Thursday, September 6, 2012

5 WAYS WRITERS CAN GET THE MOST OUT OF GOODREADS

If you’re like me, you have a Goodreads account and occasionally use it to update your list of books that you’ve read—but haven’t used it for much else. Goodreads Community Manager Patrick Brown offered up this guest post to me on how authors can use Goodreads to their benefit. I found the information very useful and informative, so I thought I’d share. Here it is:

5 Ways Writers Can Get the Most Out of Goodreads

As the head of the Author Program at Goodreads, I get to work every day with a variety of writers: bestselling authors such as Neil Gaiman, Maggie Stiefvater. Diana Gabaldon and Margaret Atwood, and new authors looking to unveil their long-nurtured book into the world. It’s a fantastic job and there’s nothing better than seeing readers get excited about their books.

The Goodreads Author Program is free and we currently have more than 48,000 authors in our program. Over the years, the same question has come up: “How can I get the most out of Goodreads?”

So, I thought about the authors who have been most successful on our platform and came up with five pieces of advice. If you follow them, you’ll be off to a strong start toward helping your book be discovered by the more than 10 million readers in the Goodreads community.

Patrick Brown serves as the Community Manager of Goodreads, the largest book recommendation website in the world. Prior to heading up the Goodreads online community, Brown was an independent bookseller at Book Soup and Vroman’s Bookstore. With an intense interest in group interaction online and a love for books, Patrick helps connect people with one another and with their passions. Currently Brown heads the Goodreads Author Program and Customer Care Team. He supports and cultivates one of the largest literary presences online by answering member questions and growing the Goodreads Community through social communication.

1. Use Goodreads to help build your platform.

Every author today needs a platform. By creating a Goodreads author profile, you actually get three major benefits. First, you become part of the Goodreads community, which allows readers to easily check out the latest information about you, see a photo of you, and browse which books you have written. And it allows readers to view the books you’ve read.

Second, you can sync your blog with your Goodreads profile. Not only does your blog help make your author profile more interesting, but there’s an added benefit to having your blog on Goodreads. Each week, we send an email to members with new blog posts from authors they like.

Third, you can promote events–simply add your events and invite your Goodreads friends to attend. Virtual events, like online discussions and book releases, are just as welcome as bookstore signings and author appearances.

Bonus Advice: One part of building your profile is making sure that your metadata is accurate and full. This point might sound a bit dry, but accurate metadata is absolutely essential for online discovery. Make sure that each of your books has the correct ISBN/ASIN, publication date, and cover image. Even something seemingly as trivial as page count is important. Many Goodreads members like to update their progress through the books they read—”I’m on page 231 of 540.” This translates to great news for you, the author, because when readers do this, their friends on the site often comment and discuss. Unless, of course, you didn’t enter the page count for your book.

2. Use giveaways to generate those all-important pre-release reviews.

By analyzing our data, we know that the number of reviews – regardless of whether they are good and bad – significantly impacts the amount of interest in a book. When a Goodreads member reviews a book, it automatically appears in the updates of all their friends on Goodreads, providing word-of-mouth marketing.

But how do you get those reviews? The pre-release giveaway is a very effective way to get your book read and reviewed. Each month, more than 1,500 titles are given away on Goodreads. But not all giveaways are created equal. To get the most bang for your pre-release buck, we recommend running multiple giveaways, each open for about a month. Your first giveaway should ideally start about three months pre-publication. Then, a few weeks before your book hits the shelves, run a second giveaway. This is what the publisher of the new Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruin did and the results have been tremendous. There is no limit to the number of giveaways you can run on Goodreads.

Bonus Advice: For some added attention, pair your giveaway with a self-serve advertisement. These inexpensive advertisements allow you to target your giveaway to precisely the right sort of reader for your book. You can target by comparable author or genre. Giveaways supported by ads attract roughly 56% more entries than giveaways without ads.

3. Make it easy for fans to write reviews.

If reviews are essential for discovery, it makes sense to encourage your readers to review your books on Goodreads. Your website likely already has Facebook and Twitter badges on it, but is there a Goodreads “G” on there, as well? Add a Goodreads badge and encourage people to leave a review of your book.

Bonus Advice: Reviews on Goodreads don’t just appear on Goodreads, they are also exported to many other sites, including Google Books, Powells.com, USAToday.com and more. So, a Goodreads review works harder for you than other reviews.

4. Join the discussion.

Goodreads is home to more than 20,000 book clubs and thousands more groups about nearly every topic imaginable. Find a few groups that interest you and join them. But here’s the tricky part: don’t talk about yourself as a writer initially. Use the group as a reader first. After you’ve been an active and enthusiastic member for a bit of time (we recommend at least a month), you can approach the moderator about hosting a discussion of your book. Popular groups like The Next Best Book Club, Romance Readers Reading Challenges, and The History Book Club regularly host chats with authors.

Bonus Advice: While it may be tempting to join the largest groups, you may be better off becoming a member of several smaller groups where you can get to know readers more easily. Always keep in mind with this tactic that you are essentially walking into a great party where everyone loves books. Who would you rather talk to? The person who will engage in a conversation with you about your interests and be genuinely interested in a broad range of topics before you then discover that they are an author? Or the person who walks up to you and says, “Hi, I’m an author and I’d like you to read my book”?

5. Be a reader!

Authors are, by nature, tremendous readers. Goodreads is first and foremost a site about sharing the love of books. Share yours by talking about what you read. Reviews and reading progress updates are two major sources of activity on the site. Members love seeing what authors are reading and if they have common favorite books.

Bonus Advice: If you’re not comfortable writing reviews, make an “inspirations” shelf and add the books that have meant the most to you as a writer. Not only will these books show up in your update feed for your fans to see, they will also make your profile a more engaging place for readers.

For more information about or to join the Author Program, please visit Goodreads Author Program.

HOW TO WRITE AND PLAN A BOOK SERIES

It’s said that J.K. Rowling had the whole of the Harry Potter series in her head before she started. If you’re in the JKR camp, read no more. You’re way ahead of me. On the other hand, if you’re not a long-range planner, my experience may be of use.

Like most writers, I have antennae that alert me to the Good Idea that might make a Good Story. My first image for the mystery series that starts with Dying in the Wool was of a man, a father, unable to return home. Someone needed to find out who and where he was. Step forward Kate Shackleton, sleuth extraordinaire. I then knew I wanted to go on writing about Kate, and so I had an eye towards her longevity. That’s as much planning as I did. For me, starting a series was like any other writing, a combination of characters, setting and plot.

GIVEAWAY: Frances is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners can live anywhere in the world. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

Guest column by Frances Brody, who lives in the north of England,
where she was born and grew up. Frances started her writing life in
radio, with many plays and short stories broadcast by the BBC.
She has also written for television and theatre. Before turning to
crime, she wrote sagas, winning the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin
Award for most regionally evocative debut saga of the millennium.
Four books in the Kate Shackleton Mystery series: Dying in the Wool,
A Medal for Murder, Murder in the Afternoon and A Woman Unknown.
A Medal for Murder will be available from Minotaur in February 2013.
Visit Frances online at www.frances-brody.com. She is also happy
to be contacted through Facebook, on Twitter.

There were certain givens. Kate would need to be at home in different social circles, and to be independent so that she could take off at a moment’s notice. An investigator needs the right sort of people around her. Kate is adopted. Her adoptive father is a police superintendent; her mother an aristocrat who married for love. In book three, Kate meets her birth sister who is from a very different background. This creates a wide social spectrum for possible stories. It’s the 1920s. Although much has changed for women, there are still many restrictions and difficulties. Kate would struggle without her sidekick, Jim Sykes, who can go to places that would be closed to women.

A sense of place is particularly important in a mystery novel. Readers have to believe that these events are happening in this particular spot, at this time. Early on, I visited locations and went house-hunting for Kate. Places and road layouts have changed a lot since the early part of the last century. Old maps became essential. I have a collection of maps. (The ones I don’t have, I find in the library). Whether Kate is walking, driving her 1913 Jowett motor, or riding the tramcar, I can trace her journeys. Time spent working out her route, and how long it takes to reach her destination, is additional thinking time for me, as if I’m tagging along with her. This also helped as I planned and wrote the subsequent books. Kate has her patch: Yorkshire, the largest county in England.

Recently I came across the advice that you should read around the genre you plan to write. Find out what’s on publishers’ lists; analyse the market. It didn’t occur to me to do this; although I do read widely, including crime fiction. I had a brilliant idea and wanted to get on with it right away, not spend time analyzing where my story might slot in, or to even think about genre. If I had read around my sub-genre (horrible term!) perhaps a stylistic trick or two might have lodged in my subconscious and a reader would say, Oh, she’s a bit like Author X. So I’m glad I jumped straight in and pressed on.

This approach has a disadvantage. When I showed Dying in the Wool to my agent, she liked it but was a little impatient. ‘It’s a crime novel. You have to have a body by page one hundred.’

I went to a library event to hear Robert Barnard, an author with a list of crime novels as long as your arm. When it came to questions, I asked, ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you should have a body by page one hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I always have a body by page sixty.’

In my second novel, A Medal for Murder, Kate finds the body by page thirty. And in Murder in the Afternoon … but you get the idea.

Sometimes, practical tips are best. Here are mine. When starting work on a novel, I buy two A4 spiral-bound notebooks, for research, characters and story. I take a camera when I visit locations. Reading for background research is useful, but it doesn’t beat meeting the experts, and they are usually willing to help. I am never happy with my first drafts but save them. To avoid the confusion of a bleary-eyed start on the wrong draft, I highlight abandoned versions and give them a colour. At the end of each day I email work to myself, so if the house burns down while we’re out, or a burglar strikes, my manuscript lives on in cyberspace. Not very high tech, but this works for me.

Good luck!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

HOW TO EDIT YOUR BOOK IN 4 STEPS

By Guest Columnist Mike Nappa

Mike Nappa is founder of Nappaland Literary Agency, and author of 77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected,available wherever books are sold.

The woman asked a sensible question; she deserved a practical answer.

I was sitting on an “Agents & Editors” panel at a writer’s conference when she took the microphone. “I’ve been working on revising my manuscript,” she said to all of us in the crowded ballroom, “and I think it’s getting better. But how do I know when I should stop revising and start sending it out? How do I know when my book is done?”

Good question, I thought. And one with an easy answer.

Then the experts around me started hemming and hawing and making these kinds of abstract noises in response:

“Well, a book is never REALLY finished, so you have to just choose a stopping point and hope for the best…”

“It’s like falling in love. When your book is ready, you just know.”

“When I wrote my last award-winning book [insert some random story about how great I am that has nothing to do with your question here]…”

Finally I could take it no longer, so I stole a microphone and said what I thought was obvious, and which is the process I’ve used to pen more than 50 books over the last 20 years:

You write a book four times.

When you’ve finished the fourth writing, you’re done—or at least ready to show your manuscript to an agent or editor.

Here, briefly, is how that process works:

1. The Close-In Writing The basic method: You write a day’s worth of work (either fiction or nonfiction)—whatever that means for you. Next day, before you write anything new, you revise and edit the previous day’s work. This is the “close-in writing,” and becomes the first draft—the first time your write your book.

2. The Close-In Edit When the entire first draft is complete, you go back through and, beginning with word one to the end, you revise and edit the entire manuscript on your computer. This is the “close-in edit,” and becomes your second draft: the second time you write your book.

3. The Distance (or “Hand”) Edit Next, you print a hard copy of the second draft of your entire manuscript. Beginning with word one to the end, you hand-edit the hard copy, scrawling notes and profanities to yourself all the way through the margins. Then, using your hand-edit notes as a reference, you go back into your computer file and revise the manuscript as needed. This is the “distance edit,” and becomes your third draft: the third time you’ve written your book.

4. The Oral Edit Finally, you print a new hard copy and read your entire manuscript aloud. Read it to the walls, to your spouse, to the patrons at Starbucks, to your dog, to the bowl of soggy Cocoa Puffs left over from breakfast. Doesn’t matter who’s in the room, only that you can hear yourself reading it. Start with word one and don’t stop until you read the last word. Yes, it may take you several days, but that’s OK. Keep reading every word out loud until you’re done.

As you read, note any places where the phrasing causes you to stumble, the wording feels confusing or out of place, or your mind seems to wander from the text in front of you. Those places need to be cut or rewritten, so as you’re reading aloud, pause to make notes as to what to do to improve them. When you’re done, incorporate your notes into the computer file of your manuscript. You’ve now finished the “oral edit”—and written your book four times.

At this point, you will be: a) extremely sick of your book, but b) finished.

Yes, this is a tedious, tiring process. But it works. If you write your book four times, chances are very good that when you’re done it will be a finely-crafted work of art … or at least undoubtedly something much better than when you started.

I thought writing a book four times was just common sense, and that most every writer/editor/agent already knew about it.

The reaction at that writer’s conference showed me otherwise.

The important thing, though, is that now you know how to tell when your book is finished. So if you’re thinking of pitching your latest masterwork to my agency or somewhere else in the industry, do us all a favor before you send it:

Write your book four times.

Then it should be ready.

Like what you read from WD online? Check us out in print.

Go forward and win!

Logline Service

I have been getting a lot of request for loglines. I give different prices . Since I have so many requests for this service, I decided to set a single fix price.

Logline: $5.00 Flat Fee

A synopsis or summery is required. It well be used to form the logline. The logline is just one line.

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Critique: $50.00 Flat Fee, Discount fee $42.50

Includes evaluating the basis elements of a script

Introduction

Development

Climax

Conclusion

Character development

Mid point development

Critiques also provide suggestions for improvements and enhancement.

Payments are made by Paypal or cashier check by mail.

Other services are at regular price.

Query Letters: $25.00 Flat Fee

Editing: $45.00 Flat Fee

Evaluating formatting to industry standards

Spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.

Turnaround time:
Editing: 2 weeks
Critique: 2 weeks

Query Letters: 2 weeks

Feel free to contact me at ahicks4298@q.com or ahicks4298@msn.com.

Feel to call me at (360) 696-4298. Ask for Frances.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

2012 Hollywood Screenwriting Directory

Hello, everyone.

Here is an interesting book you may be interested in buying if you are a screenwriter.

Hollywood Screenwriting Directory
Screenwriting Market Intel You Won't Find Anywhere Else

Reserve Your Copy Today!

Mailing out submissions based on some contact information you found on the Internet isn't enough to get your script sold. What's truly valuable to an aspiring screenwriter is the kind of specific details you can only get through years of Industry experience.
That's why The Writers Store compiled the Hollywood Screenwriting Directory, the product of more than three decades working directly with the people behind the world's favorite films.
This targeted reference book features:

Verified contact information for Hollywood buyers, including phone numbers, and street and email addresses
Crucial details like whether they accept unsolicited material and how they prefer to receive submissions
A guide to proper script format and advice on packaging your submission
Step-by-step instructions for writing professional query letters, treatments, and log lines

Plus, you'll find samples throughout, illustrated with tips and pointers to help you create a quality submission. With the Hollywood Screenwriting Directory by your side, you'll have a reliable resource that significantly ups your chances of script-selling success!

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Go forward and win!

Logline Service

Screenplays

Monday, September 3, 2012

THE 7 RULES OF PICKING NAMES FOR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS

Choosing a character name for your novel is as pressure-filled as picking a name for a baby. It has to suit the character’s personality, makes sense for the era and, most important, be super awesome (sorry friends, the awesome name of Brian A. Klems is already taken by this guy). Names like Harry Potter, Holden Caulfield and Stephanie Plum are memorable not just because of the amazing stories they navigate, but also because these names “fit” those characters so well. You need a name that “fits” your character too.

I stumbled upon these seven great rules for choosing character names offered up by popular mystery writerElizabeth Sims (the Rita Farmer Mysteries). When developing characters—no matter what sort of characters you’re pursuing—heed common sense and consider each of these tips before choosing a name.

1. Check root meanings.

It’s better to call a character Caleb, which means “faithful” or “faithful dog,” than to overkill it by naming him Loyal or Goodman—unless you want that for comic/ironic purposes. Some readers will know the name’s root meaning, but those who don’t might sense it.

2. Get your era right.

If you need a name for an 18-year-old shopgirl in a corset store in 1930s Atlanta, you know enough not to choose Sierra or Courtney, unless such an unusual name is part of your story. Browse for names in the era you’re writing. A Depression-era shopgirl who needs a quick name could go by Myrtle or Jane; it will feel right to the reader. Small public libraries will often have decades’ worth of local high school yearbooks on the shelves. Those things are gold for finding name combinations from the proper era.

3. Speak them out loud.

Your novel might become an audiobook or an e-book with text-to-speech enabled. A perfectly good name on paper, such as Adam Messina, may sound unclear aloud: Adam Essina? Adah Messina?

4. Manage your crew appropriately.

Distinguish your large cast of characters by using different first initials, of course, and vary your number of syllables and places of emphasis. Grace Metalious (a great name right there) demonstrates this in her blockbuster Peyton Place, as do any of the successful epic writers like James Michener and Larry McMurtry.

5. Use alliterative initials.

Employ this strategy to call special attention to a character: Daniel Deronda, Bilbo Baggins, Ratso Rizzo, Severus Snape.

6. Think it through.

You might notice that in most crime fiction the murderer rarely has a middle name or initial. Why? Because the more you explicate the name, the more likely there’s a real person out there with it. And reading your story they might become upset and try to sue you or come after you some night with a bayonet.

7. Check ’em again.

When writing my novel The Actress, I needed a name for a Japanese-American criminal defense attorney, and the name Gary Kwan burst upon me. I loved the name and used it in the book. Only thing was, as soon as the thousands of copies of hardcovers were printed and shipped to stores, I heard from a reader who pointed out the simple fact that Kwan is a Chinese surname. I cursed loudly and decided: a) that I would ALWAYS check name origins, and b) that Gary Kwan had a Chinese grandfather who adopted a Japanese orphan who became Gary’s father. Or something like that.

Naming characters just right is a challenge, but give it some time and thought, and you’ll start to find the fun in it. Study the names great authors have come up with, let your mind loose to play, do your research, and above all, trust your ear.

And if worst comes to worst, here’s hoping you’re like Oates and lucky enough to just bump into your character in a dream—where you can ask him yourself.

Go forward and win!

Logline Service

Screenplays