Unplugged and Internet-free. Sounds like heaven to me. Why am I posting on this? Well, someone in the last post commented and asked me to blog on how to sell books without the Internet or social media. If it was even possible.

#ChallengeAccepted

Is it even possible to sell books unplugged? Good food for thought. Of course, my first thought was, ‘Is it even possible to get unplugged in the first place?’

Funny to think that it wasn’t too long ago that a half-baked plot with a terrible love story captured our hearts. A horrible movie (by all accounts) made us all misty-eyed, because of these three words…

You’ve Got Mail...

I remember the giddy feeling whenever I’d hear that ping. Someone sent me an EMAIL. OMG!

I’ve got…MAIL!

Now? I’ve got mail.

*weeps and drinks straight from the Hershey’s syrup squeeze bottle*

I remember loving email.

Hell, I remember LOVING the movie The Matrix. You wanna know WHY I loved The Matrix? Because I wasn’t LIVING IN IT.

I miss being unavailable. My Yahoo email went feral about four years ago. It pees on the carpet and bites people, so we leave it alone.

Same with my Gmail. No matter how many systems and filters…the spammers find me.

There is no way I’ve found to remain unplugged…even a little.

Now? My business email is close to joining the Yahoo and Gmail. If I am not on my cell phone deleting spam messages like Satan’s version of Space Invaders?

I lose stuff.

No joke. I had to create another business email (which, of course, I forget to check). It’s a never ending game of Hell’s Whack-A-Mole.

Oh, and I recently got sick, and couldn’t cull the endless author newsletters I was force-added to against my will because so many @$$hat branding gurus swear by newsletters as the key to wealth and fame to the point they are SELLING email lists to total strangers.

People like me who want some unknown author’s free book about as much as I want a free upper G.I.

Kill. Me. Now.

#IWillNeverEscape

Unplugged Life

I’m a Gen Xer. We’re the sarcastic middle child who trusts nothing and no one, crushed and forgotten between the Baby Boomers and Millennials.

We’re young enough that we were a major force that set off the digital revolution. Yet, we’re also old enough to remember what life was like before computers.

Which is why we drink heavily or want to.

We remember what it was like to have to walk over to someone’s house, knock on a door and ASK IN PERSON if they wanted to hang out. Or, to CALL. And if the person wasn’t there, to have to…wait for it…call back LATER.

There weren’t even answering machines.

Hell, there wasn’t even ‘call waiting.’ You got a busy tone. Oh, the things my son (Spawn) won’t ever experience.

We lived our lives unplugged, not even knowing we were ‘unplugged.’

Now we track everything from packages to exes. These days, I can’t even have a conversation in the car that suddenly there aren’t ads popping up in my feed for something I was just talking about.

#CreepyAsHell

There was a time I TRIED to remain unplugged. I refused to use email and wanted all my bills on paper. I’d reset all the settings on my phone and clear browser histories, and… *taps out*

Problem is, everything is optional…until it isn’t.

Want to get really freaked out? Go read Fahrenheit 451. These days, I’m too old to mess with it and as a writer, I find great entertainment researching murder and poisons on-line just to see what sort of ads pop up on Facebook.

Apparently a LOT of ads for pre-paid legal, therapy, and hardware stores. I wish I were making this up.

Can We Even Live Unplugged?

Not to freak y’all out, but before we even posit the question if it’s possible to sell books off-line, we need to ask the critical question. Who’s even living off-line? Because if Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) is our target market?

Then there ya go!

But, even Ted communicated using the newspaper, which was the equivalent of the Internet during his day. He put out personal ads searching for a wife who wanted to live off the land, cut off from the world.

Wonder how many of us might take him up on that these days?

Considering that most of today’s population is glued to their phones, addicted to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs to the degree that specialists are treating new never-seen-before joint, back, eye, and psychiatric disorders….

Whether we like it or not, folks these days aren’t sharing word of mouth in person as much as they’re sharing among peers their on-line social circles.

***To be clear, this doesn’t mean they’re NOT sharing in person, just proportionally they’re sharing more on-line.

Additionally, people are shopping more on-line than in stores.

It’s why Cyber Monday has been beating out Black Friday by increasingly larger margins every year.

Not only are the deals better, but there’s also the added convenience. I’m just as guilty. For instance, Spawn’s birthday is RIGHT near Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have time to cook, work, write, clean, and shop for birthday gifts. So, I hopped on Amazon and ordered the game he wanted…which was delivered to my front door while I frosted his birthday cakes.

In sales, we had a saying, ‘Fish where the fish are.’ Safe bet the fish are schooling on-line.

Bookstores & Location

Though, for NOW, I think it will be tough to sell books unplugged, that trend should shift. The reason? Borders and Barnes & Noble decimated the indie and mom-and-pop bookstores.

Granted, CBS recently reported some good news (which I also predicted on this blog a few years ago *gets cramp patting self on back*).

The small bookstores are booming after being nearly wiped out, which is fabulous.

The problem is that the big box chains all but annihilated these small stores, and there is a LONG road back from the edge of extinction.

Consumers will eventually shop at bookstores, but, as the founder of Barnes & Noble realized only after it was far too late, shoppers tend to gravitate to the store that is closest and most convenient.

In the October 21, 2016 article in The New Yorker, What Barnes & Noble Doesn’t Get About Bookstores, Leonard Riggio, the man who bought Barnes & Noble forty-five years ago and turned it into a giant finally conceded this mistake:

The No. 1 consideration of where someone will shop is how close it is to where they are. It has nothing to do with pedigree or branding. If there’s no bookstore close to them, they’re more likely to buy online. If there’s one close, they’re more likely to buy if it’s a block away.

While we await the recovery of the local ‘Shop Around the Corner,’ odds are folks will mostly buy on-line. That’s business reality.

The Centrifugal Bumble-Brand

There are all sorts of gurus who’ll sell authors (or anyone) snake oil a sure-fire get-rich-quick scheme for using social media to make the big lists, sell so many books, etc. etc.

Mailing lists, pay-to-promote, ads, marketing campaigns, on and on!

I’ve never done any of this, and my blog gets well over a million unique visits a month, which is pretty good for a blog with such niche content for a niche audience.

My book and classes are fun and never go out of style because the focus is on people, not technology.

What captures people’s attention? How do we make them care? If we have to use social media, then how can we find our tribe? And have FUN and time to write books?

What can we do to attract those people who like what we like and are most likely to enjoy our content and probably enjoy our stories, too?

CLUE: How about post stuff they WANT to see and SHARE? Imagine that!

Technology changes, people don’t.

Whether we are plugged in or unplugged, how we interact with people is roughly the same if we want to be successful.

Even before social media, we didn’t like people who only talked to us when they wanted something.

We were NOT fans of people who were constant sources of drama, negativity, self-centered, manipulative, the list goes on.

We enjoyed people who made us laugh, who noticed US, who were genuine, who asked us about our day and our life (without an agenda) and who listened, instead of everything being about them.

Even before computers, we liked people who made us smile, who made our day better just being around them.

We ran from people who drained our energy, who took more than they gave. People hung out with people who shared at least some common interests, with just enough variety to add something new and exciting.

This has nothing to do with SEO.

Well, not directly. Humans are the same on-line as unplugged. They don’t want someone trying to sell them something all the time, etc. etc.

#Duh

Relax on social media. It’s really what we used to do off-line only on-line. Yes, we have to filter it, but we had to filter it at parties if we wanted to be invited back, right?

Remember, we aren’t trying to make EVERYONE happy. We CAN’T.

For instance, if you don’t have a dark sense of humor, you’re probably not going to enjoy my books either. I can’t please everyone. But when I please the right people—MY audience—they do the heavy lifting.

Like here…

Almost a thousand shares and I didn’t have to pay Facebook a dime. Here’s the thing. My goal is not to sell this blog or my classes or my books to EVERYONE. I can’t please EVERYONE, so I don’t try.

But I CAN please YOU….

And probably even you…

And you…over there.

Yes, I have seven cats. Actually six. My *whispers* dog, Pippa, thinks she is a cat. Don’t tell her.

Anyway, what were we talking about before all the funny cats?

Oh yeah…no social media.

How would we share cat memes?

That and right now I started a pretty hysterical (and morbid) thread on Facebook that might earn us all an FBI van for Christmas….

*tugs collar*

But the comments are too funny! See? No marketing gimmick, just people having some seriously dark and disturbing fun.

I write mystery, suspense and thriller so those are the sort of people who are my audience. Many of the people in the thread having a good time, I KNOW FOR A FACT are not writers. They are READERS (or potential readers).

Which means these are the folks who DO go over and like my fan page and who DO subscribe to my blog here.

#TrueCrime

Oops, I meant #TrueStory.

Anyway….

Storytelling Unplugged

I know I’ve danced around the question, though I’ve not meant to. Can we sell books without social media or the Internet? Sure.

But for most writers who break out in hives at the mention of sales, the idea of setting up a table in some store and hawking a book with a PayPal card reader pales in comparison to building a social platform.

Thus, the only remaining way to sell books off the Internet (unplugged) is through the quality of the story.

We must write something SO spectacular, so singularly unique and well-crafted that it stands out like the Hope Diamond perched, glinting in the sunlight, on a pile of rubbish.

It must be so brilliantly crafted that it generates a tidal wave of buzz among readers, and then eventually the booksellers in the emerging small bookstores. Stories that booksellers will not only stock, but will go out of their way to recommend to the browsing shopper.

Writing Unplugged

This said, judging from most of what I see? The future is not looking too bright for most writers.

With the rise of self-publishing, it’s been too easy to skip the hard parts….like learning how to write well.

When I began as an editor almost twenty years ago, the samples I received were trying to pass a NY gatekeeper. Now? Most wouldn’t pass 7th grade English.

It’s downright depressing.

I encounter far too many ‘authors’ who know more about advertising and marketing than they know about story structure, POV, pacing, scene and sequel, etc.

Instead of reading, taking classes, applying what is learned to writing and then rewriting and practicing, too many authors are fixating on-line.

They’re more concerned about building numbers on their mailing list, their book covers matching their Facebook headers than whether or not the ‘books’ they’ve already produced are even readable.

They spend more time worrying if they should shift to Instagram than trying to understand why no one’s buying their existing books.

The hard truth is great writers do what anyone who’s a master at anything does. They make writing appear easy just like an Olympic gymnast makes the parallel bars seem easy.

Writing a novel is anything BUT easy. This is a skill that takes time, training, blood, sweat, tears, mentorship, and probably part of your soul to even become moderately good.

When we skip steps—either out of pride or impatience—there are consequences.

The most common consequence is our book will die a lonely death in obscurity. What is ignored offline will likely never thrive online. So YES…

Book Sales Unplugged

The technically correct answer is that we’ve long passed the event horizon that any sale happens off-line…technically. We’re living in a world that, short of a zombie apocalypse or a. nuclear war, the Internet will be a factor in the sale somewhere.

BUT…before the Internet ever gets a vote. Before Insta-Snap-Chat-Face-Twit is ever part of the equation, a story starts with us. The author.

Every sale happens offline when we write the book. Then, when the reader reads or listens to our story and our story makes their heart beat faster, keeps them up all night and generates so much excitement they cannot WAIT to tell someone?

That is the books sale unplugged. We have to get booksellers excited enough to be a street team without us even having to ask or offer an incentive.

They’ll VOLUNTEER. The best sales are always a passion project anyway.

In the meantime, READ, READ, READ. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE. READ, WRITE, FAIL, REPEAT!

And know I’ll never fuss at y’all without offering help .

Go to THIS BLOG where I have a long list of resources—who aren’t necessarily me—to help make y’all better legendary authors (blogs, books, classes, etc).

Give yourself some goodies for Christmas.

I also have some treats, like a BRAND NEW class I’ve never taught before, and it turned out FANTASTIC. ON DEMAND Dark Arts: HOLIDAY SPECIAL Building Your Villain is usually $55 and for the next few days is only $25. Three hours of psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, pathology and how that applies to writing.

It is like the Behavioral Analysis Unit for Authors. Tres FUN! Villains are some of the most enduring characters in literature. Why not add your own legends to the list?

I’m also offering ON DEMAND! Holiday Sale! Story Master: From Dream to DONE. This class is to train you how to plot whether you’re a plotter, a pantser or a mix of both. It’s also a crash course in creating dimensional characters.

I love hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of NOVEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages (5K words) of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or fewer). 

October’s Winner is Charlotte French.

November’s Winner is rachelwordsmith and thanks for the blog idea, too!

FYI, one page is 250 words. Calculate accordingly, please. Send your WORD doc double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point font, one-inch margins to kristen at wana intl dot com. If I fail to respond within ten business days after sending, please know I am VERY human and send a follow up message. I may have lost your email or accidentally nuked it in my Hell’s Space Invader’s game.

In the meantime, PLEASE treat yourself to a class! We have a TON of classes that we will be deleting or putting into cold storage come January and will no longer be available. So STOCK UP while you can.

The BIG SPECIALS (other than what I mentioned above)

On Demand: Beyond Bulletproof HOLIDAY Barbie

Usually $55 and now only $25.

This is a THREE-HOUR class on guns, knives, weapons, fighting, law enforcement (from local cops to international espionage) and more. Everything you need to build a bad@$$—male OR female—and get the details CORRECT.

Spilling the HOLIDAY Tea: On Demand Blogging for Authors

Usually $75 and now only $40.

Get prepped and ready for the new year, new you, new blog.

New Classes

Tick Tock: How to Plot Mystery Suspense Series

Thursday, December 12th, 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST (NYC TIME). Use New20 for $20 off.

Can You Hear Me Now? Developing Character Voice

Friday, December 13th, 7:00-9:00 P.M. EST. Use New10 for $10 off.

NEW ON DEMAND CLASSES

Bite-Sized Fiction: How to Plot the Novella

Use New20 for $20 off

Why Are We HERE? Scenes That HOOK

Use New20 for $20 off

Popular On Demand Classes

The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES ON DEMAND

Use Binge10 for $10 off.

How do we create characters that readers will fall in love with, characters strong enough to go the distance? Find out in this THREE-HOUR class that also comes with detailed notes and a character-building template. 

This class dovetails with my previous class:

Bring on the Binge: How to Plot and Write a Series (ON DEMAND). Use Binge10 for $10 off.

Need some help with platform and branding?

Branding: WHEN YOUR NAME ALONE Can Sell (ON DEMAND)

Use brand10 for $10 off.

For the complete list, go to the OnDemand Section.

The post Unplugged Book Sales: Is It Possible to Sell Books Off-Line? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

New publishing houses? Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of WIDEHAUS.

FREE! For the love of all that is chocolate, free us from FREE! *takes soothing breath* I’ve been blogging for over ten years, a witness to the terrifying and extraordinary changes in publishing.

Initially, I was NO fan of self-publishing because entropy is alive and well…even with books. I knew once we opened Pandora’s Publishing, there would be no turning back.

Sometimes I really hate being right.

Amazon (and others) weaponized on-line shopping and launched us into an age of FREE, EASY, CHEAP, ACCESSIBLE and LEGAL.

Or, as I like to call it—Operation F.E.C.A.L.

Amazon wanted to implode traditional publishing. Their goal was to dominate on-line retail and raze the big-box model in order to make room for new brick-and-mortar Amazon stores (smaller and smart-stocked using algorithms). What better way to obliterate publishing than by handing out author participation trophies?

Yet, there have been plenty of consequences. Namely, LOTS of F.E.C.A.L. material out there.

A lot. *swats flies away*

It began innocently enough…

Authors Longed to Be FREE

Before social media, Amazon, self-publishing, etc. authors had little to no control over the business of their business. Only two viable publishing options existed—traditional and vanity press.

So let’s make that ONE viable publishing option. Vanity press published anyone willing to pay to play author.

Vanity publishers had a singular standard writers needed to pass—a credit check. If the check cleared or the credit charge went through? Bada bing bada boom! Welcome to being ‘a published author.’

Alas, on the other end, traditional publishers were hardly a panacea. For brevity’s sake, I recommend my posts Real Writers Don’t Self Publish Part One and Part Two.

I want to make it CLEAR that I hold no allegiance to any one form of publishing. All paths have advantages and disadvantages.

The traditional publishing model pretty much tossed authors against a wall like spaghetti noodles. If you ‘stuck?’ Go you! You get another contract.

For more on how the publishing business ACTUALLY works, I’ve already explained, in detail, the ugly truth about traditional publishing and how to actually support the authors we love.

The Book Borg

Anyway, once the big-box bookstores arrived on scene like the Borg suddenly warping into sensor range, writers took the hardest hit. Publishers looooved the big-box concept because their business model relied on massive pre-orders to fund the machine (and still does).

****Take a gander at HOW many books it takes to FILL bookstores that had an average size of 26,000 feet (going as HIGH as 60,000). Can you say KA-CHING?

Publishers reveled in the boom. Meanwhile, many authors who’d previously made an excellent living during the Indie Bookstore era, had to dust off the resume.

Big-box stores bought books in volume. Yet, they ordered a TON of what books were most likely to SELL in volume. Thus, many mid-list authors who’d previously enjoyed a healthy income off twelve, twenty or even forty books now only made royalties off ONE (their most current novel).

Authors who were already household names did better than ever because of simple math and Business 101. What Borders or Barnes & Noble wasn’t going to carry every single Stephen King book ever written?

Nothing personal. Only business.

Problem was, virtually the entire author middle class stood shellshocked, ears ringing, arms loaded with a backlist of excellent books now rendered worthless.

Publishers—smitten with paper—didn’t even consider releasing these titles solely as e-books. Instead, they blithely handed seasoned authors their rights to these mothballed backlists.

Unchained

Amazon (and other self-publishing outlets like Smashwords) breathed life back into great books that HAD passed the gatekeepers. Many could legitimately claim New York Times Best Seller or USA Today Best Seller status.

Self-publishing provided authors who’d passed the gauntlets and invested years cultivating a vetted backlist a fresh way to breath new life into ‘old’ books.

In Christmas of 2009, when e-readers finally tipped into mainstream, readers were dying for titles to load on the new Kindle. Authors who’d defected made bank. These authors also improved self-publishing’s image problem.

Before 2009, most viewed self-publishing as a cheap version of vanity press. It certainly was not seen as a viable publishing path.

But, then writers got creative and soon success stories emerged. The dark horse authors like Hugh Howey and Wool, Andy Weir and The Martian, and Amanda Hocking emerged.

Yet, something ‘else’ emerged.

The Authorpreneur

Before Amazon, Smashwords, social media, algorithms, etc. most writers became writers because they loved to WRITE. Sure, I think it’s fair to say most of us wanted to be successful and make money, but cash was not our primary motivation.

Then folks like John Locke changed the literary landscape. In my POV? This is where everything changed (and NOT for the better). Granted, kudos to Locke and his success. I even (tried) to read his How I Sold a Million E-Books in 5 Months, but there were not enough antacids in the world for me to finish.

See, Locke wasn’t writing because of any love for the written word. A book, to him, was a commodity like a cheap cheeseburger (his words). To his credit, he saw and capitalized on a rare alignment of the stars and won big.

Yet, he made bank only because he hit the ground hard with ebooks right as people were starting to use e-readers and there was a dearth of e-books on the market.

Since traditional publishers refused to lower prices, readers swarmed to FREE and .99 books faster than a cloud of Alabama gnats into a fresh glass of sweet tea.

With pretty much the same results.

Readers stuck, mired and drowning and trying to escape the very thing that lured them in. Readers swarmed in for the FREE, only to realize they were trapped in bad writing, terrible formatting, and did I mention bad writing?

Plenty of other authors followed suit with FREE books! And CHEAP books! These writers sold a lot of books and earned some impressive titles.

Yet, it took time for consumers (readers) to catch on that FREE was almost ALWAYS a giant waste of time.

Over the next few years, various other gimmicks caught on. Free books, cheap books, box sets, juking algorithms, and even authors who relied on flat out deception—brand confusion—to garner sales.

I seriously had an ‘authorpreneur’ who did this and gave me this ‘business advice.’ According to this business-savvy person, I could, say, take the ‘pen name’ of Jane Evonovech then make my covers resemble a real Janet Evanovich. Similar colors, fonts, styling, etc.

Because that isn’t shady AT ALL.

SMH.

Back then, Amazon was far from perfecting algorithms, so these Bait-and-Switch Rotex Authors DID sell a lot of books, make a ton of money, and were able to claim NTYBSA status…riding the tails of a legitimate author’s success.

Of course, when this person gave me said ‘advice,’ I parted with my own council. Save for a good attorney. You’ll need one. And I was right.

Also, I prefer to earn my sales and titles on my own merit, thanks.

BOOK BUSY-NESS

Over the past few years, I’ve lost count of the fads and gimmicks. Amazon often tried launching new ways for readers to discover new authors AND for writers (Amazon) to make money.

The fundamental problem with Amazon has always been the same. They think like John Locke. To Amazon, a novel might as well be a selfie-stick, a tent, a push-up bra or a banana slicer.

There’s no inherent reverence for writing as a craft and an art. In the Amazon business model, consumers are the ‘gate-keepers’ for everything. Yet, when it comes to a book, Amazon can’t refund the readers’ TIME. Sure the book was free, but our time was not.

Consequences of FREE

Amazon doesn’t care about ONE author selling millions of books. Why? Easier to have half a million wanna-be-authors sell twenty books.

Then coax them to write more and more and more books that only sell twenty copies. All those eager creatives hitting PUBLISH like pulling a lever on a slot machine and praying for triple 7s.

***Meanwhile paying for cover art, interior design, and promotional material.

The big-box store supported one oligarchy at the expense of the mid-list and new authors. We broke FREE! Only to fuel a brand new oligarchy. A handful of people getting rich off the work of the many.

Sprinkle just enough success to keep the ‘many’ trying their luck.

The rest of us regular folks? Well, we’re left with the landfill of toxic waste hoping to find something worth our time. It’s why I only buy fiction off Audible. If a book sucks (and MANY do, even from Big Five publishers), I can return it with no problem. If I like a book, THEN I buy in paper.

For Love or Money?

I’ve been in this business long enough to notice the changes. Early on, writers were adamantly opposed to branding, social media, platform-building, etc. All that mattered was the quality of the book because they LOVED and RESPECTED the written word.

It’s why my merely mentioning on-line branding was enough to induce apoplexy.

The problem (as I saw it in 2008) was that eventually traditional publishers were going to require a brand, platform, social media presence as well as a superior book. They had to in order to keep up with (okay, stay alive in) the new F.E.C.A.L. business model.

Borders had imploded and Barnes & Noble was already bleeding. With fewer POS (Point of Sales) locations more people were shopping on-line.

I knew there was no getting out of building a brand and on-line platform, so might as well get started as soon as possible (without gimmicks and juking algorithms and spamming the crap out of everyone).

The whole reason I created the methods I did in Rise of the Machines was so writers had time to write, to learn and grow and improve. What I teach is EVERGREEN. Technology changes, people don’t.

Alas, the lure of easy money is hard to combat.

Too many ‘published authors’ know everything about promotion, yet not a damn thing about punctuation. I used to advise against a pen name, but now?

If I wrote that badly? I’d hide, too.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

Cait’s post last time, Five Things Your Editor Hates About You summed up a lot of frustration. I’ve always loved blogging, teaching craft, helping writers grow from newbies to real artists.

Self-publishing and indie has had plenty of benefits (I.e. I could publish books on social media for writers, YAY!). But we all need to stop and do a gut check.

Where do we draw the line? What are we willing to do and not do? What is acceptable and what is UNacceptable?

These days, there are so many tricks and gimmicks that the ‘real writers’—those of us in this for the craft and the art—are sinking deeper and deeper into so much F.E.C.A.L. material we cannot outpace it…ever.

If we can’t outpace it, we must OUTSHINE it.

More ‘authors’ know more about how to buy promotional g-strings in bulk than they do POV, pacing, and structure. Operation F.E.C.A.L. has been such a massive success, we’re all eyeball deep in free crap and about to go under for good.

Question is, are we going to contribute more F.E.C.A.L. material? Or will we draw a line and give our craft the respect, time and dedication it deserves? Because a real author writes, reads, learns, grows, takes some lumps from REAL critique, and improves.

Freedom is not FREE.

Real writers learn to spell and punctuate or at least pay or barter with someone who can help them spell and punctuate. AUTHORS learn structure, take classes, and seek mentors.

Real authors push their abilities more than free pens. They don’t shovel out $#!& and call it a series.

Ten years ago, my best advice to writers was to learn the business of their business so they didn’t get fleeced. Now? My best advice is for writers to learn how to actually write.

Spend less time and money gold-plating turds and do the work. Leave the participation trophies to those who’ve ‘earned’ them. The rest of us have real author stuff to do.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Other than I am a super mean jerk? I don’t know about you, but I’m fed up. I don’t want any free books. My in-box is deluged with free.

This is even impacting the Big Five.

I PREORDERED a book five months before release because I loved the author’s first book so much. The second book was….

BEYOND bad.

Of course it ended up a NYT best-seller (probably from pre-sales from people like me who expected better). It was published by Simon & Schuster…and it was a pile of unreadable detritus.

Maybe it’s me.

Do you see traditional publishers seeming to cave on quality to keep pace? Are you tired of having to slog through crap? Is it hard to stick to your guns when so many writers are churning out books like a plastic dog-poo factory?

As for me? I don’t care. I’d love to be a gazillionaire but not if I have to churn out F.E.C.A.L. material.

I love hearing from you!

What do you WIN? For the month of JUNE, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

Upcoming Classes!

Instructor: Cait Reynolds

Price: $55.00 USD

Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom

When: Friday, June 22, 2018. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Remember Moonlighting? Dave and Maddie were the hottest thing ever…and then they kissed…and it was still kinda hot…and then they really got together and settled down to blissful domesticated bickering. And…we all stopped watching.

Because it was boring.

Remember the X-Files? The lucullan feast of smoldering restraint that was Mulder and Scully? Chris Carter refused to give the fans what they wanted with a kiss at the series end, and while fans gnashed their teeth, it was a kind of pro forma gnashing because we were still interested and could still dream about what might happen.

While the episode-based storytelling of television allows romance to be the B-plot (and only when it feels like it), novels are different. Whether we are writing squeaky clean romance or too-much-wasabi-level-hot erotica, we are always dealing with the same basic principle of THE TEASE.

And for all that romance gets a bad rap and is scorned as being ‘easy’ to write, sustaining the delicious, rippling tension and fizzing chemistry between characters is one of the hardest techniques to master. This class can help you (literally) keep the romance alive well past the 80,000-word mark and beyond!

Topics covered in this class include:

• ‘So, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want’: recognizing what the reader wants, what the reader really wants but doesn’t know, and what the reader needs;
• How to Flirt with the Reader: giving an inch but taking a mile when it comes to sweet/romantic/sexy moments;
• Clean and Mean: putting the spark in sweet romance and fanning the flame without risking the brimstone;
• Down and Dirty: putting the emotion in erotica so every encounter leaves the reader panting for more…for more than one reason;
• The Speed Dating Trap: how to balance interest, interaction, and attraction without falling for the trap of insta-love (just add fate/pheromones/booze);
• Making it Last: how to chart a course for romance and pace it so it lasts…all book long…
• So much more!…

A free recording of the class is included in the purchase. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Instructor: Cait Reynolds

Price: $45.00 USD

Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom

When: Saturday, June 23, 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

There’s something dashingly defiant and alluring about a proper young lady who throws caution (and often her petticoats) to the wind and picks up a sword to fight for what she believes in.

Whether it’s Eowyn from Lord of the Rings or Elizabeth (Badass) Bennet from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, we all love that moment when a woman rises up to prove she’s more than society ever expected her to be.

Yet the market today is flooded with fantasy and historical that carry more trope baggage than Marie Antoinette for a long weekend at the Petit Trianon (sheep not included).

In fantasy, there are girls raised in servitude who suddenly discover their magical powers and royal heritage and must (really quickly) learn to wield swords and spells in order to save the kingdom.

Historical often isn’t much better, taking naive nineteen year-olds and turning them into near-legendary brigands, highwaymen, and pirates within the space of a few months.

Lack of believability, lack of character depth and arc, and lack of world-building/historical knowledge are the three major pitfalls when creating Ye Olde Action Heroine.

Luckily, this class will give writers a map with all literary here-be-hippogriffs clearly marked. Whether your gal is besieged by dragons, in a castle under siege, or in a castle under siege by dragons, this class can help!

This class will cover:

• En Garde! Choosing her weapons wisely;
• Ye Olde Fight Club: getting real about time & training;
• Why, How, and When: how to realistically get her on the path from baking to badassery;
• Hard Knocks: how to use failure and lack of skill mastery to create compelling character arcs;
• The Joan of Arc trap: how to avoid creating miracles and martyrs (unless you really mean it);
• The Pirate Bride: defining femininity in fantasy and historical in order ‘rebel’ against it;
• Consequences: what are the short- and long-term consequences of flouting convention?
• World Building & Re-Building: getting fantasy and historical settings right for your characters;
• And so much more…

A recording of this class is also included with purchase. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Instructor: Kristen Lamb

Price: $45.00 USD

Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom

When: Saturday, June 23, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Female characters have evolved from ‘damsel in distress’ to the ‘hardcore badass.’ Problem is, fictional females escaped one boring mold only to end up in another even MORE boring mold.

But with lipgloss AND karate!

Strong female characters fascinate audiences on the page and on the screen. From Atomic Blonde to Wonder Woman, Special Agent Scully to Dr. Laura Isles, women can exude power and danger in a variety of ways.

Sadly, the badass female has devolved into a tired trope with the depth of a puddle.

This class is to challenge the concept of the dangerous woman as protagonist and antagonist. Creating a powerful woman involves more than handing her weapons, a black belt, and a terminal case of RBF (Resting B$#@% Face).

• • Expanding ‘who’ the dangerous woman IS;
  • Still waters run DEEP;
  • Broadening backstory;
  • Motives matter;
  • The ‘Tomb Raider’ effect;
  • Combat, weapons, tactics;
  • Expanding her ‘arsenal’;
  • Generating authentic dramatic action/tension;
  • Making the dangerous dame ‘likable’;
  • AND MORE…

As an author, competitive shooter, and former combatives instructor, there are few characters I LOVE more than a kickass female action hero. Conversely, fewer things vex me more than the tired cookie-cutter female action hero trope. Women can be powerful in a myriad of ways, beyond hand-to-hand combat and shooting everyone in the FACE.

This said, while we’ll explore a wide variety of powerful women, if you long to write that female action hero, this class will (hopefully) make sure you do her justice.

A recording of this class is also included with purchase. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Can’t seem to choose between pirate princesses and bulletproof Barbies? We don’t blame you…and, you don’t have to!

With the Dangerous Dames BUNDLE, get both classes and SAVE MONEY.

Purchased separately, each class is $45. Go for BOTH and get $90 of instruction for ONLY $75. You also get to spend a HUGE part of the day with ME (Kristen Lamb) and my partner in crime Cait Reynolds.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Date: Saturday, June 23, 2018

Price: $75.00 USD 

PRINCESS PRODIGY: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. EST

BULLETPROOF BARBIE: 2:00-4:00 p.m. EST

*Recordings of both classes included with purchase.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The post Operation F.E.C.A.L: New Publishing & The High Cost of FREE appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Via Flikr Creative commons, courtesy of Tax Credits.

There are a lot of ways to try and sell books. One way? Non-stop Twitter book spam, “Buy my book! Buy! Buy! Buy! #writer #books #ineedmoney #indie #selfpub.” Just make sure you set it to automate to EVERY writer hashtag and to repeat every fifteen minutes. People LOVE THAT.

We can advertise fifty times an hour and never have to bother actually talking to people on Twitter. Hey, our time is valuable, whereas others? They have plenty of time to be on Twitter, so why not give them a GREAT BOOK?

Then there are of course, form-letters on Facebook. “Dear Valued Person, I noticed you like puppies. My book has puppies, please buy now!”

We can also rufie invite people to FB fan clubs for our book against their will.

Me: When did I become a member of The Raven’s Chest Hair Fan Club? *scratches head* *leaves group*.

Then there’s always Goodreads Begging: “Hi, I’ve never even said hello to you and don’t know you from a hole in the ground, but my book is the best thing since Scratch-and-Sniff stickers, yet strangely not selling. I’m sure together we can make my book NUMBER ONE!”

Or not…

In my new book, Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World I actually spend a lot of time explaining why advertising and marketing doesn’t sell books in the new paradigm (or any other, for that matter) and what changes to make for any advertising or marketing to be more effective. Yet, ads, banners, book trailers aside, people want to read a great book.

This means our best way of selling books is…

You ready for this? *drum roll*

Writing great books.

Price is no longer as big of a determining factor as it used to be. A couple years ago, John Locke started the .99 bandwagon and many authors jumped on. At first readers were excited, until they realized the slush pile had just been dumped onto their Kindles and Nooks.

This is good news and bad news. Bad news? Being cheap isn’t the game-changer it used to be. Good news? People are gravitating to higher priced books, because there is a presumption of higher quality. This means good books can make more money. Yay!

***Btw, I said higher priced not stupid priced. Traditional publishing has taken many a hit for this. Strange fact. Consumers won’t pay the same price for an e-book as a glossy hardback. Wow, who would have imagined that?

Yet, just because potential readers are gravitating to higher priced books, doesn’t mean an automatic purchase. It means our customer’s time is *gasp* valuable. Yes, they are browsing the slightly more expensive books…to whittle down which books they will invest time in reading sample pages. We have to earn the sale.

Our sample pages, which are the beginning of the book, are our most priceless selling tool.

I know most of you’ve heard agents and editors usually give a book one to three pages, before continuing or chunking into the circular file. You might be thinking one to three pages? But, my story really gets going on page 21.

No.

I’ve run the first-twenty-pages-contest on this blog for about three years. Most of the samples I get? I don’t need 20 pages. I need one. I already know all the writer’s bad habits and level of education and skill (or lack thereof). It’s simply shocking how many of the same problems plague the beginning of most first-time novels.

And it’s easy to think this is all very unfair, but think of your own experiences browsing a bookstore. Aside from cover and interesting title and story description, what do we do? We open the book and scan the first couple of pages. If those first pages stink, we don’t give the writer twenty of fifty or a hundred pages to sell us.

Unless you wrote Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but he was dead.

So when you are dead, I suppose people give more gratis, because I cannot count the number of times people have said, “Well, yes GWTDT bored the paint off the walls, but after the first hundred pages, it’s awesome!”

I…am not that motivated. I gave the book more than it’s due (because the writer was dead) and gave it 20. Next! I’m aging here.

So if you are reading this blog and you’re dead? You get more leeway. Also, what’s it like on the Other Side? Feel free to leave a description in the comments :D.

For the rest of us who remain among the living? One to five pages.

I can tell 99% of what’s wrong in a book by page five, and so can agents and editors (and readers, though they might not know what is wrong, only they aren’t hooked).

It’s sort of like going to a doctor. He/She can tell from the sphygmomanometer (been DYING to use that word) which is a blood-pressure cuff, a look at skin pallor and basic symptoms to tell if a patient has a bum ticker. No need to crack open the patient’s chest and stare right at the sickly beating heart.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

Most new writers (especially) have what Candy Haven’s calls a fish-head. What do we do with fish-heads? We cut them off and throw them away, unless you are my family, who are scavengers Scandinavians and then they make soup *shivers*. This actually explains the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo mystery.

Original image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of David Pursehouse

The writer was dead and Swedish. Apparently Swedish readers looove fish-head-story-soup and somehow convinced others to give it a try. Not saying these are bad books, btw. Clearly, they have a huge fan base and rave reviews. I’m just I am not patient enough to get to the good stuff (and neither are a lot of other people).

Most new novels need to lose the first hundred pages. But that’s just something I’ve gleaned from experience. Yet, who cares about the first hundred if we can’t care about the first five? Often, the problems in the next 95 pages can be fixed by knowing what went sideways with the first five. Seriously.

Sample pages are…samples. If we go to Sam’s or Costco, how many will stop for a sample of egg rolls, pizza, or Acai juice? How many will stop to sample the Fish Head Surprise?

My point, exactly.

For a fantastic resource about this, I highly recommend Les Edgerton’s Hooked. Also, August 21st, I am running a Your First Five Pages webinar. Bronze is $40 and Gold is $55 (I look at your first five pages) and use WANA15 for 15% off. The webinar is recorded in case you can’t make the time and a PDF with notes will be sent to you following the class.

What makes you stop reading a book? How long do you give books? Are you patient enough to wait a hundred pages for it to get interesting? What do you find the hardest about writing the beginning of the book? Have you lopped off your own fish heads?

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

ANNOUNCEMENTS: I have a class coming up SOON, Creating Conflict and Tension on Every Page if you want to learn how to apply these tactics to your writing. Use WANA15 to get 15% off.

Winner of 20 Page Edit for July is EDWARD OWEN. Please send your 5000 word WORD document to kristen at wana intl dot com.

The post The Single Best Way to Sell a Lot of Books appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via segagman Flikr Creative Commons

Yesterday, one of our WANA International instructors, Amy Shojai, wrote about the importance of reinvention, and I strongly recommend her class this Saturday (which is recorded if you can’t make the time). Use code: OWFI for $25 off. As authors, we are in a new paradigm that changes faster than we can keep up with it, thus Apple seemed to be a natural segue into the topic of reinvention and excellence.

Yes, Steve Jobs was known as a lot of things, including a tyrant and egomaniac. Yet, no matter how we feel about the man, Jobs remains the poster child for reinvention, and I found some quotes that make great lessons for all of us writers.

Granted, I was inspired by another blog. Last month, I ran across a fantastic post by Tiffany Reisz Wisdom for Writers from Steve Jobs which I strongly recommend you read as well.

Tip #1—Dare to Be Different

One of the major reasons a lot of other computer companies failed is that they tried to take on Microsoft, by being just like Microsoft. Instead of being brave enough to be different, they were imitators.

Imitators are not interesting.

In a world that has an increasingly shorter attention span, we must stand apart from the crowd. As writers, we are artists thus we have the power to create art in our work, not just some tired copy of something else. Be different. Be excellent. Put in that extra effort to stand apart from everything else.

“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”~Steve Jobs

Lack of flexibility is one of the current weaknesses in the traditional publishing paradigm. Because this is a business with a lot of overhead (beholden to shareholders), frequently, publishers will look to books they believe they can sell, which is code for “something like the last big thing that sold.” This doesn’t mean these publishers are putting out bad books, but it does mean that their business model limits the boundaries of creativity and innovation.

For those of you who decide to take a non-traditional route, you have more freedom and flexibility to be daring. Daring is exactly what we need to be to stand apart, versus being just another brick in the wall.

Ask yourself, Why me? Why my book? Why would anyone choose my book over another? And if it’s just because of price, prizes or freebies? TRY HARDER.

One of my all-time favorite Demotivationals.

Tip #2—Dare to Be Excellent

Learn the craft. Read. Learn this as an art form. If you choose to self-publish, find beta readers who can give honest feedback and let you know if your book is ready. One of the biggest mistakes self-published authors make is that they publish too soon. Invest in good editing and a knockout cover. If you blog (and I recommend you do) be excellent. This is a sample of your voice, of you. In a world of cheap Taiwanese imitations, people long for excellence.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through. ~Steve Jobs

Ask yourself, Have I done all I can to make this work as good as it can be?

Tip #3—Keep it Simple

New writers often try to reinvent plot as we know it. Three-act structure works. It’s worked for thousands of years. The greatest stories of all time can be summed up in a sentence. Simplicity leads to complexity, where as complicated leads to confusion. Great stories are very basic. There are no new plots. I could hand ten writers a great idea for a story and we’d end up with ten totally different novels. It is all in execution.

Same with social media. WANA methods are simple. Be kind. Be focused. Be consistent. Be authentic. Add value. Be part of a community. Serve others first. That’s it. And yes, I have written a new book, but everything I teach can be summed up in those seven sentences. Algorithms and fancy marketing plans can quickly overrun the most important part of what we do—write books/create art.

That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. ~Steve Jobs

Ask yourself, Could I tell what my book is about in less than three sentences?

Okay, now make it ONE.

Tip #4—Love What You Do

Writers have more opportunity to succeed than ever before. For the first time, we are seeing novelists make six and seven figures. But, if you look at all the successful authors (traditional and non-traditional), they work their tails off. And, the funny thing is, it rarely feels like work. Why? To really do well in this business we have to LOVE IT.

Yet, there is a hard truth about love.

Love is not all kitten hugs and rainbow kisses. Love is work. Love has good days and bad days. Love requires sacrifice. It requires boundaries. It requires prioritization. It demands toughness and tenderness all in the same space. Whether it is our marriage, our family, our kids or our craft, love is not all a glittery unicorn hug.

I speak at a lot of conferences, and I generally can tell the writers who will succeed versus the ones who won’t. One type of writer wants to make hard cash. He loves money more than craft. He attends all the social media classes and marketing classes that promise to maximize his book sales. Sales, sales, charts, algorithms, outsourcing, programs! Yay!

The other writer? She believes writing is floating around with the muse being inspired all day. She is in love with a romantic vision of being a writer…not the craft or business of writing. She doesn’t need social media. “A good book alone will sell itself.”

Uh huh.

Take a gut check and make sure you love writing. If we seek to do this writing thing professionally, then there is a lot of changing diapers writing, staying up cleaning puke out of the carpet revisions, taking the kid to school every day blogging, toy box explosions social media.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. ~Steve Jobs

Ask yourself, Am I willing to do the unfun stuff, too? 

Tip #5—Embrace Failure

We didn’t learn to ride bikes by hopping on one day and pedaling away perfectly. Most of us fell…a lot. We all had our fair share of skinned knees and elbows before we looked like we knew what we were doing. Writing is the same.

If you aren’t failing then you aren’t doing anything interesting. Failure teaches us more than success ever will. Our greatest successes often will be birthed from the ashes of many doomed attempts.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. ~Steve Jobs

Ask yourself, Am I open to learning? Do I view failure as a tombstone or a stepping stone? 

What are your thoughts? What struggles have you faced in the new paradigm? Have you had to learn to set boundaries? How did you do it? What are some of the tips and tricks you’d like to share?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of May, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of May I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

The post Steve Jobs and 5 Tips for Being a Successful Author appeared first on Kristen Lamb.