Interesting Ways to Sell Writing

Tip of the Day: If you put one of those Werthers caramel candies in your mouth and take a swig of apple cider, it's pretty good.

We talk a lot about traditional publishing on here since we're all either traditionally published or getting close. And I feel like I know a lot about publishing articles in magazines and online and how to get short stories published. And I even feel like I've heard a lot about self-publishing and epublishing to understand how it all works. But in the last week or two I came across two ways people are selling their writing that I have never heard of before so I'm going to share.

First came via a post by Karly Kirkpatrick. If you don't know Karly she's a facebook rockstar, blogging goddess, and soon to be epublished author. Her first book, Into The Shadows, comes out November 1st.

The other day she posted on facebook that you could subscribe to her blog on Amazon. As in, you go here, pay $1.99 a month and you can have her blog posts downloaded wirelessly to your Kindle. How cool is that? Maybe I'm a bit behind but I'd never heard of this before. It sounds awesome-- especially with how much work and thought so many writers do put into their blogs.

I had another No Way, That's Cool! moment about two weeks ago. I was at an author fair in Aurora, IL, with a ton of authors and we were having lunch. While I was chewing on a yummy turkey roll I was listening to the fascinating Greg Stolze, writer and game designer, talk about fan publishing. What's fan publishing? Well, here's an example. Greg set a $$ amount on one of his short stories (somewhere between $400 and $500 I think) and fans could pledge money and once that amount was met he released the story for free on his Web site. Interesting right? He has an illustrated serial up right now too. If you go to the pledge page for From The Dragon's Mouth you can see that so far 12 people have pledged $305 of his $500 goal. If you look at one of his roleplaying games you'll see he had 124 backers pledge more than $2500 for him to release the game for free. C'mon, how cool is this?

Have you guys come across any other interesting and untraditional ways people make money with their writing?

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

November Novel Revision Retreat! (or I'm a Sucker for SCBWI)

Tip of the Day: I've previously advertised my enjoyment of Red Cat, but White Cat -- yum for post-revisions! Delicious!

You may remember a few weeks ago when I was deciding whether or not to apply to the SCBWI Falling Leaves Weekend Novel Revision Retreat.

Well, after asking my manpanion if it was crazy to apply for that conference after attending the YALSA conference in Albuquerque the weekend before, he said, "Nah. Go for it." So I did -- and I got it! (Ok, it's possible that only 30 people applied to go so "getting in" wasn't that far of a stretch, but it feels nice to say "accepted" instead of "rejected" as much as possible in this business.)

Pubbed as well as unpubbed authors will be there in attendance -- and I can't wait to network with all of them plus the editors and lovely SCBWI advisors!

The novel that got me accepted is the YA that was my first ever novel that I started rewriting last summer before I went nuts-o writing the FASHION book. I'm excited to have a reason to go back to it and polish it up!

Is anyone else going to Falling Leaves in November?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Casting your characters

Tip of the day: writing a blog post on your iPhone is probably not the most productive use of your time.

One of my biggest struggles with writing is making sure each of the characters have their own voice. I have a tendency to want to make all of them sound exactly like the main character. Usually because I have so much fun with the main character's voice.

But having everyone use the same words and sound exactly the same is not only boring but it's also confusing.

So in an attempt to prevent this is the future I'm going to start casting actors/actresses/ and people I know to play my characters. Then I'm going to try to study what makes their voices unique: either their movie characters or their real life voices.

Do they have a phrase they love to say?

Do they always lift one eyebrow when talking?

Do they stutter?

Do they mumble or talk really fast when they are nervous?

But researching this before the book should hopefully help get my characters down before I even write anything they say.

And modeling it after traits of movie characters or friends and family should hopefully help.

Does anyone else cast their characters?

--Emily, Miss Querylicious

The Unreliable Narrator

Tip of the Day: Check your tires! You won't regret investing in a portable tire inflator for your trunk.

I write in short sentences. Not necessarily on this blog, where I can be myself, but in my fiction writing, when I'm being somebody else. It's starting to irritate me, actually. I would like to write long sentences full of dependent clauses and adjectives. But my main characters just don't think that way because I'm in love with unreliable narrators.

My main characters lack focus: one gets in trouble at school for angry outbursts and not paying attention. They all struggle with schoolwork to varying degrees and don't see school having any connection to their future. None of them see themselves as very bright.

I'm not sure why I like to write from this point of view. I was a good student in high school myself, an honor roll student who couldn't wait to go to college. Most of my friends weren't though, and my high school friends didn't stay in college for long. I never clicked with the rest of the kids in my AP classes. The things they cared about seemed trivial to me, I guess. In their quests begging for two more points on an English essay, they seemed worlds away from the things my friends worried about: sick family members, money, substance abuse, car crashes. The kids pursuing nothing but grades didn't seem to have the same level of maturity or responsibility. In retrospect, I can see that they most likely did have the same problems the rest of us did. But they sure knew how to hide it from me.

And I guess I'm not all that interested in writing about kids who don't have problems. Who is, right? When you're smart, the world is easier. When you make good decisions, your problems are fewer. So my main characters may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but I have fun writing about them. I just have to figure out how to get them to be more descriptive.

What about your main characters? Are they as smart as you were?

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages

Is the grass THAT greener? Thoughts about writing FT

Tip of the Day: Easy A looks like a really good movie for those of us writing books for teens! I may see it this weekend.

This week I read a post on a message board by an author who was feeling frustrated about going to work that day when she wanted to be writing.

I remember those days well. I can specifically remember sitting on the couch with my laptop, trying to catch up on e-mails and do any blogging before I left for work at 8:30. There would be moments when I'd look out the window at my backyard and think, I want to stay home! Why can't I stay home?

It's hard to believe it's been 9 months since I quit the day job.

Most days I love it. I really do. I wrote three books this year, two of which have already sold and been revised. More writing time is obviously a wonderful thing. I also love being more available to my family. I love having more time for things like exercise and occasionally, sleep! But I have to admit, there are things I miss about having a day job. (Granted, I could also do a list of things I don't miss as well, like the commute!)

Anyway, for those who are still at the day job, I thought I'd share the things I miss about working, to help you feel a little better.

1. I get lonely! I'm very much an introvert, but still - working in an office with people and having those water cooler conversations? I miss that!! Not to mention going out to lunch at least once a week.

2. It is SO easy to squander the day away. I watch a little bit of Good Morning America, but I turn the TV off at 8:00 at the latest, so it's not that. It's the dang internet! When I'm into a story I love, it's easier to ignore the lure of the internet, but right now, when I'm playing around, trying to find a story to sink my teeth into, it's hard. And I really don't like the fact that at the end of a day when I didn't do much but play on the internet, I have nothing to show for it. I'm trying to be better about getting off the computer and reading a book if I'm really struggling with writing. Because at least reading a book is time well spent.

3. The routine a day job brings. Yes, there is less time to get things done, but there is something really nice about routine. I'm trying to make my own, and I think it's getting better, but still, it's hard.

4. And of course, the regular paycheck, and the contributions on my behalf into a retirement fund.

Whatever we're doing - writing full-time, working while writing too, parenting while writing - I think we have to realize that there is no *perfect* situation. We just have to do the best with what we have, and be  thankful for those good writing days, whenever they come.

Whatever your writing situation is - do you wish you could change it somehow?

~Lisa, Miss Crafting a Career

What's in a Name?

Tip of the Day: Book banning sucks. Check out this recent blog post from Sara Ockler: On Book Banning Zealots & Ostriches.

Quick, on a scale of 1 to 5, how important is the book title?

What was your guess? Me, I'm going to say 4, 4 1/2ish. I haven't thought too much about titles until recently. With my first two books I titled them at the beginning of the process and the names pretty much stayed the same. But I recently needed to give a new title to my book coming out next fall. You might remember it was called Pumpkin Princess. Ready for the new name...

JUST YOUR AVERAGE PRINCESS

I'm digging it. The book was called Pumpkin Princess for so long that it's a bit hard to switch to the new title in my head but I do think it's cute and more appealing.

I know people are always saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover." But everyone SO does! In fact, I think your average bookstore browser judges books first on cover, then title, then jacket flap. In that order. The book can be AMAZING but no one will know if the cover is blech. Would you agree?

I participated in two author fair this past week and I can't tell you how many people stopped, looked at my poster, mouthed the words: My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours, and then giggled. They then asked me what it was about or told me stories of their own fake boyfriends. I always liked the title but it was really neat to see so many people react to it.

So tell me, what do you think about titles? Super important or nah, doesn't matter?

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

A Busy Day at the Library (or What Can I Do, My Dear, To Catch Your Ear?*)

*with apologies to The Music Man

Tip of the Day: Get ready for the Rochester Children's Book Festival: Sat, Nov. 6th, 10AM-4PM. FREE at Monroe Community College. Amazing authors and illustrators will be there.

I recently read another one of those agent blog posts that is like "A Day in the Life of a Literary Agent" and I thought I'd do A Day in the Life of a YA Librarian -- except to do that one must also understand that due to budgets, etc, I am actually the YA/Circulation/Programming Librarian.

Here's a "typical" Tuesday:

9AM -- Arrive at library, boot up PC, head out to YA area before we open (10AM) to fix up displays, straighten shelves, etc.

9:30 -- Field questions from business office staff regarding cash register receipts/payroll/time tickets that are lost/missing/incorrect

10 -- Check voicemails and emails, make reply calls and emails. Get interrupted by Page Supervisor with questions/comments regarding staffing/hiring. Get interrupted by other librarians in the back office regarding patrons/reference/programs/teen volunteers. Forget that I was answering emails and get pulled into filling out Procurement Requests for art contest materials, and calling staff to cover Circ shifts for next week as I hurriedly work on the Circ Desk schedules. Oh, and get phone calls from Circ Desk with questions re: problem accounts, schedules, etc.

12 -- Lunch time! Oh wait, I didn't finish answering those emails!

12:20 -- Go to lunch, usually somewhere that I can read uninterrupted (a.k.a. my car).

1-5PM -- Go to Children's Center for my Reference Desk shift. During this time I will: (a) straighten children's book displays; (b) answer reference questions for kids, teens, and adults, find them materials and place holds; (c) skim through VOYA, Publishers Weekly, blogs, etc., and add more YA books to my order cart; (d) skim through professional journals like American Libraries and Public Libraries; (e) sort through job applications for an open Circ position; (f) sort through program applications and make a note to call performers the next day from my cube; (g) sign kids onto the computers and type in "pbskids.com" and "miniclips.com" for them; (h) check my To Do List and realize I don't have enough time left to do anything on it (create book lists, design program flyers, etc.).

5-5:10 -- Debrief with the night shift librarian on what's been going on, and head back to my cube.

5:10-5:30 -- Clean up the piles of papers I've created and accumulated while at the desk, debrief with remaining staff in the back office, make phone calls that can't wait until tomorrow, reply to emails from my boss.

5:31 -- Head out.

Phew! I'm tired! But the days usually fly by and I just love being around the books and kids excited about them!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing