by Laura K. Curtis | Jun 23, 2013 | Writing |
This week I was on vacation, and most of my talking was done with beach denizens like the one pictured above. But I also had a few conversation with family members. One of the best was with my niece, sitting at the very bench this mutt is occupying. My sister asked me when my book, Twisted, would be out, and my niece Leyla, who is 11, asked in some awe, “you wrote a book?” When I told her I had, she said:
Leyla: That’s so cool. I want to be a writer. But I know I need another job, too.
Me: That’s probably true. It’s hard to make money as a writer.
Leyla: I thought I could be a teacher. But that’s a hard job, too.
Me (having been a teacher for many years): Yes, it is. It doesn’t leave you a lot of time for writing.
Leyla: I could write in the summer.
Me: Well, that would be fine, depending on what kind of writing you want to do. But what if you have a deadline? For example, when I got my contract for the book coming out in November, it was for two books and I’d only written one of them. The other one is due September 1.
Leyla: And how’s that working out for you?
[After much laughter from the adults]
Leyla: Did you like writing your book?
Me: Sometimes. Sometimes not. Like when my editor said, ‘this stuff here doesn’t work at all. It has to go. Needs to be rewritten.’
Leyla: My teacher does that, too. [In her best “adult” voice] ‘Leyla, this part doesn’t flo-o-w.’
So, yeah, she’s well on her way to being a writer!
by Laura K. Curtis | Apr 17, 2013 | Books, Writing |
This one is for the writers out there. If you’re not interested in the publishing end of things, feel free to skip on to more fun posts about dogs, cookies, etc.
In my day job, I meet a lot of publicists, editors, authors, and assorted other industry professionals. Most of them are wonderful. Really, really great. I occasionally have contact with a publicist at Penguin, for example, who is so great I’ve been tempted to tell her that Penguin will be publishing my book in November and I wish she’d be my publicist.
Unfortunately, not all publicists are so good at their jobs.
If you’re with a bigger house, you will probably be assigned a publicist. But what if you’re with a small press? Or what if you self-publish? I’d like to take a minute to look at some of the things you may get asked to pay for as part of a package from a packager or from independent publicists.
For example, let’s take a look at some of the offerings from BookTango, which used to be Author Solutions, if I remember correctly.
Here’s something they offer, for a (mere) $799: A professionally written, web-optimized press release about your book that they will
distribute the press release to more than 30,000 opt-in journalists and more than 250,000 news subscribers through our newswire service, PRWeb. While we cannot guarantee which websites will display your press release, our distributed press releases commonly appear on websites such as Google News, Yahoo News and other websites where journalists search daily for relevant news and topics for story ideas.
Wow, sounds good, right?
No. Not right. Sure, they have a newsletter that goes out to 30k subscribers. What’s the open rate for that? And the 250k subscribers are news organizations that subscribe to ALL PRESS RELEASES. That is, they don’t give a hoot about your book, either. Notice how they say they can’t guarantee the book will actually show up anywhere, right?
These are not targeted lists, these are blanket emails. Because of my job I subscribe to a whole bunch of lists like this one and I don’t remember the last time I opened one of these things, let alone actually read more than two lines of the release.
Or how about this one from Jennifer Fusco’s Market or Die website. First, let me tell you something: as far as site design goes, this one’s a hot mess. White (or gray) type on a black background is a huge turn-off. Right there, that’s a strike for me, especially since one of the things she offers for a fee is website critique. But let’s move on to another service, the $300 “Promote Me” service:
Upon completion of the author questionnaire the author will receive: a competitive landscape analysis, a customized Facebook ad, guaranteed to increase your number of likes, one detailed promotion, to launch with the release of your book, Two hours of publicity services – to promote you and your book and a scheduled blog tour –with as many stops as we can possibly book.
Well, okay, that’s full of big words that sound as if they might be useful and worth a few bucks, but let’s get into the nitty gritty.
- A competitive landscape analysis? Nope. Not going to happen. Not unless your book happens to be in a genre she’s deeply invested in or she has a big staff with wide-ranging genre interests. Plus, authors of fiction don’t compete, so this is utterly useless. I write Romantic Suspense. That does NOT mean I am competing with other RS authors. In fact, the more readers those authors have, the more I am likely to have—a rising tide lifts all boats. I’ve completed more than my share of CLAs for business plans—they’re about how you take marketshare from other companies. But that doesn’t apply to authors of novels.
- A customized FB ad? Really? That’s something you could do yourself, if you even wanted to, given how little they’re proven to actually do anything. Yes, it may get you more “likes,” but so would giving away a single copy of your book on FB and asking people to “Like” your page to win. “Likes” do not correlate to sales in any significant way. Sales DO correlate to Likes (if you sell a lot of books, people will like you; but if you have a lot of likes, it doesn’t mean you’ll sell a lot of books).
- One detailed promotion…what the heck is that exactly? Where? What kind? In a shop? Online? Who’s it going out to? What does it consist of? Who’s designing it?
- Two hours of publicity services—see above: what, exactly, does that consist of? Her talking to you on the phone for two hours? Her talking to other people about you for two hours? Is she any good at that? What’s she going to say and how?
- And a blog tour with as many stops as possible? Dear god, no. But I am going to deal with that in a separate section, because although Ms. Fusco offers this, there are whole services you can pay for this incredibly poor form of publicity.
Now let’s head over to Promotional Book Tours for a quick look at what can go wrong when you hire someone to manage a book tour for you. These are not expensive, so you may think “well, why wouldn’t I? I know I need to go out on a blog book tour…” Let’s have a look at their “Value Tour” for $149.
What’s included in this two week promotional tour:
- Your book blurb, book cover, and author information posted on 50 blogs.
- A contest that runs for 2 weeks. (Prize minimum of $50 ARV*)
- A Total of 15 – 18 Tour Stops with approximately.
- 10 Book Reviews
- 2 Guest Posts
- 2 Interviews
- 3 Book Excerpts
OK, that sounds good, right? If you’re going to be on 50 blogs in the two weeks before your book goes on sale, that’s got to be worth money. Except let’s look at this closely.
- What appears on the 50 blogs is nothing more than the standard publisher’s information — cover, blurb, bio. No excerpt. No review. Nothing to actually interest the readers…if the blog actually has any readers (more on that in a minute).
- 10 Book Reviews. Wow, great! Except…who’s doing these reviews? Have you seen the reviews on Amazon and GoodReads? There’s nothing that says how experienced the reviewers have to be or how in-depth the reviews will be.
- 2 Interviews. With whom? About what? On a blog that will be read by whom?
- 3 Book Excerpts. Why wouldn’t you just host this on your own site? Why would you go off to someone else’s site and put an excerpt there?
- 2 Guest posts. This is the real meat, and if you can’t get yourself two guest posts on blogs that are actually pertinent to your subject matter, believe me when I tell you they’re not going to do it either.
It’s not that you shouldn’t do a blog tour, it’s that you shouldn’t pay someone to organize it for you. The way you organize a blog tour is to find blogs that are pertinent and become an active member on those blogs. Comment, or follow the blog’s owners on Twitter or FB and connect with them there. When your book comes out, you approach nicely and ask whether they would feature your book in any way they like, as a review or with an interview or by having you as a guest, or allowing you to do a giveaway. If you don’t know who the tastemakers are in your genre, what on earth makes you think some random service will?
Also, here’s what it says for people who want to “host” blog tours on the Promotional Blog Tours site:
Have you had your blog at least 3 months? Do you love Books? Do you want more Exposure for YOUR blog? Want to earn prizes?
Nothing about how many people actually READ your blog. So your book could get reviews on sites with fewer than 5 actual readers. And you’d be paying for it. Wouldn’t that be fun? On that note, several people offer to advertise you from their Twitter sites, etc. Back to Market Or Die — she has 280 followers. Why would you pay for your book advertising to go out to 280 followers?
Which brings me to the next problem I see all the time. Marketing gurus I’ve never heard of on panels and at conferences.
Now, I don’t know every industry professional. Not by a long shot. But if you’re going to bill yourself as a marketing guru, I damn sure ought to know who you are. And I ought to know who your clients are if they intersect my life in any way at all. That is, if you’re at a conference like Bouchercon, I ought to know you. If you’re at RWA, I ought to know you. Your clients’ names should be in my mind all the freaking time because those are the major conventions of the two genres in which I am involved.
But you would not believe how often I hear supposed marketing or social media “experts” talking at conferences and I’ve never heard of them. When I go look them up, I’ve never heard of their clients, so what good can they possibly be doing for those people? I look on Twitter and they have an EGG as an avatar. I kid you not. Just because conference organizers don’t do due diligence doesn’t mean you should fall for it. If you hear something from a speaker at a conference, do not assume it’s true. Do not assume it’s right. Do not assume it’s even this year’s information. Do your own research.
“But I don’t want to do the research! That’s why I want to hire someone!”
And there’s the rub, of course. It is easier to plunk down the cash and hope someone else will take care of it.
But there’s a lot of cash you don’t need to drop. Ever.
How many hours do you have to work to earn the $800 press release, the $300 promotion package, the $150 blog tour? Let’s say you’re a well-paid professional in your daily life, making $50/hr. That’s 16 hours of work for the press release. You can definitely do better giving 16 hours of your time to making connections. Six hours for the promotional package. Yep, in six hours you can certainly do the necessary work to promote your book yourself and get your name out there. And in the three hours it requires to pay for the book tour, you can easily request a couple of spots from bloggers in your field.
And if you’ve never been to a conference, I’d highly recommend thinking about doing that rather than anything else with your promotional cash. Because meeting people in person, despite how difficult it may be for you, is worth more than all the rest of this put together. (I have my own post on conferences over at Women of Mystery.)
Save your money. Invest yourself. You’ll be far better off in the long run.
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 25, 2013 | Books, Writing |
So recently I’ve run up against a problem I never foresaw. Well, I foresaw part of it — I fully expected that when I sold my book, my editor would want to change my title. What I didn’t anticipate was that we wouldn’t be able to come up with one.
Now, currently, my title is DEAD AND BURIED. It’s not an exciting title, I’ll be the first to admit, but it’s very descriptive of the book. No spoilers to say there are dead bodies, buried bodies, buried secrets, etc all over the place in the manuscript. After all, it’s romantic suspense.
The problem is that my editor feels as if the title doesn’t say “romantic suspense,” it just says “suspense.” Fair enough. I tend to write suspense with romantic elements rather than romance with elements of suspense.
But every title I thought sounded good ran into the same problem — too much mystery, not enough romance. So I was on the phone with Clare Toohey and she suggested I just give up and call it Ethan and Lucy Enjoy Romantic Suspense Together.
Well, fine. But you know, this is part of a series, which means that the next book would be Tara Jean and Jake Enjoy Romantic Suspense Together. And the series, naturally, would be called the Enjoy Romantic Suspense Together series. So the full title of the first book would be Ethan and Lucy Enjoy Romantic Suspense Together (Enjoy Romantic Suspense Together Series Book 1).
It didn’t get me any closer to a real title, but it did give me a laugh. I hope it gives you one, too.
*I chose this picture to go with this post because I like that cover and it’s my publisher—see the little DNA-looking thing in the bottom left corner? That’s their logo.
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 12, 2013 | Romance, Writing |
[This post originally appeared on The Women of Mystery.]
Years ago, I began attending writers conferences. The first one I went to was while I was living in St. Louis, the second when I was living out in East Hampton. In both places I was fairly isolated, far from any other writers. And back in those days—the early 90s—the Internet didn’t exist the way it does now. I belonged to an online writer’s group on AOL and a writer’s community founded by Orson Scott Card, both of which were fun, but neither of which gave me what I really needed.
So I went to my first writer’s conference, which was RWA National in New Orleans. I was painfully shy at the time and didn’t meet many people, and without the whole Internet thing, I’m not sure how much the networking would have helped anyway. But what I did do at that conference was attend the sessions. And I learned. And learned. And learned.
I learned about copyright, about rights, about relationships with editors and agents, and about the business end of publishing. Because I was there, and listening, I heard the answers to questions I wouldn’t even have thought to ask. It didn’t matter that at the time I was writing epic fantasy and this was a romance conference…there weren’t any fantasy conferences I could get to. So I went to RWA and I soaked up all the knowledge.
It’s kind of my motto, and something I tell people a lot: “shut up and listen.” Go to every conference, every convention, every meeting, every critique group, every panel at the library, every professional development thing you can find. Go. And listen. Don’t talk about your book. Don’t talk about yourself. Don’t talk about your career. Just listen.
If people ask you about what you write, by all means answer. But don’t go because you think it’s a chance to promote your book. Go because it’s a chance for you to learn from people who are further along than you are. Go because you can take notes that will help you with your next book. Go because people don’t want to sit down and tell you the same thing they’ve told 100 other people already, so the best way for you to find it out is at the same time those 100 people find out—in a panel. We’re all busy and none of us want 8 million emails cluttering up our mailboxes, but I’ve belonged to crimescenewriter for three years—just so I can go back and search the archives later on when I need them or ask the occasional question. When I can answer a question (like on firefighters and extrication), I always feel a huge sense of triumph because everyone there has given me so much over the years without even knowing it!
This year’s RWA is in July in Atlanta. (I really wish they’d do cooler climates–one year it was in Orlando, and next year it’s in TX, blech.) I was talking to someone recently who said she’s not sure she’ll go because she’s self-pubbing her next book and she’s not on a panel. I told her I think that’s a mistake. True, traditional conferences don’t give you a lot of help for new publishing paths, but they do help you network, and they do help you with craft. And anyone who tells you they know all they need to know about craft is someone whose work I’m not interested in reading.
The other thing about conferences is that they get you excited about writing. Or they do me. Whenever I come home from a conference, I am full of energy. Energy not only for writing, but also for publicizing. All those things that seem to drag at me, to weigh me down, seem lighter and easier after a conference.
And then, there’s the bar.
The bar is where you meet people. It’s where you get to know them, where you laugh, and where—if you’re like me—you come up with ideas for future books. I kid you not. In the bar at the Orlando RWA conference, a short story and a novel were born. It’s where you meet agents and editors and where you make contacts who will help you and support you throughout your writing career. These are the people you will support, too, of course…it all goes both ways!
This is why I tell people to put their real picture as their AVI on Twitter…so that people recognize them in the bar. You never know who might have a project they want to discuss with you.
Remember, genre writing is a community. That’s probably the most important thing you need to remember when writing and promoting your book, and it’s the thing that becomes obvious at conferences. Readers are writers, writers are readers. Those of us who write crime fiction—or romance or sci-fi—we read it, too. We like it, and we’re happy enough to like you, if you give us a chance. But we want to know you and see that you share our love of the genre. We want to see that you’re helping other authors and trying to learn to better yourself, and we don’t want to be sold to.
by Laura K. Curtis | Jan 28, 2013 | Books, Writing |
We first put together Feeding Kate as an IndieGogo project, so it was available only to those who donated when the project was going on. Now, however, it is available on Amazon and I believe it will soon be on B&N as well.
by Laura K. Curtis | Jan 1, 2013 | Romance, The Romance Hero Handbook, Writing |
Lesson the First: Identify and Acknowledge Your Inner Romance Hero
Examining the shelves of the bookstore’s Romance section could give a normal guy an inferiority complex. Billionaire businessmen, Navy SEALs, kilt-wearing, sword-wielding Scottish warriors, and century-old vampires abound. Even demons from Hades seem to have a leg up on their human counterparts in the romantic race. So what’s an Average Joe to do?
Never fear, the handbook is here! Regardless of nationality, socio-economic class, or even species, the characteristics that make a hero irresistible are always the same. Is your hair too thin or your belly too fat? Are your shoulders narrower than a pundit’s mind? No matter what you look like on the outside, on the inside is a Romance Hero just waiting to be born. You just need to find him and set him free.
But how?
Imagine you are that most famous of all Romance Heroes, Fabio. You walk into a famous restaurant. People stare. They whisper. Some even point surreptitiously. But do you care? No, you do not. You are Fabio and admiration is your due. Those who snicker are merely jealous of your success.
Now, shrug off your Fabio skin, but hold the grand and glorious feeling in your heart. Do you recognize it? It’s self-confidence, and it grows out of knowing who you are and how much value you have.
Not so easy, you say? Then we’d better get started!
First, we need to discover which kind of Romance Hero you have inside.
For each of the following historical eras, put an A next to the position you would most like to have held. Then, go back through put a B next to the professions you feel best suit your talents and personality.
Ancient Greece and Rome
Philosopher
Warrior
Politician
Medieval Times
Viking warrior
Scottish laird/warrior
Arthurian knight/courtier
Renaissance Era
Poet/Playwright
Explorer
Pirate
Philosopher
Inventor
17th-19th Centuries
Frontiersman in the New World
Explorer
Pirate
English nobleman
Modern World
Computer expert
Special Forces operative
Cowboy/Rancher
CEO
Politician
Social activist
Look at your answers. The better your desires correspond with your talents, the easier it will be to achieve your goals and unleash the hero within. If the two are always widely different, you can still get there, but the road will be longer.
What does this questionnaire tell you about your inner romance hero? Let’s take a look at your choices. Do your answers lean toward warriors, pirates and commandos? You probably have a great deal in common with romance’s more physical “Alpha” heroes. Politicians, noblemen and CEOs? You’re ambitious and driven, apt to be sophisticated and well-groomed. Explorers, inventors and computer experts have insatiable curiosity. Like poets, playwrights, philosophers and social activists, they’re apt to fall into the more easily approachable “Beta” hero category. These men are some of women’s favorites!
Why all the focus on history? After all, you’re a modern guy and chances are you don’t sit in the House of Lords, roam the Highlands in a kilt, or sail the seas under a flag adorned with a skull and crossbones. But the truth is, even the most modern women like a bit of old-fashioned courtesy in their lives. You don’t have to throw your coat down over a puddle, but you should become accustomed to holding doors, walking on the outside of the sidewalk[1], and seeing your date all the way to her door even when you don’t expect a kiss goodnight.
If you want your heroine to believe the expression of your inner hero and not suspect you of cynical self-interest, your heroism must be real and true, not a costume you put on to impress. In other words, you have to respect not only your heroine, but yourself.
Self-respect may be something you’re not used to. After all, most of us are used to basing our self-image on our jobs and your employment may well be less than impressive. The vast majority of us are worker bees rather than queens and we have a tendency to think this makes us less important. But the fact is, without the worker bee, the human race would die out. Queens give orders, but workers are the ones who pollinate massive fields of grain, meadows of flowers and orchards of fruit. This is the reason biologists are terrified about the fact that bee colonies are dying out.
So imagine, for a moment, that no one was willing to do your job. What would happen to the world? Take the consequences as far as you possibly can and you will see how important your work really is.
For example, let’s say people decided to refuse take jobs in department stores. No retail workers would mean that all clothes would have to be sold online and shipped–often each item individually–to people who would not have a chance to try them on. Every piece that didn’t fit would then be sent back. Manufacturers, foreseeing how many times they’d be paying for two-way shipping on each item, would have to charge more, so lots of people wouldn’t be able to afford the same level of quality goods. Plus, the constant trucking and flying of items across country or around the globe would be incredibly destructive to the environment. Retail workers are saving for the planet!
You also have to remember that even Fabio himself didn’t start out as an international romantic hero and multi-millionaire. Nor did he have the chest, shoulders and hair he has become so famous for. What he did have was potential, ambition, and a willingness to work, and if you have those things then you, too, can become a Romance Hero.
And here we reveal another secret of the romance hero: he is ambitious. He always has a goal in mind. His actions and decisions are informed by his desire to achieve his goals. The key for you, however, is to discover your inner hero’s definition of accomplishment, for every person has a different idea of how success will look.
In Mary Balogh’s historical Slightly Sinful [Dell, 2004], the hero expresses exactly what is so important about ambition and passion.
Even if a man had enough personal wealth to carry him comfortably through life without any exertion on his part, as he did, there ought to be something that fired his blood and elevated his soul.
The hero of Jill Shalvis’s contemporary The Sweetest Thing [Hachette Forever, 2011] also has to challenge and change his lack of drive before he can get the girl:
The next morning, Ford woke up in a rare, foul mood. Tara was right about him. He was easy come, easy go, and he didn’t like what that said about him.
This is a vital difference between men and women, and one you must understand should you wish to become a romance hero: men consider only success itself ultimately important; women consider the struggle to succeed equally vital. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to aim high.
The third and final quality of all romance heroes, along with respect and ambition, is care for the less fortunate among us. In this aspect, the romance hero is no different from any hero from Superman to the man on the street who prevents a mugger from stealing a woman’s purse. Your inner romance hero will have his own set of altruistic priorities and you need to discover and nurture them.
Even if you are having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day[2], never forget that others are worse off, nor that you have a responsibility (as a human being as well as a Romance Hero) to look out for them. Indeed, if you take the time to look beyond yourself, you may find your own burdens lightened (especially if your heroine happens to notice your actions).
A perfect example of this selflessness is Rowland Manning, the illegitimate, desperate, and near-destitute hero of Sophia Nash’s Secrets of a Scandalous Bride [HarperCollins, 2010]. Deeply in debt, with the complete ruination of his business at hand, he worries more about his employees than himself.
He searched desperately for a solution. These men and so many others faced certain destitution. With the flood of soldiers now returning from the battlefields of France and Spain, positions in great houses were scarce. If his enterprise collapsed, where would they all go?
How different from the CEOs making headlines today, with their golden parachutes and less-than-sterling ethics. Never forget that as a romance hero, what you have is far less important than what you do.
Let’s take a minute to check out your priorities.
- You are an English lord and, as such, you should be riding a fine stallion rather than the nag you currently ride. However, you only have enough money at the moment to either purchase said stallion or fix up your stable with suitable accommodations. Within the next two years, you will be able to afford both. Which do you spend your cash on first, or do you wait and buy the horse when you can begin to build the stable?[3]
- You have a little money in the bank that you’ve been saving to buy a new computer. Your old one works just fine, but it’s getting on and the new ones are sleeker and faster. A friend wants to borrow that same amount of money for a downpayment on a new car. Should you lend it to him?[4]
In the following lessons, you will learn how to let your inner Romance Hero shine through despite any external complications. But for the moment, just remember the three defining characteristics you’ve attributed to him:
- Respect for yourself and others
- Ambition (list your goals here if you think you might forget them!)
- Care for those in situations more dire than your own (take a moment to reflect on who that is and what you might do to help)
Got it? Then let’s move along to the second lesson where we find out how to begin to unleash your inner hero upon the women in your world!
[1] This bit of gentlemanly behavior is to prevent muddy water from splashing up from the gutter onto a lady’s dress. Even if your girlfriend is a Goth mistress of the night who wears spikes and studs, you should treat her with care and respect.
[2] Don’t know what this phrase refers to? You should. It’s the title of a children’s book, and the good romance hero relates well to children even if he doesn’t want any of his own. Get to know your nieces and nephews, the children of your friends and family. Women are suspicious of men who are too uncomfortable around little ones.
[3] This is a question of forethought. If you cannot care for the horse, you shouldn’t buy it. Begin building the stable immediately so that by the time you can afford the stallion you will have an appropriate home for it. This is practical as well as ethical; when making decisions, the romance hero always thinks in terms of consequences to others.
[4]
You are under no moral or ethical obligation to lend him the money and, indeed, financial dealings have ended many a friendship. That said, you should consider two things before making this decision: first, is his need for a new car critical? Is his old one not up to getting him back and forth from work? And second, if he has to borrow the money for the downpayment, chances are you won’t get it back; how will you feel about that? Will you be able to let him simply take the money without it sticking in your craw every time you see him? The answers to those two questions will tell you how you should answer his request.
