posted                   

• What were your goals last week and did you accomplish them?
• Describe what you worked on.
• Set goals for next week.
• Did you learn something during this week?

• Writing on a novel
• Characterization
• World Building
• Relevant research

=-=-=-=-=


Last Week's Goals

I really didn't do much this last week other than buy Scrivener (finally) and restart a project in that application for a book I've been thinking about. I'm taking a subplot at a time and adding placeholder index cards for each of those scenes. Later, once I have them all compiled, I will combine those all into specific scenes. Progress, but not much.

My goals for next week:

• Scene Outlining

Continue outlining this book.

What did I learn this week?

I thought for a while about what I learned most from LTUE this year. I attended 15 panels that weekend. Between the recordings I made and those that I gathered from other attendees, I have 50+ recordings to go through. As can be imagined, quite a bit of knowledge was presented. I'm still processing all that information and I haven't listened to all of the panels yet. So, what have I learned?

One thing I noticed is that a stigma still exists against self-published authors. One such author said that she requested to do book signings but when she told LTUE that she was self-published she was refused the opportunity. I've thought about going the self-published route but I have not completely decided to take that plunge. She was refused a marketing avenue because of being self-published. Something to be considered.

In the traditional publishing realm, I've heard many horror stories about publisher contracts. It's one thing to read these horror stories on the Internet. When you're reading words on the screen you wonder whether the stories are real, despite the long time experience of the authors of those stories. I trust what these particular authors are saying is true. However, sometimes you wonder whether publishers are really that desperate. It's another thing to hear it first hand at a writing convention.

One author stated that she wanted to publish a short story of hers and charge for it. She saw another published author publish short stories between books. It sounded like a great marketing method of keeping your books in the readers' minds. However, her contract was written in such a way that she could not sell the story. So, I believe she gave it out for free. My question was (although I did not verbalize this out loud): Whose Intellectual Property is it, the publisher's or the author's? Even if I decide to go traditional, I will probably need to hire an IP lawyer just to make sure my IP is not stolen. Shouldn't I have the right to write anything I want and whenever I want? It's my world. I spent days, months, or years developing it. Not the publisher. For those who want more details on the related clauses publishers are putting into their contracts, go to Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest blog post: The Business Rusch: Competition.

Despite all of what I learned, the main take-away for me from this experience, whether to self-publish or to go traditional, is to develop an audience. Laura Hickman stated that when she tried to find a publisher for her cookbook the publisher asked her about her social media presence. By her description, the publisher seemed more interested in how many friends she had on Facebook and how many followed her on Twitter. True, a cookbook is not fantasy or science fiction, but it is increasingly evident that publishers are looking to those authors who already have an established audience (i.e. customers).

Audience is key.

How do I, a complete unknown, develop an audience that would interest a traditional publisher? By far, the answer is to write a really good book. Beyond that, I need to take a step back and think of ways I can do this. In the past I've thought about writing mini-articles about writing techniques. I wrote one such here on Hatrack about a process I used to outline book plots. I could do that and start a blog on those topics. This would benefit me in several ways. Researching technique could, hopefully, help me improve my writing techniques (plotting, character, etc.). It should also help me improve my core writing skills (spelling, word choice, grammar, etc.). Finally, and most importantly, it could help me build an audience. Will I do this? I don't know. I have so many things on my To Do List that to add another could be overwhelming. At the same time, how can I NOT do this?

Decisions.

--William

Posts: 354 | Registered: Mar 2009  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                   

quote:

---

In the past I've thought about writing mini-articles about writing techniques. I wrote one such here on Hatrack about a process I used to outline book plots. I could do that and start a blog on those topics.

---

Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!  |  IP: Logged |