What Motivates the Novelist?

Please see the poll on the right.  I am looking for your number one motivation only.

I have been adding books on Smashwords to medieval-novels.com and am impressed by the sheer variety and freedom of the authors.  Satisfy my curiosity. 

Thank you!  If you are looking for the Round-up, it is right below this.

How to Get Filthy Rich as a Novelist

I know a sure way to make a ton of money writing a novel.

Write a novel about some amazing crime.  How about robbing a casino or Fort Knox or a multinational bank.  Come up with slightly outrageous but lovable characters, an impossibly complex plot and gorgeous and exotic settings.  Spend a lot of time setting up the plans and the relationships between the characters.  Make sure there are lots of close calls.  But this is terribly important: make sure your mastermind gets away with it.

This is also important: do all your own research, meticulous and real world.  Do this by actually committing the crime.  The novel may not make a dime, but at least you will have the proceeds from your remarkable research.

If you get caught and thrown into jail, hey, I said you would be rich, not free to move about the world.

When Is a Book Review Not a Book Review?

An Editorial by Nan Hawthorne

When is a book review not a book review? When it is, in essence, a free advertisement.

I just resigned from a book review blog because a review I wrote was deemed "negative" and therefore unpublished. I had not known the policy of the group precluded anything but the most minor criticism of a book. If I had been, I should not have chosen to accept the invitation to participate. As I said recently to a colleague, I believe that if a reviewer cannot say what she thinks of a book she has no business reviewing it at all. It's dishonest. It calls into question the credibility of every single review published within its digital covers. It cheats those who read and trust the reviews.

I am terribly disappointed. I felt honored to be part of that group. But I simply feel that if authors want nothing but a send-off of their work, they should make sure their books are perfect. And you know and I know that no book is perfect. It's a subjective art, reviewing.

In the case of the book I reviewed "negatively" -- I don't happen to agree with that assessment, actually -- it had several plot threads that simply fizzled out and were never resolved. The book had its merits, the historical research was superb and it was one of the best portrayals of female friendships I have ever read written by a man. But the book was slow to start, got better, then started jumping about confusingly. Then it just ended. I feel it would have been a disservice to cover all that up.

To clarify, the site's policy is basically "If you have to say too much negative about a book, don't review it at all." In other words, you as the reader don't know if a book that is not on the site was tooo awful to review or was just never reviewed.

I don't understand how reviews of books where flaws are unacknowledged is anything but free advertising for the book?

I plan to ask the publishers of the site either to remove all my reviews as well as their review of my own novel or add a disclaimer that only positive comments were permitted.

As an author I object to mollycoddling. If I put out my work I must be prepared to hear things I don't like. I understand the author of the book whose flaws I acknowledged wrote to the owner of the site to object. The owner only said to me that his email "broke my heart". What sense does it make to write reviews then? I was not harsh or bitchy or nasty.. and I shouldn't be defending myself here. He should be defending his book. I know how it feels to have less than complimentary assessments of my work published. That's just the price of being a public artist.

My one chuckle over this situation concerns the new law that calls into question the integrity of product review blogs. As of December 1st bloggers in the U.S. must reveal if they received the book or other product they are reviewing in return for the review. This law doesn't apply to any mediem other than the Internet. The impllication is that people who review on the Internet are not to be trusted to have integrity, that we are likely to write rave reviews in exchange for compensation. In the case of book reviews, this is a laughable assertion, given that it is a rare review where the reviewer bought the book herself. That happens to be the case with most of my reviews, since That's All She Read is as much a place for me to record all the books I read.

But it appears that it doesn't take compensation or reward to assure a positive published assessment of a book. Ill-placed and unprofessional "niceness" will do the job as well.

How to Create a Writer's Blog

By Rob Parnell
Rob Parnell's Easy Way to Write
[Reprinted with permission of the copyright holder.]

You don't need me to tell you that self publicity is a writer's secret weapon.

Bearing in mind that when you decide you want to be a published author, it's most likely going to take you anywhere between two to five years to see your books in print - that's the reality of the publishing world.

So why not use that time to build a following? Why wait until the last minute to start your promotional activities when the Internet is a perfect place to get people reading your writing, and getting to know and like you through a regular blog?

It's not as if it costs anything - except your time - so you have no real excuse do you?

Where to Start

Go immediately to blogger.com and register a blog spot for yourself, either using your own name or some other phrase that means something to you.

Don't use Wordpress unless you're a complete masochist - and have oodles of time to waste on incomprehensible readme files. I have no idea why people use Wordpress at all - it's the most complicated interface I have ever come across and requires a degree in engineering just to install.

(Maybe that's it. Engineers are different from normal people - strange and unsociable with strange superiority complexes - maybe they need that level of complexity to feel validated!)

Blogger.com is easy. It does everything for you - and the dashboard where you can add your own stuff is beautifully simple to understand. The only drawback (if you can call it that) is that you need a gmail account to get started. No sweat.

What to Say

You don't need to have publishing credits to start talking about writing. It's your blog. You can say what you like. That's the beauty of the Net. Your opinion, your worldview is just as valid as anyone else's.

In fact, that's the trick I think: to be as honest and as frank as you can be. That's what will make you seem unique.

Don't just trot out the standard line on writing issues. Get in touch with how you really feel about your craft - and state it, boldly, with pride.

Blogs become popular over time because people dip into them, enjoy what they read - and remember you. And they remember sincerity for a lot longer than you simply trying to sell yourself, your books and your writing.

How Often You Should Blog

The major search engines trawl the Net at least once a week. Their spiders are looking for new content.

Therefore, in order for a blog to start appearing in search listings you need to keep updating it. Once a week ideally - but we all know that's not practical much of the time.

Regularity is the key - and relevance. Add topicality to your blog by mentioning world events, personalities and contemporary issues. These all raise your blog's profile - and its popularity.

Building a popular blog can take around a year or two - there's no getting around that. But that's why you need to start yours now. Think of your writing career as a long term investment. In a couple of years from now, wouldn't it be better to know that you've had blog readers - and loyal subscribers over that time?

Make sure you sign up for all the RSS feeds on offer - and you'll find, over time, you'll get more and more visitors.

Find an Angle

If nothing else, the media teaches us one thing: it's the angle that grabs attention.

Start a blog that details your week by week journey through your book or novel, for instance.

Write about a cause you believe in. Save the Whales, Obesity, Cancer Cures for example.

Take a religious or political stance (and get ready for vociferous responses!)

Or simply write about where you live, or the history of a place you love.

You'll find like minded people attracted to your site - and, one day, maybe a news service will contact you to use you as an authority in an interview. These things happen.

Can You Get Paid to Blog?

Yep. Put Google Ads on your blog. Blogger.com shows you how to do this. It's free and whenever anyone clicks on an ad within your blog page, you get paid. Easy. Money for jam.

You could also put an email catcher on your blog.

getresponse.com is free - as are many others, do a search on 'free autoresponders' - and most will integrate seemlessly with blogger.com.

After a few months you can try offering books and ebooks you've written to your subscribers. Or offer other writer's book as an affiliate.

Why not? Everyone's doing it - why leave money on the table?

In the Future You'll Wish You Started Now

Because when you do have your own published books out there in the real world, you'll have people you can tell about it. Publishers will like you for being able to say you have readymade fans to whom you can promote your work.

Book sales don't just happen nowadays. You have to find avenues of publicity and ways of increasing the probability you'll sell your books on the publisher's behalf.

And every little helps.

Keep Writing!

Rob@easywaytowrite.com

Go here for more helpful writing articles
http://easywaytowrite.com/articles.htm

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Rob Parnell teaches online writing courses on such topics as Writing the Modern Thriller, which I am taking right now -- though my notion of "modern" is relative -- Fantasy Writing, Horror Writing, Writing for Kids, Re-writing, and much more. Sign up for his free writing newsletter.

The End of My Writing Career.. and the Beginning of my Career As a Temple Priestess

I came to an important conclusion yesterday. I don't really want a writing career as I formerly understood the concept. I thought that because I was able to pull together such a good novel from my mission to gibe the characters from Laura's and my old stories that this meant I was a Writer. I know I can write.. I have known that for years. But what I thought was implicit in my success is that not only can I write other stories and characters but that I should. Now I am not sure that really is what I should do.

My original purpose in writing An Involuntary King was to take the characters that existed mostly only in my own head and make them real to others. I found my old friend who had developed them with me and discovered she had not even thought of them for years. Clearly they were not the life force of their own they were and are to me. My husband knew all about them now, thanks to typing all the the old stories for me, and I got a taste from his reaction to the characters, dear sweet man that he is, of what they could offer other reeaders. I started writing about them, adding a more mature insight into their lives and motivations. Then I realized anew how important they h ad been and always were to me. So I gave them an existence beyond myself. I won't last forever. They can.

Thanks to what I learned yesterday and what I realize today has lurked under the surface of my attempts to write other books is that being a novelist was n3ever the prime mover. The characters and writing about them was. So why do anything else? Why relinquish the role I cherish most, that of being the temple priestess to their lives?

Non-writers may find this all odd. They are fictional! These people never existed! Writers will get it though.. get that there is no lack of reality to these vivid characters, these old friends of mine. It's time for the chanting, the libation in the temple. Sacrifice? It doesn't feel like one.

So Random Acts goes on the shelf to wait for its own time.. since it is almost all written, why toss it? Those who have read it liked it. And Adam and Jacques will be translated almost in the spiritual sense to mix with my archetypes of the strong but thoughtful general, the loving but self-absorbed beauty, the intense and driven mercenary, the too good for his own good bard and the innocent wastrel. Their clones may take ovber the story for a while, in a later time and a real setting, but the originals will never let me shelve them. I have already started telling their story here on this blog. The paranormal mysteries in late 10th century Wessex exist and will be my ne project.. starting today

What sweet contentment I feel, back in my proper role again. And how grateful I am to Jim, who last night heard my plans and smiled and affirmed he had know it all along.

Now I just have to break the news to my characters. I think they will be pleased... and a little smug.

Authors: How's the Economy Treating You?

Yesterday my husband found out that his company is shutting down a product line for which he and his staff have some responsibility. That has him nervous understandably. They would have to cut his entire section to cut him, but it could happen. If he went on unemployment things would get darn iffy around here. That got me thinking about how my writing career affects our finances and how our finances affect my writing career. I wonder what the impact will be on your own?

I write full time. If you are tempted to say "lucky you!" I would say I agree but with a caveat.. I had to make a darned significant sacrifice to be able to do this, one I know for a fact without asking that you would not want to make. I had to lose much of my eyesight. 'Nuff said. I don't have any intention of going on with this line of thought. My point is only that if I wanted a "job job" I would have quite a challenge ahead of me just to get one. I finally decided that at this point in my life it would not be worth giving up my creative opportunity.

Here's where my thoughts went last night after Jim and I talked about how to save more money. I am just finishing a novel for an ebook publisher. They don't know about it yet, so clearly I don't know if it will get published by them. If it does I will make some money, very little but on the plus side at least. My already published novel I paid to get published. I did it for reasons I am comfortable with, but that means anything I spend to market it is on the financial minus side as was the publishing itself. Though it is possible, and I am certainly going to dedicate myself to this goal, I doubt I will ever even make what I have spent back from sales. That was a gamble I was exceedingly happy to take. An Involuntary King is a lot more to me than just some novel I wrote.

Looking towards the future and other projects in the works I face something of a dilemma. I think I have it in me to write more novels that could just be saleable, to a publisher and to its customers. But in a down economy chances are even slimmer than the slim chance any author has to get a novel published. It is possible that if I write Out of the Storm, my paranormal mystery set in the late tenth century, it will have to be on my own dime again.. and is that a gamble I should take given how things are?

The alternative might be to continue writing the ebooks and submitting them. The one I am just finishing is an erotic historical romance I wrote on a lark. It is good enough. That's all I will say. I could write other romances, and they would be good enough, maybe even better than average, but they would not achieve the ambition I have as a writer. That is, to write excellent and entertaining novels. I would rather do both. Both are perfectly valid genres. But do I want to give up the "finer" for the more likely to sell?

So that's what I am thinking about as the economy contracts and promises to do so for at least a couple-three more years. Jim and I can economize in other ways and save more money, but ultimately for me it comes down to a threat to what I have been doing and which has made me so happy for the past couple years. That research trip to England looks to be on the chopping block as well.. and time is running out for me visually.

So am I down? Yea, verily. And scared.

How about you?