If you have a book to promote–or plan to have a book to promote–you need to read this article from Huffington Post on holding book events in non-traditional venues.
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, publishing, book promotion, book signings
07/16/2010 • 12:27 PM 0
How to Blog on Vacation (and what does evergreen mean?)
blogging on vacation
Don’t blog on vacation. That’s why it’s called vacation. Here are some blogging options.
I just had the longest vacation since I was 12, a five-province tour of eastern Canada in which the blog missed not one beat. I updated my Twitter feed on the blog daily so there was always fresh content and useful links. (Twitter is fun and takes so little time, I don’t count it against vacation time. In fact, finding a place to steal WiFi was especially fun.)
The easiest thing to do is write your blog posts before your vacation begins and schedule them ahead of time. You don’t have to publish all your posts immediately. Stretch them out into the future so while you’re lying on a towel on a beach, the blog is updating itself according to your schedule. Seem like too much? It’s not really. Some days you’ll be struck with inspiration and will want to write more than one post. Bank the evergreen* articles.
Next option, get a ghost. Lots of writers are glad to write an article for you, either as a gust blogger or as a paid writer. Company blogs employ professional writers all the time (though this isn’t technically ghosting. It falls into the category of corporate communications, no matter how breezy a company may want a blog to sound.) If you have a following, a guest blog entry is a nice way for new bloggers to have their voice heard, with links back to their own blog, of course.
There are several options. Don’t blog on vacation. You never want your blog to feel like work. That’s why I can say, “Glad to be back!”
*An evergreen article is a post that is not time-sensitive. The latest drop in a particular stock on the Nasdaq is not evergreen. A timeless post on your feelings about your grandmother’s Holocaust experience is evergreen.
Filed under: blogs & blogging, Twitter, blog scheduling, blogging, vacation
07/16/2010 • 3:30 AM 0
Hemingway’s Shortest Story
For Sale. Baby shoes. Never used.
Filed under: Writers
07/16/2010 • 2:44 AM 0
Disturbing Poetry
The following is not for the easily offended. Or the sane. But you? Yeah, sicko, you might groove on this. Now take your medication.
Behind you
I focus on the space between people,
never seeing eye-to eye.
My position is always peripheral.
People say I’m way too shy.
But I am watching
especially when you think I’m not.
I’m stealing smiles and taking names
and trying not to get caught.
I’m surfing the net and hacking your man.
I stay to the shadows, surveilling things,
watching you undress and making plans.
It’s like dead to alive, the rush that brings.
You should leave him
or you’ll wish you had.
I’ll treat you right, hardly ever bad.
I’ll help you get there and make you see.
That man is doing very bad deeds,
worse even than me.
He disgusts me, knelt behind you,
sweating and gritting and looking grim.
Lucky for you, I’m just behind him.
I know you’ll understand my sweet thoughts
and why he really had to be stopped.
He only wanted you for your body
and doing things real ladies know are naughty.
Please don’t scream and stop the cursing
or my transgressions shall certainly worsen.
What do you mean you don’t know who I am?
I’ve rung up your filthy purchases again and again.
Pepsi and condoms and personal lubricant.
Don’t say you didn’t flirt with the drugstore man!
You looked me in the eyes
and didn’t look away.
You gave me a smile and said thank you.
What else was there to say?
You sent me coded messages in sheer blouse fashion.
Now we’re together forever in crimes of passion.
You have bound me in irredeemable love.
I proved it by the sticky blood on my gloves.
And I have bound you in duct tape and leather
one garroted boyfriend on the floor
and a four-poster awaits our mutual pleasure.
Too much has been done
for any more to be said.
Now lick your lips, darling, red and wet.
I’ve come for your head.
07/15/2010 • 9:19 AM 2
Your Favorite Books
On being well-read…that’s all subjective but I recently saw a list of 100 books–classics we should have read by now according to…someone. I read two or three books a week and have done so for years, but apparently not so much from the list designated as most worthwhile by Central Command.
I have read a lot of “classics” (whatever that’s supposed to mean to you) I suppose and there were a bunch from the Top 100 List I was really glad I had read. I loved The Great Gatsby and Crime and Punishment and Lolita, for instance. But I won’t be making a point of reading some of what someone else has decided is a must. I tried Middlemarch and it’s not my cup of pee. It’s just not happening. It was a ghastly foray among some bookstore shelves.
Besides, many of the Must Reads for me wouldn’t be old enough for The List. I love Fight Club and most of Kurt Vonnegut’s work and Bright Lights, Big City. You won’t find The Color of Light on anybody’s top 100 probably, but for my reading time, William Goldman is The Shit, man. (Princess Bride, too.) The Color of Light is about an aspiring writer so, you know, that makes sense, plus it hit me at just the right time.
So…top 100 is a bit impractical,but what’s on your top ten must-read, God-I-loved-that-book list? What’s on your desert island list? Please do share.
Filed under: book reviews, Books, favorite books
07/15/2010 • 9:12 AM 0
Conflicting Writing Advice
I’m reading Thanks But This Isn’t for Us, a development editor’s (AKA The Angel of Death*) take on why your manuscript sucks. Her suggestions on openings to avoid are very useful.
When I was evaluating the slush pile, there were an inordinate number of manuscripts–all rejected–that began with somebody getting up in the morning, describing themselves in the mirror and making coffee. Second most common thing? Boarding an airplane for The Big Trip. It could work but I never saw it play well in those submissions.
Wrinkle: Now the fiction market is so tight, publishers aren’t just rejecting bad manuscripts. Now they’re turning down a lot of good stuff. There’s only so much money to publish so many books in any one budget year.
Back to Thanks…she advocates “beautiful language.” I wonder if she’s focussing on so-called literary fiction there. I just read two translations from European authors that were definitely literary, but the language was very plain and cut down, even minimalist. I don’t think there were more than two adjectives in either book. Meanwhile, I’ve read about two MFA programs, one eschewing “beautiful language” and the other praising only fiction that employs poetic language. (Maya Angelou thinks it’s not good writing unless it’s hard to read. I disagree.)
This is why you must write for yourself and find someone who appreciates it after the deed is done.
*Angel of Death…you know…maybe we need to ease back on the throttle on hyperbolic language around writing. Sure, you want it to be good, but it’s also just writing. Too often people talk about it like it’s a secret language that only a few geniuses can learn. Successful authors are very very persistent and very very lucky. Nobody talks about the luck involved in getting through the razor wire and fine mesh of some underpaid, otherwise unemployable editorial assistant’s capricious sensibilities. I think I can say that because I was that otherwise unemployable douche who turned your masterpiece down.
Filed under: book reviews, writing tips, book reviews, writing advice
07/14/2010 • 9:01 AM 0
How I Became a Famous Novelist
Not me. The book. The book is How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. It is the novel you MUST buy–and yes I know capital letters in a post are obnoxious and mean I’m screaming at you. But it’s that funny and that pointed. It’s that good. You need to own it and suck it down.
Publishers, overly earnest and sentimental writers (published and non), Hollyweird, MFA programs, lit journals, bestsellerdumb! It’s all here and you will laugh and then you’ll think. There’s enough truth behind the jokes to make you feel like you’re not sure you should laugh, like the author is making you giggle so you’ll let down your guard as he slips a shiv between your ribs and gives it a half twist.
There is a lot of great criticism of the way things are in this novel–so much in fact that when you finally close the book at four in the morning you’ll be puzzled at how much is satire. There is a slight pullback and redemption after all the hijinks, and I’m not sure I believe the transcendence. Maybe the author really means what he says for most of the book. His criticisms of publishing are hard to fault. If it’s a test of reader cynicism, I failed.
Please do read it and you’ll see what I mean. PLEASE!
Filed under: book reviews, publishing, Writers, book review, How I Became a Famous Novelist
07/13/2010 • 9:00 AM 0
Five Tips on Finding an Agent or Editor (and get published.)
1. Go to the bookstore.
2. Find books like your book.
3. Check the acknowledgements and the author’s website to identify their house, editors and agent.
4. Now you have some idea where to submit and a nice opening to your query letter. “I’m submitting to you because your association with of X’s excellent book…”
5. Check the agent’s website and make sure you confine yourself to their requested parameters for submissions.
BONUS:
Try to get a sense from their voice on their site. Does this person sound like someone you could marry? Yes. It’s that serious.
Filed under: agents, agents, editors, get published
07/12/2010 • 9:10 AM 0
Writing Rules Apply to You
Best story of my recent publishing conference? It’s someone else’s story so I’ll skim over the details. Long story short: Agents rejected a Margaret Atwood story. They didn’t know it was Margaret Atwood. We say it over and over:
PUBLISHING IS A SUBJECTIVE BUSINESS.
However, if you don’t follow submission guidelines, you hurt your chances. If you’re submitting to an agent, ignore the Writer’s Market books and go straight to the agent’s website. Follow their instructions as best you can. The rules apply to new writers. They apply to you. No exceptions. You’re trying to enter a business relationship with publishers and agents. Do not try gimmicks. White paper (or non-wallpapered email) and business forms. No pestering. No sense of entitlement.
Just submit, submit, submit.
Next post: HOW TO FIGURE OUT TO WHOM YOU SHOULD SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT.
Filed under: agents, writing tips, query letters, submissions to editors, submitting to agents
07/11/2010 • 9:34 AM 0
Marketing Through Twitter
I’m over 40 so I don’t make new friends. At least that was true until my wife got me an IPod for my birthday. Through Twitterific app, I kind of fell into marketing through Twitter. First I was curious what Bill Maher had to say. He hardly ever tweets, but then I was curious who he followed. I began following celebrities, particularly comedians and writers.
Then I hit the mother lode: freelance writers and editors like me. Then I hit the “Nearby” tab on Twitterific to find such people in my city. Then I linked my tweets to my blog so the blog has fresh content throughout the day whether I have time to sit down and blog or not!
And now I’m addicted, but enjoying it. I won’t be signing up for a 12-step program any time soon. Do you Twitter? You know what they say. The only people who don’t like Twitter are those who haven’t tried it.
Filed under: Publicity & Promotion, Twitter, Twitter
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 