Category: Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Paul Anthony Shortt had an interesting comment for my “Shorter Novels in the Digital Age?” post last week.  He mentioned book spacing and book release timing (as far as prime dates for launching books onto the market.)

This is something that’s very important, I think, and is going to become even more important in the future. It also ties into the short novel phenomenon…because it has to do with readers more than anything else.

For traditional publishing, I have no control whatsoever over my release dates or how spaced out my releases are.  I’m sure that some writers do, but no one I know does.  I know writers who’ve had their books released a couple of days after Christmas (not exactly the best time for a launch).  I know writers who had books released in other really slow times (August comes to mind.)

Production time in traditional publishing is huge.  There are global edits, line edits, proofreading, cover design, marketing meetings, catalog deadlines, pass page edits, blurbs…the works.  Plus—let’s face it.  Your book isn’t exactly the only thing on the publisher’s mind.  They have other releases to worry about.

Sometimes things get held up.  I never really know what’s going on behind the scenes, but I know most of this stuff is out of my editor’s hands.  I’ve seen my release dates vary for my Memphis Barbeque series.  The series started July 6, 2010.  June 7, 2011 was book two….perfectly reasonable at a year later.  Book three released November 1, 2011 (!)  Book Four is coming out July 2, 2013. 
Book three was, from what I can tell, the most successful of all the books so far.  It came out five months after book two (no, I don’t know why it came out then.) 

My concern is, obviously, book four.  It’s coming out nearly two years after the third book’s release.  In fact, my new editor for that series asked me to write it like a standalone.  I very carefully set up the characters, setting, and descriptions as if no one had ever read these books before.  We felt like that was vital since even dedicated readers of the series probably hadn’t read the previous books for a while.

Another unfortunate thing is that the future of the series depends on sales for this book four (that’s releasing at something of a disadvantage.)  This is the way traditional publishing works.  It’s about the figures…and that makes sense.  It’s a business.

My other Penguin series is set for one release each year through 2014 (if production stays on schedule).

But let’s consider self-publishing now.  It doesn’t have nearly the lead-time needed for traditional publishing. 

Case in point—my latest self-pub release, which was the first book I wrote specifically for self-publishing.  I started writing the book in July, as soon as I turned in a manuscript for Penguin.  I’d finished the book by the end of September. 

In September, I gave the book to two beta readers to read while I was still working on the ending, and hired a freelance editor to work on the finished book in early October to find as much wrong with the thing as she could. 

In late September/early October, while my editor and betas were still working on the manuscript, I started talking to the cover designer who’d done my other self-pubbed covers.  She turned a cover around to me in a week.

In mid-October, I asked my formatter to help me out with getting the book set for publishing on Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords.  He turned it around in two days.

By October 28, the book was available for purchase.

So, I guess that’s nearly a 4-month turnaround there from starting to write the book to publishing it. 

Point being…the production time can be very short for self-pub.  So….the release schedule is really up to us.  A book can be ready to publish whenever we’re ready.  I’m thinking, to be on the safe side, we should give ourselves three months to get a book ready.  So let’s say we want a November release to capitalize on holiday shopping.  In August, I’m thinking we need to start assembling our team of editors, designers, and formatters.

Or—take a very organized and professional approach by planning it all out farther in advance.  Dean Wesley Smith’s post: Think Like A Publisher: Chapter 4: Production and Scheduling  will explain more.

On Wednesday, I’ll look more at spacing novels out and mulling over supply and demand.

Image: Flickr: Burwash Calligrapher
 

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific is a compilation of all the writing links I shared
the previous week.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Writing at home is difficult sometimes.

I do much of my writing at home, most of it before 5:30 a.m.  But I’ve been trying to write a little extra each day for the past week or so (inspired by the intrepid NaNoWriMoers).

The problem is that my house can become pretty distracting during the day—likely one reason why I write so early in the morning.  The week before the election was especially annoying with the automated phone calls.  Then there’s the dryer buzzer, the cat who likes to sit on my keyboard, the housework that needs to be done…

So Wednesday, after dropping off a carpool at the middle school, I set off for the coffee shop.  The library was still closed and I needed extra coffee anyway.

I haven’t been in Starbucks for a while, and felt that I’d accidentally stepped into another dimension.  It seemed to be populated by young women named Dakota and striking men wearing sunglasses indoors. Unfortunately, I was wearing carpool couture and putting on makeup hadn’t crossed my mind.  I just ordered my small coffee, dark roast (they managed to translate that order into Starbuck language) and settled down at a small table with my story.

I didn’t have my laptop with me so I pulled out a battered composition notebook that still had Math and my daughter’s name written on it (and many perfectly-good blank pages in it.)

And I wrote a good 1000 words there in about 30 minutes. 

There are definitely different types of coffeehouse visits.  To me, they fall in two groups—the visits where the writer is looking for characters and inspiration, and the visits where the writer needs to get some writing done, stat.

I used to fall more in the prior camp, but lately, the only times I find myself at the coffee shop is when I’m frantically trying to meet a deadline or two. 

What helps if you’re trying to get work done at coffee shops:

Notebook—I do prefer to write in a notebook when I’m writing away from home.  It’s just easier to manage and I don’t worry about sloshing coffee on my computer.  And I don’t feel particularly conspicuous.

Several pencils—I haven’t gotten to the point where I want to write in pen.

Music and headphones—I’d forgotten how loud the coffee shop could be.  Fortunately, I had earbuds in my pocketbook…and my phone, which has Pandora on it.  I have a station for New Age music and I plugged into it.  (Might want to make sure your data plan supports music streaming if you do this through your phone.  But Pandora has saved me several times when I was writing in the carpool line and someone was having a noisy cellphone conversation in the next car.)

Having your manuscript or outline on the cloud—I’ve found it handy to be able to refer to my story or an outline when I’m away from home.  You can upload your manuscript/outline to a place like Google Docs where you can access it from anywhere, using your laptop or smart phone.  (It’s free…you only need a gmail address to use it.)  Or you can access story planning software on your phone/laptop…like Mike Fleming’s Hiveword.

The rules I follow for writing in a coffee shop:

Watch the time—I try to make sure I’m not monopolizing a table for too long, unless the place is totally dead.  This also has the benefit of providing me with a deadline of sorts and I write quicker.

Put my back to the room—If I’m doing deadline-writing and not finding-characters-writing, then I sit where I can’t see people and just focus on my notebook.

Purchase regularly—If the coffee shop is very quiet and I stay a little longer…I make sure I keep buying things so I don’t wear out my welcome.  A coffee here, a pastry here.

Avoid connecting to the internet or using your smart phone…except when referring to your manuscript or outline on the cloud—I’m trying to avoid distractions by writing in a coffeehouse.  And the internet is the biggest distraction of all. 

Other posts on the topic:

Coffee Shop Etiquette by Bluestocking on the Bluestocking Blog.

10 Reasons Why Working at the Library is Better than the Coffee Shop—by April Borbon on Freelance Switch

That Jerk? C’est Moi –Malcolm Gladwell for Wall Street Journal

There are other places where I’ll write…the library, the diner, the park.  Leaving home can definitely help me hit a word count goal. 

Do you ever have to escape your house to be able to write?  Where do you go?

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Last week I was working on my current project.  I felt good about it. I was definitely in the writing zone and everything was going well.

Then I got to page eighty and I stopped cold.  Something wasn’t right with the book’s pace.  I was advancing plot points too quickly and wasn’t nearly far enough along in the book for the second body to be discovered….but it had been. 

I got that familiar chill of what the hell am I doing? that I get for every book.  I’ll get the feeling that I’ve massively messed up and don’t know what I’m going to do to get out of the mess.

Then I did what I always do.  I wrote the next scene.  Because I did know what I wanted to write next—the suspects being questioned after the second body is found.  I kept right on going, ignoring the mess for now.

I’ve found, for me, that the only way to fix a problem is just to go on and finish the skeleton for the book. 

Then I’ll go back and adjust.  Pace is going too fast in the first half of the book?  What am I missing?  Oh.  I didn’t really flesh out who these suspects are, did I?  I’ll add it. And…oh, I wanted a particular subplot to give my protagonist more opportunities to grow in this book, didn’t I?  I’ll add it.

We can’t get crippled when our manuscript fails to live up to our imagined masterpiece.  Finish it, fix it.  But finish it, first. Others will disagree here, which is fine. Whatever works—if it works better for you to edit as you go, do that.

For me, though, if I get stuck trying to fix an unfinished book, I end up tinkering with the thing so much that the story never moves forward.  For me, the big picture of the book in its entirety is crucial when I’m figuring out where I went wrong and what needs to be fixed.

Writing out of order: If I’m stuck because I’m not exactly sure how to move forward with my story (which sometimes happens when I don’t outline…and I frequently don’t outline), then I’ll sometimes skip ahead and write a major scene or even the ending…just something that I already am planning on writing and know the outcome of.  Once I wrote a book completely out of order.  I can’t really recommend doing that.   It was a mess to put together again and fix the transitions.

Writing ‘backwards’: I’ve also written half of a book from the end to the point where I got stuck.  If you’re thinking about your story in terms of scenes, this is easy enough if you know your ending better than your midpoint.

And then there’s always the old standby…outlining.   I’m not a fan, but I’ve made my peace with outlining since I have an editor who requires it.  I make mine as general as possible and keep my plot flexible in case I need to make big adjustments.  It helps if I don’t think of it as an outline—if I think of it as brainstorming a plan.

These are ideas for moving the plot forward when we’ve realized there’s a problem with our story and are getting bogged down with the problem. I’ve also written about other ways to keep moving ahead when we’ve gotten stuck. In that post I recommended writing in different locations, changing around our writing schedule, and  making lists (among other things.)

How do you keep moving forward with your story? 

Image—MorgueFile—ZeroSilence3

by Laura Dennis, @LauraDennisCA

Terminology

Let’s get technical—literary
devices

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