Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Using Different Muscles

Posted: May 15, 2013 in creativity, family, ideas, procrastination, Writing
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I am a strong advocate for wholistic (not holistic) living. I believe that my  brain works better if I put the rest of it to work as well. Not only does it make me feel good, using my muscles circulates the blood and get more blood to my brain. In addition, I find myself being most creative when I am doing some otherwise mundane task.

And so I mowed the lawns, trimmed them, and started working on painting our deck. Today, since it is threatening to rain outside, I am doing two projects indoors: ripping up tile in our kitchen and prepping our dining room to paint. Yes, I would probably get each of these projects done quicker if I just focused on one. But I am in no hurry. It’s therapy, and I have a short attention span. In addition, my body gets tired of sitting on the floor chipping away at tile, and so I stand on a chair instead, scraping away the popcorn ceiling that my wife hates so much. It might sound like boring work, but if you are in a job–day and night–that calls for your brain and not much else, it’s what’s called a busman’s holiday.

And the other thing I have noticed is that my creative juices are flowing big time. I have a short story that is almost fully formed in my head, which is actually the opening chapter to a book I will write someday. And I will get this short story down on paper sometime in the next few days. But I am in no hurry, like I said.

It’s summer. And the other months of the year have enough hurry in them to make up for summer.

So chill. I know I will.

Is Your Writing Starbucks, 7-Eleven or Home Brew?

Posted: May 5, 2013 in book marketing, indie publishing, Writing
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There are millions of wanna-be published authors out there. Some of them–a lot of them, actually–actually end up writing some semblance of a book manuscript. And once it is written, there are quite a few that think this: It is the greatest thing that has ever been written. All I have to do it get it published, and people will instantly recognize my genius. Once they do so, fame and fortune will follow.

Well, here’s the reality of the situation: Many dream of being writers. Some actually write something. A few of those get published. Of those few (actually, about a hundred thousand titles a year), a small percentage actually get noticed. Even if you are picked up by a traditional publisher, there’s only so much advertising and promotion budget to go around. So many manuscripts that actually get published still don’t make much money.

That’s one of the big reasons why I went from traditional publishing to indie publishing. I was getting published, but still getting lost in the shuffle. There are many other reasons why, which I won’t go into here. But the point that I am making here is this: there are only a very few published books that become blockbusters. If you want to get rich, go to school and take medicine or law. You’re more likely to get into medical school than to make a fortune writing.

Now that the bad news is out there, here’s some good news. If you have the patience, determination, and a little innate talent, you can actually make some money writing. But you have to be pragmatic about it. The first thing you want to ask yourself is: why are you writing? Are you writing for fun? Are you writing for money? Or are you writing because you have something to say?

If you are writing simply to make money, I advise you to write how-to books and articles. More people buy how-to and self-help books than any other category, and non-fiction beats out fiction every time. But some writers–include me–find fiction a lot more fun.

If you are writing for fun, accept the fact that you very likely won’t make a lot of money. There’s a chance of it, but just remember why you are doing what you’re doing, and you’ll be less likely to be disappointed. This is my category, and I am having a ball self-publishing.

Finally, if you’re writing because you believe you have something to say, the same thing applies. You’re not driven by the market, you’re not meeting the needs of some editor or publisher somewhere. You are writing to get a message out there. The vast majority of people will ignore you, or misunderstand you, but there is always the chance that you will make a significant difference in the lives of one or two readers. This is also my motivation.

If you decide to self publish, the question comes up: book or e-book, what price should I charge? Once again, you have to ask that important question: writing for pay, fun or message? But beyond that, you have to be pragmatic and ask yourself how good you really are. How well are you known? If you had never heard of you, would you buy one of your books? Price can have a bearing on how many books you sell, but it is only one factor. As an experiment, I lowered one of my books–which was selling OK–from $2.99 to $.99. I expected an increase in sales, but didn’t really see any change. Conversely, I upped another e-book–which was selling well–from $2.99 to $4.99, and saw a slight dip in sales, but realized that I had basically doubled my profit from each e-book I sold.

There’s no shame in selling your e-books for $.99. You have to experiment with what works. Sometimes selling it for $.99 will draw some interest from those who might want to take a risk on an unknown writer. But the bottom-line, long-term, necessity is getting your name known. That goes for whatever genre you’re writing in. You have to do whatever you can to make this happen.

You may not be a household name, today or ever. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sell a few books. You just have to write your best, get your name out there, and experiment with the marketplace.

Writing can be fun, and it can be a good way to get your message out there. And finally, it can be a way to make some money. You just have to find your niche–and keep writing.

 

Insomnia

Posted: May 2, 2013 in creativity, family, Writing, Writing business
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It’s the end of my first day of summer. I should be totally chill, relaxing, just taking life as easy as I can. Instead, I am up late with insomnia.

My wife is snoring in the next room. Even the dogs are snoring in the living room with me. I am sitting in the dark with my cat Booker, who is trying to convince me that the most important thing in life right now is that I scratch him between the ears and hold him in my lap.

Shelly and I saw a pretty good movie tonight. It was “Hitchcock,” featuring the wonderful acting of Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock, the famous director. The story revolves around Hitchcock’s efforts to get his movie “Psycho” shot and distributed. It was also about his relationship with his wife, which was fascinating to me for a couple of reasons. They were a very real married couple, fighting and yet devoted to each other, dependent on each other, yet caught up in lives that pulled them apart. I found myself identifying with Hitchcock as he went through the creative process and totally immersed himself in the life of the serial killer that Psycho was based upon. I found it fascinating that when the movie was over, Shelly told me that she identified with the wife in the movie as well.

The creative process is an exciting, exhilarating, frustrating and complex way to live your life. I call it being “in the zone.” Tiffany Collier, one of my students and a fellow writer, called it “The Obsession Chapters” (see her blog here). It’s a cool feeling to be caught up in so vivid a view of your story that you can’t let it go, but it can be pretty annoying to anyone trying to live with you. This may be one of the reasons that actors and others involved in creative fields tend to have a hard time keeping a marriage together. It takes a very special person to understand a writer, and be willing to live with one.

Shelly and I will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary in August. I think what’s kept us together is that deep down we share common values, and because of that, we are both willing to sacrifice and work hard to make our marriage work. I love to write, and have always found one way or another to do it. But I always have to keep it in context. There is a difference between being a successful writer and being a happy writer. First, how do you measure success? Second, even if I sold a million books, I would still be faced with writing the next book. Third, those million people who bought my books aren’t going to be there to take care of me when I am old. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of becoming rich and famous through writing, but it’s important to keep things in proper perspective.

Anyway, I’m rambling, which is what one might expect from someone who is up past his bedtime with insomnia. So please excuse my ramblings.

Time to get some sleep.

One down, three to go

Posted: April 29, 2013 in book marketing, Writing
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We are in the throes of final exams at my school. I gave an exam this morning, and have students turning in final papers for that same class. I am still waiting on four papers that are due today.

c final4Tomorrow I have two more tests to proctor, and one on Wednesday. In the middle of that, I have to draw on my math skills to give final grades to each of those students, each test, quiz, paper and project weighted according to what we agreed on in the syllabus at the beginning of the semester. My plan is to keep up with grading for each class as that final is given so that when we get to Wednesday, I only have to grade the tests for that class and post final grades.

Summer is almost here. Actually, in many ways it is already upon me. I spent a lot of the weekend going through The Champion, getting the paperback version of it ready for the book signing that is scheduled for here in north Texas in mid-May. It takes a while to get books printed and delivered, so I need to put in an order pretty soon. When I get my classes all finished and grades turned in, I still have a magazine to complete. But other than that, I will have lots of time to spend on publishing stuff.

Actually, I don’t have a major writing project planned for the summer. That’s unusual for me. But I launched one book April 1, and have plans to launch three more in coming weeks. That will keep me plenty busy. And so my plan is to maybe write a short story or two, but mostly get the existing books out and market them.

In addition to that, I promised my wife that I would work on the house and the yard. That’s a tall order, since I have tended to neglect it in years past. Arthur Milward, one of my writing mentors, used to say: “The writer’s house is the one with the grass that hasn’t been cut.”

I see this summer as a time to get my batteries recharged, and I really need that. There will be plenty to do, but it will be good to have few creative demands on my head.

Good News

Posted: April 25, 2013 in book marketing, Writing, Writing business
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Well, it pays to know people apparently. Over lunch, I took a copy of my new book Infinity's reach final ebookInfinity’s Reach over to Mickey Johnson at the Texas ABC here in Keene. He had been following me with my launch of the book in recent weeks and was eager to read it. I have done book signings once or twice at his store, and he wanted to do another.

c final4With the launch of The Champion coming up over Memorial Day Weekend, I took the initiative and talked to him about that as well. He was sufficiently impressed and ordered 50 copies of each one. Now all I have to do is finish editing The Champion in time for the event.

But that’s the right kind of motivation, isn’t it?

If you want to be one of the first to get a copy of The Champion, keep posted and I will tell you when and where this is going to happen.

Stuff I Can’t Remember

Posted: April 25, 2013 in Writing
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I woke up at 1:30 last night with an idea for a blog. I had a title and everything. I told myself, “Write it down; you’ll forget it otherwise.” And then I thought, I don’t want to get out of bed to write something stupid down. Besides, if I make a mental note of it, I’ll remember it in the morning.

Well, it’s morning. I remember that I had a good idea, and that I was going to write it down. And that’s all that I remember.

My mind might have been a steel trap once upon a time, but time and mileage have rusted it quite a bit. When students tell me in class that they want me to do something, like email them a copy of the Powerpoint I showed last class period, I have learned to tell them to email me or text me with the request. For I can guarantee that if it isn’t written down, I won’t remember it.

Hence my point….uh, what was it? Oh, yeah. If you have a great idea for a story, write it down. In an emergency, find whatever you can find to write it on: a napkin, the back of a tissue box, your hand. But get it down. Who cares if you think it’s garbage later on, at least you have the option of accepting or rejecting it.

Ideally, you will have a central point–a file, electronic or otherwise–where you keep these ideas. I started doing something even better. Instead of ideas languishing in a file somewhere until I can turn them into a novel years from now, I write them up as a short story. Some of them are true short stories, others are really first chapters of the book. But in either case, it gives you an opportunity to see the concept and the characters and either fall in love with them, or put them back into hibernation. And you have a permanent representation of the idea.

In any case, I turn 60 this year. Even though I still have the personality of a 13 year old, my body and my mind are starting to show wear and tear. And so I have to learn tricks to keep things organized. Like writing stuff down.

Don’t laugh. You’re not getting any younger either….

Making Grades

Posted: April 22, 2013 in apocalypse, book marketing, Book review, dystopia, indie publishing, Science Fiction, Writing
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Infinity's reach final ebookIf I seem a bit preoccupied these days, it’s because we are entering the last week of classes. Finals start next Monday and run through Wednesday. Then on Sunday, May 5, I will march with the other professors to graduate our seniors who have earned their right to a diploma.

One or two won’t march, simply because their grades didn’t entitle them to graduation. I have been the bearer of bad news a few times, and even though it’s not something you look forward to doing, it’s necessary. You do it to retain your own credibility, because you have an obligation to the University and the industry, and because you owe it to the student. It’s not a complicated thing to get good enough grades to graduate, yet every year, someone doesn’t seem to catch on. I tell my students on occasion, “The way to get an A is simple: give your professor what they ask for.”

It’s that simple, but many students find it not so simple to do.

I bring all of this up because of an email I got this weekend from a reader. He had bought the paperback version of Infinity’s Reach. Overall, he was happy with the book, stating that it had a good story and that he saw it as a book he wanted to hold onto and read to his children in years to come. But he was bothered by one thing so bad that he hesitated to give it a good review. That one thing was proofreading. In Chapter 6 of the book, I used the name “Devin” instead of the proper name for a character “Damien.” It’s a mistake I have made on other manuscripts, which is easy to do if you write over a period of time. But it’s annoying to readers, understandably.

Suffice it to say that I corrected the mistake and offered to mail him a new copy of the book with the correction added. But I don’t know if it will make any difference.

For authors are just like college students. Just as students are at the “mercy” (they think so) of professors and their grades, authors are at the mercy when readers grade us two ways: (1) book reviews; and more importantly, (2) whether they buy the book. Unfortunately, (1) often determines (2). More and more I am seeing the value of getting reviews. And in a sense, a mediocre review is better than no review at all. When someone visits Amazon and looks up one of my books, they might be enticed by the cover or the back cover description. But often the litmus test will be what other readers say about the book.

Authors obsess about reviews, but in the end there’s not a lot you can do about them. You do your best to write a good story, get a good cover and back cover copy, and edit it as well as you can. And then you have to sit back and pray that readers like your stuff. And you can stay up nights worrying about it, or you move on. Fortunately, in this day and age of digital publishing, errors can be repaired relatively swiftly. I intend to put out a cleaner edition of Infinity’s Reach–probably today or tomorrow–and I am glad I have the ability to do so.

Readers have a lot of power over authors, and that is rightly so. The trick is to give them what they want.

Watching Paint Dry

Posted: April 17, 2013 in book marketing, Book review, Christian novels, indie publishing, Writing
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I confess. Every once in a time I find myself guilty of doing the same things I tell my students not to do.

Like fretting over things you have no control over. You know the feeling: you work your butt off to get your manuscript finished, send it off in the mail to some potential publisher or editor, and then are sorely tempted to just sit each day and watch the mailbox for the inevitable royalty check.

Just stop it. As they say, “therein lies madness.”

Right now, I keep checking Amazon several times a day to see my author ranking, or seeing if anyone else has written a review of one of my books. Or I go to Goodreads and see how many have signed up for the giveaway for Infinity’s Reach. Or I check Facebook to see how many clicks my ads are getting (that’s a mixed bag; the more clicks there are, the more potential buyers there are, but also the more it costs me!). I need to move on, I know. But it’s just as addicting as waiting for that check.

It reminds me of the experience of dating. You fret and fume about whether you will get a phone call, or if that special someone will respond to your note, or if the rumor mill is working in your favor.

Time to move on.

What I advise my students to do–what I know I need to be doing–is concentrating on the next writing project. And even though I have already decided not to have a major writing project this summer, I do plan to launch three new books, my new Christian suspense trilogy: “The Champion,” “The Heretic,” and “Elijah.”

And even though I know that your book is only as good as readers think it is, I think they’re pretty good. I should: I’ve been working on them for six years.

It’s a case of loving your baby so much that you don’t want it to go out into the world until it’s perfect. Well, perfect or not, these babies are coming out.

You’ll be hearing more about the Champion Trilogy in weeks to come. I have officially marked Memorial Day Weekend as the launch date.

So stay tuned.

In the meantime, stop fretting about things you have no control over, and get working on your next project.

After all, a writer is only as good as his–or her–next book.

 

Another Giveaway!

Posted: April 8, 2013 in book marketing, dystopia, indie publishing, Science Fiction, Writing
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Infinity's reach final ebookYes, I am doing another giveaway of “Infinity’s Reach.” This time it is on Goodreads, the social network website devoted to readers. Between now and May 24, Goodreads is giving away 10 of the paperback versions of my book. Here is the link to the giveaway page.

Once again, those who downloaded the free e-book a while back and have had a chance to read it can thank me by taking time to put a review on the Amazon site for Infinity. It would help sales tremendously. All I ask is that you be honest.

Thanks for your support on this project. More later.

 

We Survived!

Posted: April 8, 2013 in creativity, editing, indie publishing, Writing
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Well, the good news is, I survived the weekend. And what a weekend it was.

If you have been following my blog in the past few days, you’ll know that my wife Shelly took last week off to take care of our 3-year-old grandson Gavin while his parents in Austin moved into a new apartment and my son Matt got ready to shoot a short movie over the weekend. In the meantime, Shelly got stomach flu, so it was an interesting week to say the least.

Callie was the highly talented actress in "My Laundromat Lifestyle," the shoot done this weekend.

Callie was the highly talented actress in “My Laundromat Lifestyle,” the shoot done this weekend.

Friday after I was done with classes, Shelly and I packed up Gavin to drive him to Austin. We had barely gotten onto the freeway when Gavin started throwing up all over himself and Shelly’s new car. So we ended up turning around and going back home. Matt needed some help in Austin with his shoot, so I cleaned up the car and drove back down to Austin, rushing to get there before 6 p.m. because he needed my financial help renting some equipment. Got there in time, got the equipment, and I spent from 9:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. on set as he shot his movie. Got to bed by 4:30, got up at 9:30, drove back to Fort Worth, getting home around noon. Ate something, got a little sleep. That night, Shelly got serious ill. Early the next morning she woke me up, asking me to take her to the emergency room. We spent Sunday morning in the ER, where they finally told us that Shelly had passed a kidney stone. They told her to go home and get some rest. Since we were both scheduled to go back to work on Monday, I prepared myself to take another trip to Austin to deliver Gavin to his parents. At the last minute, Shelly decided she felt well enough to go with me. She and Gavin slept the whole way down to Austin. We stayed a couple of hours, then got back in the car and drove home last night.

I am tired to say the least. We are in the last three weeks of classes, so I have plenty to do in that respect. But it feels good to be back into a routine, even though I am tired. I love my grandson, but I will be happy when my house has only my wife and I–at least for a few weeks.

But I wanted to tell my about the shoot. I was amazed and impressed to follow the crew during the shoot this weekend. We had a skeleton crew for this indie shoot: two actors, a lights guy, a sound guy, a DP (director of photography) and the director. As executive producer, my job was to pay bills, go on errands, tell homeless people that the set was not open for business (it was a laundromat after hours), and eventually I ran the “slate” as well (I held up the board and said “This Laundromat Lifestyle, Scene 4, Take 2″ and then clapped it shut. It’s good to see my education being put to good use.).

It made me realize that I didn’t want to do movie work. I am perfectly happy writing books, or editing magazines if called to do. But it also made me realize how much hard work is involved in any artistic work, be it a book, a magazine, a TV show, a radio station, or a movie. When you see all the parts to putting the final product together, you realize why movie budgets are so large and why credits roll on for so long.

And I saw a lot of similarities between the business of publishing a book or magazine and the process of making a movie. The script is only the beginning of a movie, just as the manuscript is only the beginning of a book. With a book, you have to consider cover, back cover copy, page formatting, marketing campaign and a variety of other details. The author thinks they are doing all the work, but the only time that is so is when they are self publishing.

People usually don’t stop to think about all the work involved in making a movie. But they shouldn’t have to, just as they shouldn’t have to think what you went through to write and produce your book. Their job is simply to buy the finished product and enjoy it. In a lot of ways, if they have to think about the production, it takes away from their experience.

There’s a lot of work involved in launching a book, just as there’s a lot of work involved in shooting a movie. But the reward comes when you have that final product and can share it with someone who can appreciate your creative idea.

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