Technology Can Help You

You’ve written the book. You’ve finished the rewrites, put it all aside for months and then read over it again. You decide it’s not too bad. Good, even. You’ll take a chance. So, you line-edit it, proofread it and send it off…

And it’s rejected. Again.

Yes, it’s disheartening. Yes, you could have built the Great Wall of China waiting for agents or publishers to get back to you. No, you mustn’t give up. That’s not just a saying, you know. For most of us, it’s a way of life.

Jody Sabral, author of I Never Lie, wrote an interesting piece for the BBC Entertainment and Arts recently: E-books. How digital publishers are ‘shaking up’ the industry.

This was an informative read for a few reasons. Not just because of the higher royalties writers can expect from digital publishers (and in an industry where traditional publishers so often shaft authors, this was good to see), or the technology that can tell you if readers finish your book (invaluable). The most important thing for me, and what I think would appeal to many writers, was when Jody Sabral mentioned being able to connect with readers via an app, and getting their comments and feedback live. That would be fantastic – almost like having your own group of Beta readers.

Jody Sabral’s piece made me aware of the whole new world that’s opening for writers. The creative world never stays still and, like so many things, the world of books is constantly changing.  That’s a good thing because it means we are all constantly getting the chance to try new things – to reinvent ourselves and our writing, to try another genre or dabble in new technology. Not sure about something you’ve written, or just want to try something different? Put a few chapters up online to gauge reader reaction. Need a tool that helps you sort your chapters, editing, word counts or ideas? Check out the different (mainly free) apps and tools out there.

There’s a lot to help you, no matter what genre you prefer, whether you’re aiming for traditional or independent publishing and whether you write for adults, YA or children. There are lots of blogs too, giving information on good technology for writers. Here is a useful blog about 20 of the best free online tools for writers.

There are always new opportunities opening up for your writing, so put the rejections where they belong – behind you – and use technology to improve your game. There’s a whole new world out there just waiting for you. Think of that as you meander, stride or gallop into 2019.

Happy writing.

Kay
Author of   Treasure This
co-founder of Electrik Inc

Coming up:  Keep an eye on the Electric Inc blog – my next piece will be about online forums for writers.

Courage

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”  Mary Anne Radmacher

That reminded me of my writing, so I thought I’d pass it on in the hope it inspires you too. We all have dispiriting days. Keep trying. Whatever it is you love, do it. If you cannot do it right now, that’s okay. Work, budget, family, life – all these things  interrupt or postpone our creativity. Just try again tomorrow. Everything you wrote today was rubbish (you think)? Try again tomorrow. Another rejection? Try again tomorrow. You get the message.

Here’s another one I love: “Fortune favours the prepared mind.” Dr Louis Pasteur

I know he was a scientist but I think he’d have made a good writer; writing is all about sharpening your mind and being prepared for anything. So, in brief: keep trying, and be prepared. That means sit down and finish your book, short story or poem. Have it ready to send off if suddenly a reputable magazine runs a writing competition, or an agent you thought had emigrated to a parallel universe because you haven’t heard from them in, like, aeons… finally gets in touch with the magic words: can we see the full manuscript… or you  get the chance to draw up your own marketing and publishing plan and decide to do it yourself.

Whatever you want to do, here’s a link to a blog that does some of the hard work for you and lists Calls for Submissions  for all kinds of writing. So, no excuses… write on! 🙂

Kay Leitch
Treasure This
Founder member of Electrikinc
Also posted on kaywritesheretoo

picture: Courtesy of Pixabay

John Yorke Into the Woods Podcast

Had to share this fantastic podcast of an interview with John Yorke, covering effective use of structure in story, creating compelling characters, tips for subtle exposition and cliffhangers. It’s not often I listen all the way through an hour-long podcast but this was excellent – really informative. Well worth a listen. His book Into the Woods, about the craft of storytelling, is excellent too. The world is full of How-to-Write books – and you can count those worth reading on the fingers of one hand. Well, this is for your index finger.

Kay Leitch
Treasure This
kaywritesheretoo.wordpress.com

How to get your writing noticed

Publish stories on your own website/blog

Andy Weir, author of The Martian, first published this story on his own website one chapter at a time. He’d been posting short stories and chapters of different books on-line for ten years, growing a dedicated following.  His readers asked him to produce an ebook version of The Martian to make it easier to read, and this is when the book took off. Suddenly, he had an agent, a book deal and Fox Studios making the movie. Interestingly, the author had once taken three years off work to try and sell his writing to a traditional publisher and failed.

 

Use Wattpad to find a readership

Wattpad has 8 million monthly visitors and a high proportion of YA users. Writers post their books chapter by chapter, and give it away for free. But some authors see it as a price worth paying in order to find a readership. Lily Carmine’s story, The Lost Boys, clocked up 33 million readers! It was quickly snapped up by Random House.

 

 

 

Broaden your readership using social media

Try combining your words with images for sites such as Instagram, pinterest and Facebook to expose your writing to new readers. Even on sites where visual content isn’t required, images have better visibility in the news feed. I write flash fiction for pure fun and post it on Instagram/my author blog.

 Make an ebook

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) enables authors to independently publish their books straight to Kindle. It’s not a passport to getting your work noticed, but if your writing stays in a drawer no-one is going to read it! Producing an ebook is less expensive than making a physical book and is a good way of dipping your toe into the water to see if it sells. Tom Watson, author of the picture book Stick Dog, produced his own ebook because he felt his work was “too far out there” for a traditional publisher. It went on to gain a massive following through word of mouth. Our Electrik Inc books are all available as ebooks.

Do you have any top tips for getting your writing noticed? If so, let us know. We’d love to hear them.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Kim

How to Write a Bestseller

Electrik Inc is always on the lookout for good advice that helps us hone our writing skills. I loved this Ted Talk video with literary agent, Jonny Geller, about what makes a bestseller, and what agents/publishers look for in new writers. Think about his comments when you’re editing your own work because everyone wants to sell their books and the more we get right, the better it is for our readers as well as our bank balances.

There are lots of how-to-write-a-bestseller tips, from Dean Koontz to Matthew Sparkes writing in The Telegraph on how scientists developed an app in 2014 that analysed best sellers. The findings were very interesting but guaranteed success remains elusive. And so the advice is just that: advice. Remember, what works for one author may not work for you.

I especially like how Mr Geller looks for the “space between the sentences” in any piece he reads. There is often a temptation for writers to give too much description, too much information… I’m always advising my clients to trust their readers to fill in some of the blanks themselves.

Mr Geller’s five-word sentence example is excellent too – a fun way of learning the importance of varying sentence length.

Personally, I would add story to the list. Not the plot or pacing (though they’re important too), but the story: is it strong enough to hold the reader. I always think of that in my own writing. Will the reader care enough to keep reading to find out how this story unfolds – and ends. For me, story is vital. Of course great characters, tight prose and sharp dialogue help, but if I don’t connect to the story, I lose interest. Whether I’m assessing manuscripts, reading for a publishing house or writing my own novels, I keep that in mind.

Jonny Geller also mentions how it all comes down to us, the reader. That reading “makes us better people”, that original writing is so often harder to place because publishers find original material “very hard to market”. Yes, some of us have figured that out already. 🙂

The five things Mr Geller looks for are:

The bridge: does it take us from the familiar to the new?

Voice: the unique sound of the writer, which is nothing without the next part:

Craft: writing is difficult. Amateurs and professionals alike do draft after draft to get it right. Does it have resonance? Will it reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible?

The gap: the space between the sentences. The gap the writer leaves for the reader to inhabit.

There’s lots more. Jonny Geller has a natural style that’s easy to listen to without feeling you’re being lectured. Check it out.

KAY LEITCH   co-founder of Electrik Inc
Author of  Treasure This
kaywritesheretoo.wordpress.com

Favourite Quotes on Writing

Having completed my challenge to blog a book quote a day for 365 days, I thought I would want a rest from finding quotes for a while – but I’m collecting more than ever! I love them. Here are some of my favourite quotes on writing for anyone working on a book at the moment (including me). I hope you find them inspiring.

 So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters.

Virginia Woolf

Explore the reason that bids you write, find out if it has spread out its roots in the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die, if writing should be denied to you. Above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night, ‘Must I write?’

Rainer Maria Rilke

 You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should be cherished.

Will Self

 Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Only if you do that can you hope to make the reader feel a particle of what you, the writer, have known and feel compelled to share.

Anne Rice

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

Ernest Hemingway

 Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

Stephen King

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Virginia Woolf

 Write the kinds of stories you like to read. If you don’t love what you’re writing, no one else will.

Meg Cabot

 Have fun.

Anne Enright

 Does anyone have any writing quotes they’d like to share? I’d love to hear them.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Kim

Author of St Viper’s School for Super Villains

How to Earn a Living From Writing

Do you want to make money from your writing? I know… silly question. Or is it?

Regular readers of this blog will know I wrote recently that I believe we should write from the heart (December 2015: What Waterstones Can Teach Writers), work on improving our craft, and dare to be ourselves. I still believe that. There are too many so-so books out there, written by authors who’ve spotted a bandwagon and scrambled over each other to get on to it. Well, we’re all trying to earn a living in this world so I’m not going to throw stones…

But when I read Andrew Crofts’ piece in the Guardian online, I saw that he advises writers to “stop writing only what you want to write”. I thought it worth sharing with you because he makes so many valid points about the difference between what he calls “passion projects” (novels you want to write) and actually earning a living from writing. Sadly, there is a difference. Where I advocate “writing what you want and being true to yourself” (i.e. risk staying poor 🙂 ), he takes a much more practical stance and suggests if you want to make enough money to support yourself from writing, you should “gain access to information other people are willing to pay for or provide a service that others need to buy”. Good advice, though it did take him 20 years to hit six figures. But at least he hit it!

As ever, it’s about balance. If you can balance writing professionally, as Mr Crofts does, with projects for other people that earn you a living, then you can afford to do you own “passion projects” that might not make much money but will bring you enormous creative satisfaction. That way, you can have the best of both worlds.

Kay Leitch
Author of   Treasure This
Kaywritesheretoo.wordpress.com

What Waterstones Can Teach Writers

Don’t you just love mavericks?

Stephen Heyman writes on slate.com about how Waterstones’ fortunes changed for the better when Alexander Mamut, described by one broadsheet as: “The most powerful Oligarch you have never heard of”, bought Waterstone’s (when it had the apostrophe, but no profit) and put James Daunt in charge.

Daunt was already a very successful businessman. He founded Daunt Books in Marleybone High Street in 1990 when he was just 26, and ended up running six independent book stores across London, all of which remained profitable even in difficult market conditions. The first thing Daunt did as Managing Director of Waterstones – apart from getting rid of the apostrophe – was to tear up the existing business plan for the failing book store and implement his own, rather unconventional, ideas.

He took power away from publishers and gave it back to the book sellers, promoting what he believed would sell rather than what the publishers wanted to advertise. All those “Best Seller” spots in the window of big book stores didn’t actually mean the books were best sellers. The publishers paid for those spots.

The great thing about Daunt, in my opinion, is that he’s not an accountant, a marketing executive or a PR man. He trusts the book lovers he works with. One thing he said made me laugh out loud: when he discussed his individual marketing plan and how he wanted to shake up the business he loved, he knew publishers would not be happy with his decision to cut their advertising space in his stores. “But,” he said, “we had the advantage of being bankrupt…” Talk about turning a negative into a positive!

He also gave each Waterstones almost complete autonomy over how to arrange their merchandise. So, no more homogeneity, where Waterstones in Glasgow looked exactly the same as the one in Chiswick. Each Waterstones looks different, individual, inviting. The one thing they all have in common is good books, tailored to individual local areas.

What has this got to do with writing and publishing? Everything. Rules are great when they work, and lethal when they don’t. Sometimes we’re so used to following old rules and procedures we don’t realise they’re so past their sell-by date they’re doing more harm than good. Many publishers have been following restrictive rules for a long time: pay lots of money for advertising space in shop windows (take it out of authors’ earnings) … tick. Avoid risks … tick. Ooops, not making so much money – cut authors’ earnings a bit more … tick. Watch the rise of independent author publishers…

I love that as independent publishers we are the mavericks of the publishing world. We’ve stopped trying to second guess anyone, least of all fickle publishers, and write what we want to write. We make it the best we can. Yes, we follow the rules of editing, punctuation and good grammar. Yes, of course we’re aware of the market, but we don’t let it tyrannise us. We don’t jump on band wagons for the sake of a quick buck – we don’t let the bottom line dictate what we write. Where’s the joy in that?

We can’t all be the kind of maverick James Daunt is. But we can learn from him. If you make any resolutions for 2016, make them be to trust yourself, ignore the “rules”, and write from your heart.

Kay Leitch
Author of  Treasure This
kaywritesheretoo.wordpress.com

Using a Pen Name and How to Market Yourself

Great post by Frances Caballo in The Book Designer with some good tips on using a pseudonym and how to market yourself. It often makes sense to use a pen name if you want to write in a different genre, but there can be problems marketing yourself as a  new name or brand, especially if you’ve already built yourself up a fan base in one genre.

Still, lots of authors manage it successfully, so I thought I’d pass this on as worth a read, in case any of you are looking for ideas.

Kay Leitch
Author of  Treasure This

Originally posted on kaywriteshemretoo.wordpress.com

 

Top Writing Tips for Children’s Authors

For all the children’s writers out there, the Guardian online has a great feature with excellent advice from editors shortlisted for this year’s Branford Boase award.

The award is for excellence in writing as well as in editing, so this advice comes from people who know what they’re talking about. Some of it is common sense (well, it should be by now 🙂 ): cut and tighten, don’t overwrite, and avoid long convoluted plots, but there are lots of gems in here for writers in general, not just those writing for children.

Check it out here, at The Guardian.

Kay Leitch
Author of Treasure This
This piece was originally published on kaywritesheretoo.wordpress.com