Learning from the Big Boys and Girls and Vice Versa
In my AllMarketing edition of Sharing with Writers* you saw lots of talk about e-books and online marketing. I hope you aren't still giving e-books the squint-eye. I'm pretty sure I've convinced you that online marketing is as important, if not more important (because of its reach and because of its no-cost or low cost)) and if I haven't, all this news from the likes of Borders, HarperCollins,in that issue should have convinced you. These big guys (gals?) should have been the leaders. Instead books like The Frugal Book Promoter (first published in 2004) have been. That's OK. At least we're all getting onto the same page!
So, even if you're not convinced yet that you should publish your book as an e-book if for no other reason than that some people WANT to buy it that way and that one person who passes your book because it's not available on Sony Reader or Kindle or just as a plain old .pdf on your publisher's website, might be a director or producer who would have read your book on a plane, fallen in love with it and decided to offer you a contract. If that doesn't sound good to you, far be it from me to try to convince you -- even those of you who write literary novels or short stories.
Still, here are some other e-adventures you could take with your book.
1 Publish it as a .pdf to be given as a small add-on purchase with that bouquet of roses florists' (or some other commercial) sites at Mothers Day or Valentines. That's what Magdalena Ball and I did with Cherished Pulse, our book of unsyrupy love poetry. Find it now free at www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com/free_ebooks.htm.
2. Use a small e-book as a promotion device. Soon to come is my The Ultimate Frugal (FREE) Booklet on Editing: Get Zero-Tolerance Editors to Look at Your Manuscript, a list of common and errors easily overlooked during the editing process. It's sort of an addendum to The Frugal Editor: Put YOur Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. I haven't decided how to get this booklet to you. Free with purchase? An under $5. retail? A gift-with-purchase using a code when people buy my books at fairs and speaking venues? All of the above? Stephen King tried it a couple of years ago and gave up. He was to far ahead of the curve, I guess.
3. E-publish your book chapter-by-chapter on your site or as a blog. No ch ^ rge or a small charge. To build loyalty and interest in your other books. This is especially a good idea if you have an early novel that hasn't been published and needs some sprucing up.
4. E-publish excerpts from your book on your blog or on your website -- free. One chapter at a time. When you try this idea (I've not tested it), remove the former chapter when you put up the next. I think this might work especially well for a book that has been out there awhile and is losing steam. Or as prepublicity for a book that won't be out for some time. Those who come in late will buy your book to get the early chapters. Those who come in late will visit your site every single time a new chapter is posted and become loyal fans. You know they will!
Read Kathe Goglewski's free e-book that will soon be released at www.tri-studio.com. It's full of Out of the Box promotion deas including some e-ideas. All the ideas in it were winners of her first annual Out of the Box promotion ideas contest.
*Subscribe with the automatic signup window in the left column of this blog or send me an e-mail at HoJoNews@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.
Showing posts with label stephen king. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stephen king. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Saturday, February 09, 2008
More on Italics and Internal Thought
I'm adding some more of my answers to writers on the thread that started on italics. I knew I'd stir up a hornet's nest! Scroll down to see the original post. (-:
Here it is:
Here's the thing, fiction writers. We all want to become the best writers -- and the best readers for that matter -- that we can be. If you were paying $400 to $800 for a course from one of the best writing schools (including UCLA's) you would get this info in a class. I know. I took those courses . I probably spent a cool $3,000 taking those courses. And now I'm teaching there.
These fine schools of writing are trying to make writers reach for the best they can be.
I haven't seen Stephen King use italics for internal thought. Or, Grisham. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Using italics for internal thought is done more frequently among romance writers, often unnecessarily (i. e. without a good reason).
What's happened here (with the proliferation of the use of italics) is that many writers are making it easy on themselves and training us to expect it to be made easy on us. They use them. Then someone who admires them sees them in that book and so he or she uses them, too. It's like gossip. It's fun and easy but it doesn't make using them right.
Using punctuation that isn't essential (or punctuation that is different from what tradition has taught--indeed trained--us to expect) can be distracting. (There are no italics for internal thought in the classics you'll note.)
The secret is to think, "I'm already in this person's head. My reader knows it. I know it. So why am I pretending like we both don't know it." That's why we also have to be very careful with our Point of View as well. No one would think of suggesting that we shouldn't be careful with that. Right? We work at great transitions so we know exactly who is doing the observing and all of that. (-: So why would we. as writers, usurp what POV is supposed to do with something as obvious and intrusive as italics.
Now, I know most of you don't think that using italics to indicate internal thought is intrusive. But, the Frugal Editor is written so that writers (those who want to) can eventually sell their work to the nation's best agents and so those agents can sell their clients' work to the nation's best publishers.
Those who want to continue to have the control over their work (one of which might be to continue to use italics for internal thought without an exceptionally good reason for doing so) will continue to do so, I guess. But if you are interested in going in a different direction, please don't take this guideline on italics lightly.
If you use italics for internal though in the first chapter and that chapter isn't so absolute above-board great that an agent will figure she can sell your work IN SPITE of them (or talk you out of it!), you will be doing yourself a disservice.
Of course, it's up to each of you to decide. Do try to judge, though, based on what's best for your writing career, rather than that you already have a book out that uses them. That would be investing in the past, rather than the future. And when you run across a book that uses them -- a very good book like LIsa See's Peony in Love published by Random House (and she uses them very sparingly!), try to determine why she broke the guideline.
Now, that's an exercise in better writing.
------
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.
Here it is:
Here's the thing, fiction writers. We all want to become the best writers -- and the best readers for that matter -- that we can be. If you were paying $400 to $800 for a course from one of the best writing schools (including UCLA's) you would get this info in a class. I know. I took those courses . I probably spent a cool $3,000 taking those courses. And now I'm teaching there.
These fine schools of writing are trying to make writers reach for the best they can be.
I haven't seen Stephen King use italics for internal thought. Or, Grisham. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Using italics for internal thought is done more frequently among romance writers, often unnecessarily (i. e. without a good reason).
What's happened here (with the proliferation of the use of italics) is that many writers are making it easy on themselves and training us to expect it to be made easy on us. They use them. Then someone who admires them sees them in that book and so he or she uses them, too. It's like gossip. It's fun and easy but it doesn't make using them right.
Using punctuation that isn't essential (or punctuation that is different from what tradition has taught--indeed trained--us to expect) can be distracting. (There are no italics for internal thought in the classics you'll note.)
The secret is to think, "I'm already in this person's head. My reader knows it. I know it. So why am I pretending like we both don't know it." That's why we also have to be very careful with our Point of View as well. No one would think of suggesting that we shouldn't be careful with that. Right? We work at great transitions so we know exactly who is doing the observing and all of that. (-: So why would we. as writers, usurp what POV is supposed to do with something as obvious and intrusive as italics.
Now, I know most of you don't think that using italics to indicate internal thought is intrusive. But, the Frugal Editor is written so that writers (those who want to) can eventually sell their work to the nation's best agents and so those agents can sell their clients' work to the nation's best publishers.
Those who want to continue to have the control over their work (one of which might be to continue to use italics for internal thought without an exceptionally good reason for doing so) will continue to do so, I guess. But if you are interested in going in a different direction, please don't take this guideline on italics lightly.
If you use italics for internal though in the first chapter and that chapter isn't so absolute above-board great that an agent will figure she can sell your work IN SPITE of them (or talk you out of it!), you will be doing yourself a disservice.
Of course, it's up to each of you to decide. Do try to judge, though, based on what's best for your writing career, rather than that you already have a book out that uses them. That would be investing in the past, rather than the future. And when you run across a book that uses them -- a very good book like LIsa See's Peony in Love published by Random House (and she uses them very sparingly!), try to determine why she broke the guideline.
Now, that's an exercise in better writing.
------
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.
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