public place, pay attention to the bits and pieces of conversation floating all around you. Notice how different people express the same thoughts differently.
For example, where one person might say, "I called Sally," another might say, "I phoned Sally," or, "I rang Sally." Where Joe (in his forties) says, "That whole night was a waste of time," Jake (a twentysomething) might say, "Two words: epic fail," and Steve (an ex-military man) might say, "FUBAR, all the way, man." Thinking about your characters' backgrounds, histories, and even biases and motivations when constructing their dialogue will help in making their voices distinct from one another.
2. Life is not a movie. While heated exchanges, adamant diatribes and weepy heart-to-hearts all have their bit to contribute in various stories, they should be used sparingly if you don't want your novel to read like a soap opera script. If you're prone to succumb to melodrama in your dialogue, try reading it aloud. If the words feel or sound unnatural coming out of your own mouth, they shouldn't be coming out of your characters' mouths, either. Of course there's some wiggle room here if you're writing something historical, a fantasy, sci-fi, or anything else with purposely unusual language.
3. Men and women communicate differently. This really boils down to a single, simple concept. Speaking in gross generalizations, the masculine communication style is based on utility, whereas the feminine communication style is about socialization.
In the masculine, words are used to accomplish some goal. The goal is usually imparting necessary---and that word, "necessary", is key here---information, but it can also be to quickly size up a person or situation, or to establish or reinforce the pecking order (e.g., teasing). Generally speaking, believable masculine characters talk less than feminine characters, and get to the point pretty quickly. With feminine characters, a given conversation need not have an intrinsic point: the point of the conversation may simply be for the feminine characters to hear and be heard, and feel validated by one another as a result. But having said that, I'd caution against too much mutual navel-gazing on the part of your feminine characters, lest you bore your readers.
4. In general, the words should not draw attention to themselves. Dialogue should never take your reader out of the story, for any reason. If your reader must reach for a dictionary or fire up some device that has access to Wikipedia in order to understand what the heck that character is talking about, that reader is being pulled out of the story world.
While particularly intellectual characters may employ five-dollar words at times, try to err on the side of conservatism in that area. If you can substitute a word or phrase that's better-known, though still only rarely used in everyday conversation, make the change. Similarly, if a given character wants everyone to think she's worldly and well-traveled she may pepper her speech with foreign words, and that's appropriate. Just make sure the foreign words are familiar to most readers, or that their meaning is adequately conveyed through context.
5. Dialogue that's used for exposition will sound stilted 99.99% of the time---so don't do it! As a general guideline, characters should NEVER say things to one another only for the purpose of conveying necessary information or background to the reader. If a given character might just as well open his bit of talking with, "Well, since the reader probably doesn't know anything about particle physics, let me give you a thumbnail sketch of string theory," then you're doing something wrong. Find a way to get the expository into your story in other ways: through actions, settings, and so on. Consider the following example.
Michael was physically and mentally abused for years at the hands of his mother and as a result, he has a great deal of trouble extending trust to any females. This history informs the character and actions of Michael, but is not a central focus of the story at hand. When Michael visits a new girlfriend's home for the first time, one writer might include a confrontation between the two characters in which the girlfriend voices concerns about Michael's unwillingness to open up to her and Michael responds by spilling his guts about his mother. A better writer will have Michael flinch when the girlfriend removes her belt while changing out of her work clothes, when she playfully quotes an overbearing female movie or TV character, or when she reaches for the knife block while preparing dinner, and then have the girlfriend notice this.
6. When in doubt, read it out...loud. This goes back to trap #2, but it bears repeating.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Can The Subscription Model Work For Trade Publishers?
I recently read a Slate article about how the film industry is repeating the DRM and business model mistakes of the music industry, and of course saw many parallels with, and implications for, trade publishing in it. But unlike the film and music industries, Big Pub has plenty more market and cultural shifts to contend with these days than just the rising popularity and availability of digital media.
The once-mighty Borders has failed, proving once and for all that brick and mortar is no longer the ace in the hole it once seemed for trade publishers. Authors, established and aspiring alike, are seeing fewer and fewer reasons to partner with trade publishers now that it's become clear they can get their work to a readership more quickly, keep control of their intellectual property rights, and earn higher royalties to boot by going indie. As if to add insult to injury, Amazon seems poised to eat whatever's left of Big Publishing's lunch after everyone else has had a go at the trough. But it occurred to me that there may yet be some unexplored and promising territory for Big Pub, if they're willing to entertain an unorthodox idea: a subscription model of ebook content delivery.
Much like Gamefly and O'Reilly's Safari Books Online, major publishers could offer a monthly, flat-fee subscription service for book-at-a-time access to all their ebook titles in various ereader formats. Note that I said access, not ownership. It would be a rental-type paradigm, and like Gamefly and Netflix could be offered at various pricing tiers according to how many titles the consumer is allowed to have checked out at any given time. Such a plan would enable publishers to maintain steady, ongoing revenue streams in addition to their existing sales channels, and would allow publishers to do an end-run around Amazon, B&N's Nook store, and Apple's iBookstore, too.
Perhaps just as importantly, it would allow publishers to gracefully exit the ebook pricing, DRM and staged release debacles of the past, and finally be seen as offering a valuable service to consumers instead of being the big, greedy bad guys.
Gamefly charges the equivalent of the cost of one new game at retail prices for its basic subscription; trade publishers could do the same. At $10 - $15 per month I think plenty of avid ebook readers would be willing to sign up, because they're probably already buying at least one ebook at retail prices each month.
There are only 5 major players left in trade publishing, so even if you had to 'subscribe' to all 5 of them individually (since it's not likely they'd form some kind of collective service), you're still only talking approximately the same monthly fee as what plenty of people are already paying for their Gamefly accounts.
While publishers would lose money on accounts signed to voracious readers who currently buy numerous ebooks every month at retail prices, those folks are outliers. Most people I know don't buy ebooks at that rate, and most people I know don't read more than one book a month, either. Also, there would surely be a large contingent of people who sign up fully intending to wring their money's worth out of the subscription fee, but ultimately end up 'checking out' a book only every second or third month. Once you know the books are there for the taking any time, there's no urgency.
If you subscribe to Netflix, Gamefly or even a health club, you're probably personally acquainted with this phenomenon. I say this while gazing ruefully at the Netflix DVD I've had checked out for nearly four months now. Yep, I've paid the monthly fee for that movie three times over, and in fact could've bought the DVD for less than I've paid for this rental by now. But I still have no intention of cancelling my Netflix subscription because it's a convenience I'm willing to pay for. And maybe someday I really will end up checking out a new movie every few days, like I imagined I'd be doing when I first signed up.
Yes, there are technological hurdles to be overcome. And yes, there will be some considerable startup effort and investment. But those things are true of any new business model trade publishers might try to adopt. And heaven knows, the model they've currently got is no longer working so they're going to have to try something.
The once-mighty Borders has failed, proving once and for all that brick and mortar is no longer the ace in the hole it once seemed for trade publishers. Authors, established and aspiring alike, are seeing fewer and fewer reasons to partner with trade publishers now that it's become clear they can get their work to a readership more quickly, keep control of their intellectual property rights, and earn higher royalties to boot by going indie. As if to add insult to injury, Amazon seems poised to eat whatever's left of Big Publishing's lunch after everyone else has had a go at the trough. But it occurred to me that there may yet be some unexplored and promising territory for Big Pub, if they're willing to entertain an unorthodox idea: a subscription model of ebook content delivery.
Much like Gamefly and O'Reilly's Safari Books Online, major publishers could offer a monthly, flat-fee subscription service for book-at-a-time access to all their ebook titles in various ereader formats. Note that I said access, not ownership. It would be a rental-type paradigm, and like Gamefly and Netflix could be offered at various pricing tiers according to how many titles the consumer is allowed to have checked out at any given time. Such a plan would enable publishers to maintain steady, ongoing revenue streams in addition to their existing sales channels, and would allow publishers to do an end-run around Amazon, B&N's Nook store, and Apple's iBookstore, too.
Perhaps just as importantly, it would allow publishers to gracefully exit the ebook pricing, DRM and staged release debacles of the past, and finally be seen as offering a valuable service to consumers instead of being the big, greedy bad guys.
Gamefly charges the equivalent of the cost of one new game at retail prices for its basic subscription; trade publishers could do the same. At $10 - $15 per month I think plenty of avid ebook readers would be willing to sign up, because they're probably already buying at least one ebook at retail prices each month.
There are only 5 major players left in trade publishing, so even if you had to 'subscribe' to all 5 of them individually (since it's not likely they'd form some kind of collective service), you're still only talking approximately the same monthly fee as what plenty of people are already paying for their Gamefly accounts.
While publishers would lose money on accounts signed to voracious readers who currently buy numerous ebooks every month at retail prices, those folks are outliers. Most people I know don't buy ebooks at that rate, and most people I know don't read more than one book a month, either. Also, there would surely be a large contingent of people who sign up fully intending to wring their money's worth out of the subscription fee, but ultimately end up 'checking out' a book only every second or third month. Once you know the books are there for the taking any time, there's no urgency.
If you subscribe to Netflix, Gamefly or even a health club, you're probably personally acquainted with this phenomenon. I say this while gazing ruefully at the Netflix DVD I've had checked out for nearly four months now. Yep, I've paid the monthly fee for that movie three times over, and in fact could've bought the DVD for less than I've paid for this rental by now. But I still have no intention of cancelling my Netflix subscription because it's a convenience I'm willing to pay for. And maybe someday I really will end up checking out a new movie every few days, like I imagined I'd be doing when I first signed up.
Yes, there are technological hurdles to be overcome. And yes, there will be some considerable startup effort and investment. But those things are true of any new business model trade publishers might try to adopt. And heaven knows, the model they've currently got is no longer working so they're going to have to try something.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Indie Author Mailbag: "Can you tell me the best way to ensure the success of my book?"
In a word, no.
If I've said it once, I've said it too many times to count:
There is no one-size-fits-all, by-the-numbers success formula for indie authors. There is no specific template or blueprint that will guarantee lasting sales or readership for any book.
Assuming for the moment that your indie book is exceptionally well-written, immaculately edited and sports a compelling cover, it's just a matter of getting the word out about it and pricing it reasonably, right? Wrong.
Every author is different, every book is different, and every sales climate is different. Consider the (originally self-published) book which launched me into a life of publishing punditry and activism, The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use
. This was clearly a simple case of the right book at the right time. Writer's Digest Books was happy to pick up the rights and republish the book in a revised edition because interest in self-publishing is at an all-time high right now and they viewed it as the only truly comprehensive how-to, nuts-and-bolts book on the subject.
Yep, all you need do is figure out what the majority of the Western world's populace will be interested in at a given point in time, create a work or product that serves that interest, time the release of the work to coincide with when interest in its content will be approaching a peak, and then make sure as many people as possible know the work exists.
If I've said it once, I've said it too many times to count:
There is no one-size-fits-all, by-the-numbers success formula for indie authors. There is no specific template or blueprint that will guarantee lasting sales or readership for any book.
Assuming for the moment that your indie book is exceptionally well-written, immaculately edited and sports a compelling cover, it's just a matter of getting the word out about it and pricing it reasonably, right? Wrong.
Every author is different, every book is different, and every sales climate is different. Consider the (originally self-published) book which launched me into a life of publishing punditry and activism, The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use
. This was clearly a simple case of the right book at the right time. Writer's Digest Books was happy to pick up the rights and republish the book in a revised edition because interest in self-publishing is at an all-time high right now and they viewed it as the only truly comprehensive how-to, nuts-and-bolts book on the subject.Had I self-published the same book just five years ago, neither Writer's Digest Books nor any other mainstream publisher would've been interested in picking it up. The self-published edition of the book wouldn't have been very successful either since self-publishing was widely viewed as a fringe activity up until about two years ago, engendering dismissal at one end of the opinion spectrum and open scorn and ridicule at the other.
Let's take a look at some of the supposedly surefire success strategies for indie authors, as they apply to this book and my other, still indie novels.
1. If You Build A Quality Author Platform, You'll Succeed.
I cannot deny that for anyone seeking a mainstream publishing contract, platform is key. Mainstream publishers want to see a pre-existing audience, and the potential to grow that audience exponentially. However, even for me, a retired software engineer with web developer skills of considerable sophistication, no amount of web presence or social networking savvy would've made my book a success five years ago. Even today, no amount of platform quantity or quality would make my book a success if it were poorly written or didn't contain the specific information the target audience wants and needs.
With respect to my novels, platform has not, in and of itself, made much of an impact. Not only do I have a custom, professionally-designed author website, I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, I'm the founder and Editor in Chief of Publetariat.com, I'm a Technorati BlogCritic, on the Board of Directors for the Association of Independent Authors, and...well, I won't bore you with the rest of this litany. Yet despite all this "visibility" and "web presence", my novels only do fair-to-middling business unless I'm actively and specifically promoting them. Why? Because the bulk of my platform activity pertains to serving the needs of self-publishing authors, not readers in general.
So yes, platform is important. But just getting your name and face and the titles of your books out there isn't enough. Your platform activities must be targeted, with each piece of the platform puzzle helping to support the others. At this point, if sales of my novels were to become a priority for me, I'd launch a secondary platform strategy just for them because I know my established audience for The Indie Author Guide is more or less indifferent to my novels.
2. If You Price Your Kindle Books At .99, You'll Succeed.
All of my indie Kindle books have been priced at .99 for over a month now, in a kind of pricing experiment of my own devising. Sales have ticked upward a bit, but not dramatically. It's definitely worth experimenting with different price points on your Kindle or Nook book, since it's easy and low-risk to do so, and you can see (and interpret) results of price changes pretty quickly. But it's a mistake to think that a .99 pricetag is the shortest distance between you and blockbuster sales.
3. If You Make Your Books Available In As Many Formats And On As Many Sites As Possible, You'll Succeed.
My novels are listed on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, Createspace, Scribd, GoodReads, Shelfari, LibraryThing, and Audible.com, covering the spectrum from hard-copy through ebooks and even audiobooks. Yet no one on the NYT Bestseller list is quaking in his boots from fear of me and my novels. Sales of The Indie Author Guide, on the other hand, have benefitted greatly from the book's visibility across multiple bookseller and book review outlets. Its availability through the Writer's Digest Book Club has made a big difference as well.
Yes, it's important to get your work out there and available through as many outlets as are feasible; just don't assume that doing so will guarantee significant sales growth.
4. If You Get A Lot Of Good Amazon Reviews, You'll Succeed.
My indie novel, Adelaide Einstein
When both books were first published in 2008, Adelaide Einstein sold better than Snow Ball. Now it's just the opposite. I can only speculate as to why, but if pressed, I'd say that the chick-lit and hen-lit genres into which Adelaide fits are somewhat played out, whereas the mystery genre to which Snow Ball belongs is less trendy. It could also be that Snow Ball's darker tone of humor is more appealing to readers in these trying economic and social times.
5. If You Do All Of The Above, You'll Succeed.
I'm already doing all of the above, and my novels aren't doing gangbuster business. But that doesn't mean the work and time I've spent on all of the above was (or is) a pointless waste.
Since you've read this far, I'll share a little secret with you. There actually IS a surefire success strategy that works equally well for any book, movie, game or music release. And here it is:
Capture the zeitgeist in your work, then maximize
your work's exposure.
Yep, all you need do is figure out what the majority of the Western world's populace will be interested in at a given point in time, create a work or product that serves that interest, time the release of the work to coincide with when interest in its content will be approaching a peak, and then make sure as many people as possible know the work exists.
It's that first part that's the tricky bit, the whole "right book at the right time" part. Then, for fiction at least, there's the matter of actually caring enough about the work to imbue it with passion and soul. But even if the Fates smile upon you, you actually have the right book at the right time and it's filled to bursting with passion and soul, the second part of the equation is just as important: maximizing exposure. So while none of the supposedly surefire success strategies is any such thing for books in general, couple the right book with the right time and #5 above, and you're well on your way.
Unfortunately, since you can't know if you've captured the zeitgeist until after your book is published and you've maximized its exposure, you're pretty much stuck working every exposure and sales angle you can to find out. And even if your book hasn't exactly captured the zeitgeist, if it's a quality book in a broad-based genre, there's no reason you can't drum up respectable sales and interest through your efforts. But it will be an effort, you will have to pursue every promotional avenue available to you (given your personal time, skill and financial constraints), and there's just no way around that.
If you're looking for shortcuts or get rich quick schemes, you're in the wrong business.
Friday, June 3, 2011
All The Cool Kids Are Doing It
Self-publishing, that is. Or at least, it can seem so. There are the breakthrough success stories at one end of the spectrum, bitter tales of sales disappointment at the other, and between the two, a generous smattering of testimonials from indie authors who aren't earning enough to quit their day jobs yet but are covering the rent or groceries each month with proceeds from their book sales. Suddenly, if you're not releasing a Kindle or Nook edition at the minimum, you feel like you're missing out on a huge opportunity. The pressure to rush to market is great, but you must resist it until both you and your book are truly ready for prime time.
Is Your Platform In Place, Focused and Growing?
Releasing your book before you've made it easy for readers to connect with you online, whether via a blog, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or an author website, is a big mistake. Readers have come to expect authors to have an online presence of some sort, and not having one paints you and your book as a bit more fly by night.
I'm not saying prospective buyers will check for platform before making a purchase decision, but platform is what spreads the message about you and your work, pulling more and more readers into your fold and making those readers feel you care about their reaction to your work. Building a community around your work makes each subsequent book easier to promote, and creates a cheerleading section that will do a fair amount of promotion for you.
Is Your Book Still In Beta Test, Or Should It Be?
If you just completed your draft a week ago, I don't care who you are or how fantastic a writer you are, it's not ready to be published. Don't scrimp on the workshopping and rounds of critique, and don't let your sense of urgency about publication color your rewrite decisions.
Let's say the majority of your workshop/critique readers agree the second act needs a major overhaul, and a certain character needs to either be significantly expanded or cut entirely. Your heart sinks as you realize you're staring down the barrel of six weeks or more of rewrites, followed by another round of review, which pushes your publication date back by three months or more. It can be very easy to become so focused on your target publication date that you give short shrift to any feedback that could possibly interfere with that date.
Just keep reminding yourself: releasing a book that's not ready will lose sales and fans. And if it's your first book, readers aren't likely to give you a second chance. There's just too much else out there for them to choose from, and at bargain prices.
Have You Succumbed To The "Good Enoughs"?
Your manuscript is all formatted for print or ebook publication, and for the most part, it looks great. There are some inconsistencies in your formatting, like maybe most passages written in the voice of your protagonist's deceased son are italicized as you've intended, but a few have been left in standard type. Maybe most of your paragraphs begin with a .25" indent but non-indented paragraphs are scattered here and there. Maybe most of your line spacing is 1.15, but here and there you've lapsed into 1.5, and it's barely noticeable. Readers don't care about these things, right? Most of the book's formatting is correct and consistent, and that's good enough, right? Wrong.
You know a quality cover will elevate your book above the crowd, but you have no art or typography skills to speak of, don't have the money to pay top dollar for a professional design and don't have the time to search out a freelance artist you can afford. So you get your artsy sister to create a cover image for you, and it may not look like a slick mainstream cover but it's not bad. It doesn't scream "my sister designed this for me," and that's good enough, right? Wrong.
Again, don't let your sense of urgency about publication set an unprofessional tone.
Are You Prepared To Promote?
The book's been workshopped, polished to a high gloss, has a fantastic cover and attractive, consistent formatting, and you've got an author blog, Twitter account and Facebook page set up. Time to publish? Maybe, maybe not.
Are you prepared to invest the necessary time and effort to post to your blog regularly and acknowledge comments left there, to tweet quality messages and links, and respond to Facebook messages and wall posts? A neglected platform can actually be worse than no platform at all if it makes your readers feel snubbed.
Will you be able to do some guest blogging or write some articles to help get the word out about your book? Can you find the time to reach out to book bloggers and other reviewers, and are you prepared to send out free review copies of your book?
Platform maintenance doesn't have to be a fulltime job, and you can calibrate your platform activities to match your available levels of time and energy (e.g., maybe you can do Twitter or Facebook, but not both; maybe a static author web page is best for you because you don't have the time to blog, etc.).
What's important is that you're not going into publication with an expectation that once the book is out there, your job is done and all you need do is wait for the glowing reviews and royalties to start rolling in. Raising and building awareness doesn't happen by accident.
Are You Going To Make The Rest Of Us Look Bad?
Whether for any of the above reasons or something else, if you're not prepared to do a professional job of preparing your book for release and promoting it afterward, don't publish. While indie books and authors are gaining widespread acceptance, every amateurish indie book has the power to create or reinforce an anti-indie bias, and that hurts all of us.
Is Your Platform In Place, Focused and Growing?
Releasing your book before you've made it easy for readers to connect with you online, whether via a blog, social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or an author website, is a big mistake. Readers have come to expect authors to have an online presence of some sort, and not having one paints you and your book as a bit more fly by night.
I'm not saying prospective buyers will check for platform before making a purchase decision, but platform is what spreads the message about you and your work, pulling more and more readers into your fold and making those readers feel you care about their reaction to your work. Building a community around your work makes each subsequent book easier to promote, and creates a cheerleading section that will do a fair amount of promotion for you.
Is Your Book Still In Beta Test, Or Should It Be?
If you just completed your draft a week ago, I don't care who you are or how fantastic a writer you are, it's not ready to be published. Don't scrimp on the workshopping and rounds of critique, and don't let your sense of urgency about publication color your rewrite decisions.
Let's say the majority of your workshop/critique readers agree the second act needs a major overhaul, and a certain character needs to either be significantly expanded or cut entirely. Your heart sinks as you realize you're staring down the barrel of six weeks or more of rewrites, followed by another round of review, which pushes your publication date back by three months or more. It can be very easy to become so focused on your target publication date that you give short shrift to any feedback that could possibly interfere with that date.
Just keep reminding yourself: releasing a book that's not ready will lose sales and fans. And if it's your first book, readers aren't likely to give you a second chance. There's just too much else out there for them to choose from, and at bargain prices.
Have You Succumbed To The "Good Enoughs"?
Your manuscript is all formatted for print or ebook publication, and for the most part, it looks great. There are some inconsistencies in your formatting, like maybe most passages written in the voice of your protagonist's deceased son are italicized as you've intended, but a few have been left in standard type. Maybe most of your paragraphs begin with a .25" indent but non-indented paragraphs are scattered here and there. Maybe most of your line spacing is 1.15, but here and there you've lapsed into 1.5, and it's barely noticeable. Readers don't care about these things, right? Most of the book's formatting is correct and consistent, and that's good enough, right? Wrong.
You know a quality cover will elevate your book above the crowd, but you have no art or typography skills to speak of, don't have the money to pay top dollar for a professional design and don't have the time to search out a freelance artist you can afford. So you get your artsy sister to create a cover image for you, and it may not look like a slick mainstream cover but it's not bad. It doesn't scream "my sister designed this for me," and that's good enough, right? Wrong.
Again, don't let your sense of urgency about publication set an unprofessional tone.
Are You Prepared To Promote?
The book's been workshopped, polished to a high gloss, has a fantastic cover and attractive, consistent formatting, and you've got an author blog, Twitter account and Facebook page set up. Time to publish? Maybe, maybe not.
Are you prepared to invest the necessary time and effort to post to your blog regularly and acknowledge comments left there, to tweet quality messages and links, and respond to Facebook messages and wall posts? A neglected platform can actually be worse than no platform at all if it makes your readers feel snubbed.
Will you be able to do some guest blogging or write some articles to help get the word out about your book? Can you find the time to reach out to book bloggers and other reviewers, and are you prepared to send out free review copies of your book?
Platform maintenance doesn't have to be a fulltime job, and you can calibrate your platform activities to match your available levels of time and energy (e.g., maybe you can do Twitter or Facebook, but not both; maybe a static author web page is best for you because you don't have the time to blog, etc.).
What's important is that you're not going into publication with an expectation that once the book is out there, your job is done and all you need do is wait for the glowing reviews and royalties to start rolling in. Raising and building awareness doesn't happen by accident.
Are You Going To Make The Rest Of Us Look Bad?
Whether for any of the above reasons or something else, if you're not prepared to do a professional job of preparing your book for release and promoting it afterward, don't publish. While indie books and authors are gaining widespread acceptance, every amateurish indie book has the power to create or reinforce an anti-indie bias, and that hurts all of us.
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