Monday Musing – You Asked, I Answered

Thanks to everyone who posted a question—some tough ones here! Let’s get started.

Cinette  asked:

How 'dangerous' is it for a beginning author to try to market a series? Should they have a 'choice' of endings for the first novel? 

I don’t think marketing a series as a beginner is dangerous, per say, but it is important that your first book can stand alone. I don’t recommend a choice of endings. An agent and editor will want the book to end the way it should naturally end, and this ending can’t be a cliff hanger, anyway. The main plot line must be resolved. What your agent will most likely do is pitch your book as a standalone with series potential.  Editors will understand that you, as a writer, have a series in mind when they read it.

Stephanie asked: 

Hi! Is writing your only job or do you have a "Bacon" job, as I've heard it called before...something that brings home the bacon?? LOL! And if you do have a job aside from writing, what is it?? Is it based on creativity???

I worked part-time in administration until recently. I’m fortunate that I have a husband who brings in the bulk of the bacon, so he’s willing to give me some time to work at building writing as a career.

Laurel asked:

You'd mentioned on my blog that you have a mirror site on Live Journal. Could you tell us why you did that and how you make it work, technologically speaking? 

Since the next question is similar, I’ll answer the “why?” there.  As for the technical, I write my post in blogger with the HTML tab clicked.  After opening my post an entry page in LJ, I click the HTML tab there, then copy and paste from blogger. Then I can click on compose on blogger and rich text on LJ to get the format to show up the way it will when posted. The reason you have to go the HTML route is to save your links. Otherwise you have to double your efforts and add your links separately.

christicorbett asked:

Here's something I've wondered for a while now...why do you have your blog on two locations? (Blogspot and LiveJournal).

I friend recommended I do this and I’m glad I did.  What I found is that Blogger and  LiveJournal each have a completely different culture. What I mean by that is, blogger people and LJ people blog for different reasons and because of that, you have two different groups of people to hang out with. There are a few of us that “double dip” but most don’t.

Here are the differences from my perspective. I would compare the blogger community to the frat house in a university setting and the LJ community would be the lounge where the profs hang out. This analogy breaks down, and I’m about to generalize a lot here, but it gives you an idea. 

Bloggers love contests and parties and “bling” on their blog sites. Numbers are very important. The pressure to grow your followers and commenters is fairly strong. There seems to be a social pressure to read and comment, not because you feel like it, but because it’s expected and if you don’t well, don’t expect them to come read you. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s close. On the other hand, it’s really easy to meet people and find followers. Probably because of all the contests and parties and bling. I’ve made a lot of online friends here. Most of the people who hang here are aspiring authors.  Because of all of these points blogger is probably better for building a platform. 

When it comes to commenting, if I comment back to a commenter, I like to email them, so they don’t have to check back to my blog later to see if I did. That’s only possible if the commenter has an actual email address and not a noreply address. I also copy my response into the blog comments so others can read it.

LiveJournal folks don’t track numbers at all. Because of that it’s harder to find friends but in a way it’s a relief not to have that pressure. LJ people just blog because they want to, and it doesn’t seem to matter to them if people comment or not. It’s their journal, and you’re allowed to take a peek. (Whereas bloggers tend to focus on what their readers want). The ironic thing here is the commenting system for LJ is better. It threads, so you get notified if someone commented to your comment—you don’t have to go back to a blog to check if the blog owner or others responded to you and you don’t have to email. LJ seems to be the place where established and newly published authors hang out and it’s were the debuting author groups gather as well, ie: 2k10, the tenners, the elevensies.... I don’t find LJ as user friendly when it comes to setting up a template and I don’t like all the advertising that pops up.

So, I guess it all depends on what you want out of your blogging experience.

Heather asked: 

Do you believe in one-sentence pitches, or loglines? If so, I’d love to hear yours!

Yes, I do. In fact, I think they’re essential, especially if you’re doing live pitches at conferences. Miss Snark’s First Victim just hosted a logline contest, if you’re looking for examples.

 

 Here are mine:

A teenage time-traveler accidentally takes the cutest boy in the school back in time.

A boy grows up in Hitler Youth and fights on the Eastern front.

A teenage swim athlete falls for a merboy with disastrous results.

Lesley-Anne Evans asked: 

What specifically do you do to build your blog? How important is your blog to marketing your present or future books? 

There are many elements to a successful blog.  A readable and appealing template that’s easy to navigate helps; interesting and relevant content, and a likable blog owner personality. Become part of the community by reading blogs, commenting and participating in blogfests and contests. It’s like real life; you can’t make friends if people don’t know you’re in the room.

As to the importance of the blog as it pertains to marketing, there are differing opinions out there on that, but I say it can’t hurt as long as your blog isn’t just about marketing your book. However, isn’t that why most of us started blogging? To build a platform in order to generate sales? One way to balance this is by having a separate webpage devoted to marketing your book, this allows you to ease off on the topic on your blog.

Here’s a good post on the effectiveness of online marketing by writer unboxed.

Sara B. Larson asked: 

What do you eat while you're writing? And do you listen to music while you write, if so, what? 

I don’t eat while writing. Not because I possess enormous amounts of self-control but because I’m a bit of a  germaphobe There’s no way I will eat anything that touches my fingers and my keyboard simultaneously. 

And I don’t listen to music. (Man, I sound boring!) It’s ironic because I’m married to a musician, but I really just need silence to think clearly.

lotusgirl asked: 

Where did you grow up? 

I grew up in the same area I live now, Kelowna BC, Canada.

The last three questions are about topics I don’t have personal experience with so I called on a Denise Jaden and Tamara Heiner to help.

Talli Roland asked:

            How do you cope with the stress of sales? I'm forever worrying I won't sell enough copies,    

           and  that it will affect my career going forward. 

Denise’s answer: Sales can be so out of an author’s control, so that’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Things like being easy to work with, responsible with deadlines, and positive and upbeat about my books and career—those are things I generally focus on.

Freedomtrain Ministries asked:. 

 I am having my first book published called Jewels of Wisdom and can't afford their publicity package. I am on my own - any suggestions? Look forward to reading your blog. 

Denise’s answer: For publicity, I have two publicists assigned from S&S – one in the U.S. and one in Canada, but they are both responsible for publicity of many authors and very busy. I also hired Lauren Becker who is extremely well-priced and I felt she was totally worth the money. She is willing to work with authors in whatever way they need – be it a blog tour or setting up events or contacting companies for co-promotion.

There is also a lot an author can do on their own in terms of promotion. I set up my own launch party and blog tour and liked that I had complete control over those areas, as I constantly made changes to both.

Chris Barton said... 

I have a friend self-publishing a children's novel. She's interested in also releasing this as an ebook. Do you have any suggestions or tips about this?

She's worried about people taking and sharing her work. Any advice about that?

 

Tamara’s answer:

I don't personally have any experience with this, but I'll pass on the
information I've gathered from listening to other people:

I have no idea about children's books as ebooks, but I know Dragonfly
Publishing does them. She might check out their website (dragonflypubs.com) and see if they answer those questions.

Smashwords.com is the website I know a lot of people use for ebooks. I
think the format has to be a PDF.

As far as sharing, etc, I wouldn't worry about it. Once people own a book,
it's theirs to do what they want. They might loan it to a friend. They
might give it to a library. They might resell it. Same with ebooks. It
doesn't really end up making a huge difference when people let friends
borrow their books, and I doubt it will with ebooks, either.

 

Thanks Denise and Tamara for helping out with your answers!  Thanks to everyone who asked a question and I hope the answers were helpful.  We’ll definitely do this again sometime!