I am so thrilled to post this. I have to say, being a part of LitSisters has changed my life in the most amazing way. And we are starting 2010 off with a bang! Not only did our boutique publishing house, LitSisters Publishing, launch today, but we also were featured on the home page of [...]
Who doesn’t struggle with dialog? Anybody? It’s okay to admit it. Everybody struggles with it. Okay, not quite everybody, but nearly. I don’t struggle with it. Not ever. Okay, now I’ve pissed you off. You feel set up. But … no, don’t quit reading … I’m going to tell you my secret. As I started to say, don’t give up. When you finish reading this post, you’ll have an easier time with dialog, too.
The first thing you need to do, and I can’t make this point strongly enough, is READ YOUR DIALOG OUT LOUD! I know you feel silly. Do it anyway. And don’t just mumble your way through it. READ IT IN CHARACTER! With the emphasis your characters would use. Now I should tell you that I’m an advocate of reading all your work out loud, but you MUST do it with the dialog, if nothing else.
Next, EAVESDROP! Eavesdrop on all different kinds of conversations. Listen in wherever you find yourself. You can learn a lot that way. The first thing you learn is that PEOPLE DON’T SPEAK IN COMPLETE, GRAMMATICALLY PERFECT SENTENCES. That’s a biggie, an important point that writers often miss. The second, equally important thing you will learn is that PEOPLE DON’T TELL EACH OTHER THINGS THEY ALREADY KNOW. Now, I realize that writers use dialog as a way of conveying information to the reader, aka info-loading, but the information must flow organically in the conversation. Other important things you can learn from eavesdropping are:
The point of all the above is to help your dialog appear natural. As humans, we communicate … incessantly. And that very fact is why we can always tell when dialog is stilted or unnatural. Try putting these tips into practice and see if they help your dialog. Then let me know.
Finally, I’ve made it to the LitSister’s page so that I can add my two cents. I thought I would reply to Audrey’s blog on time management. Fitting, since I haven’t found enough time until today!
There are more than a few people I know who tell me that I’m organized. I politely say, “thank you” and then go home and wonder what in heck do they mean. How can I be organized when I always feel like I’m ten steps behind and running to catch up?
After much deliberation, I’ve discovered that my problem is not that I don’t know how to manage my time. I do…I know that I have about sixteen to seventeen hours a day, more if I need them. I can fit a million things on my list and I love to check them off, and many days I do. Other days, I want to hide under my covers and sleep because Busy Me gave Other Me too much to do, and “I just don’t wanna!” Aye, she’s a slave-driving bitch.
So…the real problem at hand is not managing my time. It’s managing the workaholic part of me that doesn’t know how to be still; the one that shouts, “Now, faster, better!” at the top of her lungs with a whip in her hand. She has her place in my life. She knows how to stay up all night writing furiously to meet an 8am deadline. But, she also doesn’t know how to relax or to play.
My challenge is to find balance in my life; time to write and run and laugh and be so that writing stays fun and life doesn’t become a chore. So, that my children know who I am. Not because my name is on a book cover, but because I spent time with them.
OR: How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Book
Whether you’re an Indie author, or you’ve chose to go the traditional route of being agented, there is one major common fact: there is no money for marketing. The state of the industry doesn’t allow for it. So you’re this new author, with this amazing new book that you’ve worked on making as perfect as it can possibly be. Well, now what? How do people buy it? How do they find out about it? And the most important question: how can you make more money selling it?
And the easiest answer, dear readers, is this: social media.
Here are my top five tips for getting started on social media promotion for your book.
Get Profiled!
You’ll want profiles on all of the prominent social media websites: Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, etc … Upload photos of yourself, your book, any events you’ve done, things like that.
Use the Resources
Now that you’re all set up and good to go, USE THEM! The only way for people to remember who you are, is if you make yourself visible. Think of the old advertising rule: consumers need to see an advertisement seven times before the business name resonates with them. If someone needs to see you seven times before they recognize you, how many times does it take to get them to buy from you?
Build Relationships
While money, as with this and any other business, is the bottom line, you can’t view social media as social media = $. It just doesn’t work that way. You’re building relationships here. You’re making that connection with other writers, small presses, potential readers … caring about who you’re talking to and spending the time to get to know who they are will make all the difference when it comes to promoting your work.
This Shouldn’t Even Have To Be A Point
You have a website, right? And a blog, of course. And you’re updating with useful, relevant content several times a week, correct? And you’re making sure that you’re writing in your voice, and maybe even including little tidbits of your personal life to reach out and make that personal connection with your readers. I shouldn’t even have to put that here, right?
Yeah, I didn’t think so. You’re on top of stuff. Right?
Don’t Whore Yourself Out
With social media, you’re walking a fine line between good promo and being a pain-in-the-ass. I hate to be crude (okay, I really don’t) but the best way to make the most out of your social media is to understand that no one wants to be spammed. And no one wants to be forced into your product. If every update you make is about “Buy my new book!” “OMG did you buy my book yet!” “Hey, didya know I have a book and you should totally buy it?!” … yeah, you’ve just crossed into PITA territory. Keep it light, keep it simple, KEEP IT RELEVANT.
Lastly, think of social media like a party. Behave as if everyone you meet online is someone you’re meeting at a party. Writing is what you do, not what you are, and surely, you have other things to talk about. We good? Good. Now, go get started by joining the party at the LitSisters Facebook Group!
(see what I did there? eh? eh?)
Right now I’m supposed to be finishing a mini-cookbook. It’s an add-on to my novel. Since one of the main characters is a wonderful cook, I’ve decided that her recipes might be a desirable item. Anyway, I’m supposed to be finishing it right now. The reason I know that is because I just tweeted it. I believe what I said was, “finishing today no matter what.” Yet here I am blogging. Insert “sigh” here. I’m also mulling a post about my thirteen year old daughter for my website. Hence, today’s topic: Time Management.
I have too much to do. I know I’m not the only one; it’s a common ailment these days. I’m blogging when I should be cleaning, cooking when I should be writing, walking the dog when I should be organizing my office. I actually missed a conference call on time management because I wasn’t organized enough to make sure I had a charged phone on which to take the call. Thankfully, I’ve never forgotten to pick up my children, though my youngest does seem to worry that I will.
Sadly, I have no incredible insight or advice with which to wrap up this piece. My motive, other than the usual “avoid doing what I’m supposed to be doing” is to tell you that, if you have this problem, you’re not alone. We all have to figure out, by trial and error, what works for us. I have decided I’m going back to my Daytimer. I tried to go technological here but it didn’t work for me. I’m also taking up writing lists.
I might have more to say on this topic but I’ll have to let it go for now. My thirteen year old just called to tell me that her spelling bee starts now. I forgot to write it down.
Want a write a funny story? Liven up a boring holiday party? Auditioning for Last Comic Standing? These humor tips have multiple applications.
Every now and again an expert sounds the death knell of some item or other that we mere mortals can’t imagine living without. Inevitably they’re wrong. This week the object in question is the book. Frankly, I just don’t see it.
There were several stories in the trades this past week that draw the reader to an inescapable conclusion: the paper book is antiquated. The new way to read is with an e-reader. If there’s anyone out there who is still unfamiliar with the term, e-readers like the Kindle, Sony Reader and the Nook are hand-held electronic devices with very readable screens, adjustable font sizes and a glow similar to a back-light.
They are available for purchase in the $200-400 range. For around $10 you can download most any book onto it. In fact, many classics are available for free. E-readers hold about 1500 books and some have expandable memory beyond that. This way you could load your entire summer reading list and then some onto a hand-held device the weight of a mass-market paperback. Given its convenience and portability, digital books are a clear winner, right? Maybe.
Certainly there is room for e-readers in the book world of tomorrow. In fact, the fastest growing purchasing demographic of these devices is 55 to 65, likely because of the font and lighting features I mentioned earlier. There are prolific readers who are happily freed from toting numerous books on vacation and frugal readers who are tearing through Austen and Dumas gratis or enjoying the lower, paper-free price of a download.
But for all that, there are people like me. I love the feeling of a book in my hands. The smell of it. I like to curl up with it on the couch or stretch out on a chaise in my garden and smell the bougainvillea. As I sit in my office writing this, I”m surrounded by books. They’re my friends. In this new world, what would be on my shelves? I have a first edition of Tess of the D’Urbervilles that’s 120 years old. It doesn’t matter if I can read it on a Kindle. Solzhenitsyn can’t sign my Nook like he signed my copy of The First Circle.
No, paper books will never die. We readers become attached to them as children and that’s a love affair for the ages. As a writer, I celebrate the concept of making literature more available to people and I am happy for their ability to get it in whatever medium they want. But you’ll find me forever haunting the stacks, looking for the next paper-bound adventure to strike my fancy.
It has been thus since Gutenburg invented the printing press. Once they printed their fill of bibles, publishers began printing books based on their love of literature. They weren’t in it for the money, which was just as well because they weren’t going to get rich in publishing. In fact, they knew that the top ten percent of their list would support the other ninety percent, thus assuring, hopefully, that they wouldn’t lose money. These publishers believed in the work they did. And they believed that bringing new voices to an eager audience raised the level of all human discourse. And so it was.
In the second half of the twentieth century two things happened. The first was that multi-national conglomerates took over every company they could leverage, including publishing houses. These corporate titans didn’t read great literature, they read spreadsheets. And they weren’t interested in new voices. They were interested in dollars. Suddenly, the ninety/ten rule was out the window and profit was the new king of New York. It became harder and harder to enable new voices to be heard and literature began to suffer for it.
Now the second thing that happened began, slowly, to negate the first. In the second half of the twentieth century technology began to take off at lightening speed. From the B movie sci-fi scenarios of the fifties we wound up in the nineties, where everyone had a computer in their house, to the new century where many people carry one in their purses or bags. And the playing field began to level.
These days, with traditional publishing only willing to take a chance on a known quantity, writers are looking to technology to give them voice. And technology has responded in full force. Welcome to the era of the Indie Author. Writers are now taking their destiny into their own hands, eschewing traditional publishing for methods they can control. The Indie Author movement is spreading like a wildfire through the west and traditional publishing has no hope of putting this fire out. Newer writers as well as established authors are exploring the opportunities that technology and pragmatism have joined together to create. Publishing 2.0.
A librarian friend recently expressed concern on this issue, citing Barbara Bush is an Alien as an example of why the Indie Author will always be viewed skeptically. But I don’t think so. The market will shake out the silly, the irrelevant, and most importantly, the badly written. But for those who are looking for the next frontier, this may be it. And to them I say, “bon chance.”
What the heck is this all about? So glad you asked, reader!
Let me introduce myself. My name is CL. I’m the founder of LitSisters. What is LitSisters? Well, we’re a group of women. We write. We love wine, tea, coffee and the occasional pastry. But mostly, we write. And we believe that the term ’self-publishing’ is a four letter word. We’re writers with a strong business sense, empowered to do this publishing thing on our own.
We’re Indie Authors. We’re Writerpreneurs.
And we’ve each got our own poison. Aud, for instance, writes heart-warming stories about families, love, and strength. Terri will make you laugh until you pee yourself, but then smile when you realize that you’ve learned something in between your giggle-snorts. Christine’s literary-noir style will suck you into her sepia-toned world and keep you hooked until it’s 4am and you’re wondering where the night went. Robin’s slow, romantic style will make you swoon, like you’re holding hands with your loved one, taking a walk in the park in the middle of an Autumn day.
As for me? I write about hot guys, smart girls, glitzy parties and fabulous clothes.
So, what is our goal here? Well, in business terms, here’s our mission statement:
To encourage and empower writers to complete, polish and market publishable commercial print and electronic creative work. To provide technical, artistic, emotional and social support. But above all, to be kind and honest.
We support each other in a way we believe all women should, writers or not. We focus on creating quality work that we believe in, and will all stand behind. We’re a family. We’re sisters. And we hope that this site will help you, with your writing, the way we help each other. By providing useful links, interesting articles, and letting you into our worlds.
I hope you’ll come back soon, reader! You’re always welcome to join in the discussion in the comments, send us an email or two, and let us know what you need help with.
Because, just like in our three-dimensional meetings? We’re here to support you with your writing business, too.
