Business – Page 2

The Art of the Book Event: 9 Tips

March 23, 2019 By Ann Marie Nieves 8 Comments

It was nearing 8:00 PM on a New York City summer evening and a group of friends and colleagues had gathered at a popular book event to hear a much beloved author read from her latest. We were hugging, kissing and smiling despite the 90-degree weather. We were excited for our friend. We were excited to be among writers and good books.

Fast forward an hour and a half.

The air was stagnant. People were schvitzing. My friend’s teenage daughter rolled her eyes and whispered, “Not again, Mom.” The woman next to me suddenly clutched my arm and muttered some obscenities, abruptly forcing me out of my coma. My Diet Coke was long gone. I hadn’t an email left to answer, but it didn’t matter, because my phone had lost life.

What was happening?

The first author was still reading.

…and reading…

…And reading…

There was beautiful writing in there—really, truly—but it didn’t matter, because the author had lost us within the first few minutes. She spoke slowly without inflection. She didn’t pause or make eye contact. She never looked up (which might have been a good thing in this circumstance). And she read what seemed to be a very large portion of her book, not a well-timed passage.

This author was in desperate need of my kind.

All of us—the survivors of The Worst Reading Ever—bring up the occasion each time we see one another at book events. As I gear up for a robust spring and summer season of new, marvelous books, I think a lot about the art of a signing because I learned a whole lot from that night:

1. Script it. Your book event is more than just reading that awesome passage from pages 2—4. Weave in takeaways, tidbits about characters, what you were thinking as you wrote, and/or points you’re addressing. [Read more…]

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Novel-Writing Intensives: An Alternative to the MA

March 20, 2019 By Julie Carrick Dalton 10 Comments

Wouldn’t it be great if writing a novel could be like playing team sport? How great would it be to have teammates jumping up and down on the sidelines cheering for you, or running to your side if you got hurt? For most novelists—especially first-time or unestablished writers—reality looks much different. Instead of a throng of cheering fans, we are lucky if we have a dog sitting at our feet while we write.

When I started working on my first novel, I craved the camaraderie of a team. I wanted a coach and drills and discipline. I needed someone to care when I finished that first draft or finally nailed that tricky scene. Someone other than my dogs, that is.

In my quest to find a writing community, I applied to the Novel Incubator program run by GrubStreet, a writer’s organization based in Boston. Every year the Novel Incubator chooses ten authors from a competitive applicant pool. Together with instructor Michelle Hoover, those ten writers spend a grueling year revising and polishing their books.

I feel incredibly grateful I was accepted into the program in 2017. I revised my full manuscript three times during my Incubator year, and I critiqued my nine classmates’ manuscripts three times each. That amounts to thirty manuscripts in a year, in addition to weekly craft lessons, outside readings, homework exercises, and essays. There were late nights, early mornings, and more than a few tears.

I learned how to pitch my book, write a query letter, and talk to agents (without hyperventilating.)

Then, just when I was starting to feel confident, we graduated from the Incubator and Michelle pushed us out of the nest. I was scared.

Part of my Incubator tuition included admission to The Muse and the Marketplace, a large writer’s conference hosted by GrubStreet every spring. The Incubator hosted meet ups at the Muse for Incubator graduates to connect with agents and editors.

I attended the Muse with my cohort of Incubator grads (the Inkies), sad to have completed the program, wondering how I would survive in the publishing world on my own. But I quickly realized that I was no longer alone.

My classmates were right there, jumping up and down cheering for me. I was no longer writing by myself with my dogs. I was part of that team I had always longed for.

I pitched my book at that conference (and did not hyperventilate.) When I signed with an agent I met at The Muse, the Inkies lifted me up on their shoulders and carried me around Boston Common for a victory lap. (Okay, I made that part up, but it felt that way.) And when I’ve stumbled over rejections, my classmates have been the first ones to help me back up.

When Desmond Hall, the first in my Incubator cohort to sign a book deal, announced he had a two-book contract earlier this year, I couldn’t have felt prouder. Des is part of my team. It was a win for all of us.

In addition to being supportive, these programs produce successful writers. I can’t speak to the publication rates of other programs, but the Des is the fourteenth Novel Incubator to sign a publishing contract.

I feel myself getting sentimental (possibly mushy) when I talk about the Novel Incubator. I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude, not only for the elements of craft I learned and for the support I’ve found, but also for the team I became a part of.

When I tell other writers about the program, I sense a longing in them. They want to be part of a tight community too. [Read more…]

Author Up Close: Linda Seed’s Self-Publishing Success

March 17, 2019 By Grace Wynter 24 Comments

Welcome to the second installment of Author Up Close, the series that explores several authors’ paths to publishing. If you missed the first in the series, a Q&A with author Fiona Zedde, you can read it here.

There are probably as many articles about the perils of self-publishing as there are about the “fall” of traditional publishing. Most of these articles lack nuance and are more concerned with promoting a perceived “right” way to publish while disparaging the “wrong” way. In reality, choosing a publishing path is a very personal decision, and what’s right for one might not be right for others.

Today’s featured author, Linda Seed, obviously made the right choice for herself and her career when she decided to self-publish. Linda is a contemporary romance writer, a Writer Unboxed Conference alum, and a friend. We’re in a few online communities together, and over the years I’ve watched her career grow from an author who, in her words, “made enough to buy a coffee” to one who now makes a living from her books.

In a sea of self-published authors, Linda stands out because of her excellent writing, commitment to quality, and strong work ethic. And as you’ll see from our Q&A, those things probably had a hand in getting Barnes & Noble’s attention at just the right time in her career.

GW: What do you write and how many books have you published?

LS: I write small-town contemporary romance, with all of my books set on California’s Central Coast. I’ve published nine books so far.

GW: You’re doing what a lot of other authors wish they could be doing right now: making a full-time income from your writing. When you started writing, had this been your goal? If not, when and what changed that?

LS: Honestly, when I started, I didn’t expect to make any money at all. It was more of a bucket list thing—I wanted to have a published book out there. For me, the day I uploaded my first book onto Amazon, my goal was met. Anything else was just a bonus.

Things changed eleven months later, in September 2016. I had two more books out by then, and I had just made my first book free. I went onto Facebook one morning to find a bunch of notifications from friends congratulating me. I learned that Barnes & Noble had featured my first book as their Free Fridays pick. My book was all over their social media, on their website—it was crazy. That drove the sales of my other books, and overnight I was making ten times more money than I had been. That was when I thought, okay, I might be able to make this into a viable business. I still have no idea why they chose my book, but that was really a turning point for me. [Read more…]

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Planning Your Own Book Launch

March 5, 2019 By Sophie Masson 9 Comments

Your book is coming out soon and you want to mark its entry into the world. You don’t want it to just slide out unnoticed amongst the serried ranks of ‘New Releases’ in the bookshops. You want it properly launched. But your publisher isn’t keen to do a launch. Too much time and effort for too little return, they imply. Unless you’re a celebrity, or a highly publicized first-time author with a dedicated, free-spending, large family and friends network, book launches aren’t a big part of many publishers’ promotional strategy these days. But—surprise, surprise—we authors still love them! And so it’s become more and more common for authors to put together their own book launch.

But launches are not as easy as they might sound to someone who is new to the process—that time and effort cited by reluctant publishers as reasons not to have one are very real things. As a veteran of many launches—both those I’ve attended and those I organized for my own books as an author–I can vouch for that! I’ve also recently organized other people’s book launches as a small-press publisher–generally small publishers are warmer to the idea of book launches than big ones. So I’ve accumulated some knowledge of what can help to make your launch a hit and not a miss!

First of all, it’s about planning. Planning well ahead of time, months ahead of time. Ask yourself:

What kind of launch do I want? Big, small, straightforward, themed–that is, not just themed around your book, but with a certain look? You will not be surprised to learn that a big, themed launch is the most time-consuming and expensive to pull off. However, don’t let it stop you if that’s what you want. With our small press, we’ve run a couple of themed kids’ Christmas book launches with a cast of thousands. Well, not exactly thousands but you know what I mean. Readings, music, party gifts and prizes have worked really well, but have also been a large amount of work to get right, with many panicky pre-launch moments.

The smaller, more straightforward launch, where someone launches the book with a short speech, the author says a few words, then everyone toasts the book baby with the sparkling stuff before hopefully lining up to buy signed books whilst trying to graze on the last remaining nibbles, might not be as glamorous but they can still work really well, especially if this is your first book, you’re celebrating it locally amongst your family and friends, and everyone’s excited to see you in print. When you’ve had several books out, it’s better to space out your launches—don’t have one for each book, because people, even your nearest and dearest, get launch fatigue. And small, standard launches are much, much easier to get right, aren’t nearly as much work, and booksellers know exactly what to expect and don’t get jumpy about unusual activities happening too close to those neat shelves. [Read more…]

What It Means to Be a Working Writer

March 4, 2019 By Greer Macallister 20 Comments

They will tell you that you’re not a real writer. They say that having another job you do for money makes you soft. Don’t you believe in yourself enough to suffer, to struggle, they ask? They pretend it’s a question, but to them, it’s not a question; they only accept one answer. If you care enough, you’ll dedicate yourself to The Art, they say, and anything less than that stark, all-in commitment marks you as a creative failure. If you get hungry enough–literally hungry, they say–then The Art you make will be superior and success will flow to you like water and all manner of things shall be well.

When they say this, they are wrong.

There are writers who rely solely on their writing, fiction or nonfiction, for income. There are writers with full-time jobs that have nothing to do with writing, and these writers fit in their creative pursuits early in the morning, late at night, on vacation days, whenever. There are stay-at-home parents whose primary work, unpaid though it may be, can be all-consuming, and they, too, write in the stolen moments, during naps, or after bedtime, or when one kid can be convinced to read a book to the other one, or on the bleachers at a soccer game. (Hockey game. Lacrosse game. Swim meet. Ballet lesson. You get the idea.)

They are all writers. If you write, you are a writer. That’s pretty much how the definition works.

And you are a working writer.

The type of work you do, writing-related or otherwise, does not make you more or less legitimate. Starving does not make you better. Or maybe it does–maybe you have thrown caution to the wind and dedicated yourself to full-time writing without a back-up plan and maybe the writing you’re producing now is pure gold, sheer magic, the best you’ve ever written–but if that isn’t the situation you find yourself in, don’t you dare think of yourself as less than. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s the only way to do things.

There are an infinite number of ways to do things. (And because you’re a writer, you can probably imagine somewhere between 15 and 83 of them off the top of your head. Good job, writer!)

Look, the internet is both the cause of and solution to all life’s problems, but don’t believe anyone on the internet who tells you what it takes to be a real writer. Yes, I acknowledge this is a ridiculous thing to say in an essay on the internet about what it means to be a particular type of writer. But note that I would never use the word “real” in this context. We’re writers, after all, aren’t we? Every word counts.

[Read more…]

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