3 Writing Rules for Real Authors

Beginning writers get a lot of advice from every direction. Here are 3 aphorisms to memorize. Let them guide you in your career.

1. A "real" author pursuing print publication does NOT pay to get published or to get literary agent representation. The publisher pays the author with an advance against royalties, and a royalty contract. The agent gets paid by collecting a commission on selling your work.

2. A "real" author does not ask for an opinion of his/her work from anyone with whom the author has a familial or love relationship.

Why? Because you will rarely get an objective answer. The answer will be colored either by the person's love for you or the person's wish to get some payback. Ask a professional who knows what constitutes good writing.

3. The bridge between talent and success is work discipline.

Start establishing a work discipline now that enables you to produce a daily quota of writing--1 page or 10+. Work discipline creates the habit of writing.

Takeaway Truth

Writing is art, craft, and business. Adopt some standards, parameters, or habits that will aid you in building a successful career.

From Romance to Zombies--With Love!

Good morning, world! I'm happy to welcome Bella Street, author of the series, Apocalypse Babes, as my guest star today.

After reading her book The Z Word, I tracked her down and asked her if she'd guest blog and talk about writing in such diverse genres. (My review of The Z Word last week.)

Bella's books are sold by all the popular ebook retailers. For more information, check her website or her blog BellaStreetWrites.

Bella Street: In Her Own Words

Thank you, Joan, for having me on SlingWords!

One of the best things about being an indie author is the ability to explore new realms in writing. While maintaining an author brand is important from a marketing perspective, I believe an indie author has a bit more leeway in taking her writing in different directions.

My book,Kiss Me, I'm Irish, is pure romance with a paranormal twist. Boy and girl meet, sparks fly, and a HEA happens that hopefully makes for an enjoyable read. But while writing pure romance for the last fifteen years, I was also getting addicted to serialized TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. It makes perfect sense...on some level.

Had I ever written sci-fi before? Nope. But I knew what I liked and what I hoped to achieve. One thing I really liked about a series is getting to know the characters in many different situations; I liked getting to watch them grow and evolve. But that also requires more developed characterizations. If characters are expected to carry a show or book series over a long story arc, they must have epic (for them) goals, motivations, and conflict.

Probably the biggest challenge for me was how to write in a genre that didn't rely on the classic boy meets girl framework. The conflict had to be less about romantic back and forth interaction and more about how my characters affected, and are affected by, their world. I spent a lot of time studying science-fiction tropes and reading sci-fi sub-genres, while learning about historical and cultural symbolism for added layering.

The Fun Part: What if?

A popular modern trope in fiction is the kick-butt heroine who is strong and capable. Being of a contrary nature, I had to ask what if a heroine was average? Insecure? The kind of girl who wears bright pink without a second thought?

What if her main goal in life was security and safety in the make-believe world of West Hollywood? What if she was motivated by a past that forced her to come up with a do-over identity she desperately wanted to stick? And what if she was torn from that world and thrust into a past she never dreamed she'd have to face?

Add Zombies, Mix Well

Then throw in zombies for an extra kick.

The tagline to the series that arose out of this genre shift was: No mad skillz, no sacred destiny, just a pink tracksuit that will take her places she never wanted to go.

Romance is still a part of this story. I'm not able to leave it out as it's my favorite genre as a whole. But mixing genres allowed me to explore different characterizations and growth arcs. Like that pink tracksuit, it's taken me places I never thought I'd go.

Food For Thought

On closing, I'll leave you with these questions. What is a genre you've always wondered about? What would it be like to write in that genre?

Takeaway Truth

Thank you, Bella, for visiting today. To your closing questions, I'll add a question from me. What's stopping you?

Alter Language Or Not?

If you're an indie author, chances are that you are selling to an international market. Amazon just expanded our reach by welcoming France to the Kindle family and gave all of us authors a tab to click to view our French sales.

With Kindle, you can sell English language editions here in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, and now France and receive that 70% royalty if you price at 2.99 and above. I know I've made several hundreds of sales to U.K. and dozens to Germany.

My Smashwords sales report, via their distribution to Apple Bookstores, show hundreds of sales to the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., Germany, and France.

Work On International Appeal?

A while back I participated in an online discussion about whether an author should specifically try to appeal to international markets by changing their use of language. I found the discussion interesting, but I don't think changing the way we write is of little value even if one could do such a thing.

Sure, I've read books by American authors in which characters measure mileage in kilometers rather than miles and weigh in kilograms rather than pounds. To me, stuff like that sticks out like a sore thumb because I know it was in the book simply to make the book more acceptable to international audiences who use those measurements. In other words, the author probably didn't write it that way. The editor changed it.

Trust me, if someone asks how far it is from Houston to San Antonio, I'm not going to say about 300 kilometers. I'm going to say about 185 miles. (Actually, here in Texas, we measure distances more by time so I'd be more inclined to say about 3 1/2 hours.)

Intrusive Language

I think it's a bad thing any time author intrusion--or editorial intrusion--makes a reader stop and think: "Why the heck is he using kilometers when he's an American?"

If someone in England reads one of my books--and many do--I don't think they're going to throw the book down in disgust and exclaim: "She wrote miles, not kilometers!" I give the rest of the world credit for having enough intelligence to know that we here in the U. S. don't use the metric system. I know they probably think we're scientifically backward, but that's part of our culture and something that makes the reading experience specific to this country.

When I'm writing, I never think about changing my use of language in order to make it more understandable to someone in the UK. I'd feel pretentious if I used gaol rather than jail, for instance. Wherever the reader is, let him "feel" the setting by the author's use of language. The text in a book--the words used--are part of the layering process that makes a setting seem real.

Small Town Girl

Most of my books are set in Texas or other places in the South. Were I to edit the manuscript to appeal to international readers, I'd be changing the milieu of the background setting. Not to mention alienating every reader in this country who "knows" how people in Texas and the South are supposed to sound.

I figure if someone in Germany wants to read a book by an American about someone in Texas, they're looking for the cultural element of that experience. When I read a book by an English author that is set in England, I like the cultural differences of language because it gives me a deeper "Brit" experience. That's part of the joy of reading--immersing oneself in other cultures.

If I don't understand a reference, I can look it up. There are plenty of standard dictionaries online as well as urban and cultural references too. So write your books the way they come to you. Don't get caught up in how other writers do it; just do it your way.

Takeaway Truth

Vive la différence!

EZ App: Menu Uninstall

Here's an app that's going to make your life much easier. Menu Uninstall by LeizerSoftware.

When you find that you have a program on your computer that you just don't need, do you immediately click on the Control Panel and Uninstall it? Nope? Me either.

Uninstalling takes time, and I'm always noting things on the fly with good intentions to come back and take care of the task. Unfortunately, that never seems to happen. Most of us never set aside a block of time for tech maintenance even though we should.

Cluttered Hard Drive

I download a lot of apps to try before I recommend them to you. This can result in programs I didn't like and won't use and, therefore, won't recommend. Today, I downloaded from the Google site an app that will help me clean all that mess up.

With Menu Uninstall, you don't have to go to the control panel. Once you install this app, it adds a selection to the right-click context menu. It's also faster than the Windows Uninstaller. You just right-click the program's desktop icon or the Start Menu icon. Then click Uninstall. The program's uninstaller will run automatically.

Visit the website and you can see screenshots of the process along with reviews and awards this software has won.

Takeaway Truth

Quick, easy, and free. What's not to love?

Reading Pretensions

I was reading the latest edition of Shelf Awareness this weekend. In case you don't subscribe, Shelf Awareness publishes a free newsletter about books with lots of reviews and excerpts.

As a reader, I like to see what's coming out from the print publishers even though the newsletter is really aimed at bookstore and library buyers. Consequently, one sees only the books that result from paid ad placement. Still, it's kind of a pulse on the industry.

Pretentious

One of their snippets in the recent edition originated in England's The Daily Mail weekend edition so I clicked over to read the actual article at the source. I laughed when I read that bookshelves in the U.K. are packed with "at least 80 books the owners haven't read."

My bookshelves and my Kindle are packed with unread books too, but not for lack of trying. I simply don't have enough time to read as much as I'd like. Trust me, none of the unread books I long to tackle are pretentious literary tomes.

Apparently, in the U.K., it's still considered good form to make a literary impression on visitors. The Daily Mail went on to say that 57% (of respondents, I assume) make sure the books they prominently display are literary classics even though the book owners admit to never having read the first page.

Most Unread

Guess which book was most lied about, according to this research study sponsored by Lindeman Wines? Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. That surprised me because the book is intellectually accessible by any reader. True, the text is more formal than today's contemporary fiction, but that doesn't make it unreadable.

Next on the most lied-about list were Lord Of The Rings, Jane Eyre, Harry Potter, and The Hobbit.

Guilty Pleasures

Sophie Kinsella, Jodi Picoult, Jackie Collins, Helen Fielding, and Danielle Steele were listed as the books most of the respondents really like to read. About 20% of the men who responded confessed that they enjoyed the much-maligned chick-lit genre. Since I have several male readers for my romantic comedies, this doesn't surprise me.

I think the many ereader devices have enabled men to discover that books mostly marketed to a female audience are actually quite good. Of course, they'd never have been caught dead purchasing such a book in a brick and mortar bookstore. Hurray for Kindle, Nook, and all the other ereaders who have widened our reading audiences.

Human Nature Doesn't Change

Perhaps little has changed since Jonathan Swift wrote: "The most accomplished way of using books at present is to serve them as some do lords: learn their titles and then boast of their acquaintance."

Come on, Readers! Donate those unread tomes and fill your shelves with books you truly enjoy. You may find that visitors to your home then have something else to talk about because, chances are, they've probably read those books too!

Takeaway Truth

I'll close with these wise words from William James: "To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified."

Review: Apocalypse Babes by Bella Street

The Z Word is Book 1 of Apocalypse Babes by Bella Street.

Want a good example of the importance of a good title or a series title? This is it. Bella Street created one of the best series titles I've seen in a while when she dubbed her 6 book series Apocalypse Babes.

I bought the first book, The Z Word, simply because of the series title. I figured any author witty enough to label a series with that moniker had to be an equally clever writer. I'm happy to say I was correct.

Book Specs

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 456 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Firefly Press (June 3, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B0054DW2UE
Lending: Enabled
Average Customer Review: 10 Customer Reviews, average 4.2 stars.
Price: $.99, but currently Free.

My Take

Take 3 valley girls and their longtime guy friend that 2 of the 3 are crushing on, toss them into a worm hole and send them back to a world without cell phones, the Internet, Starbucks, and satellite TV, and you have the clever premise of The Z Word. Yes, Z for zombies, but how the zombies were created is one of the many twists offered in this mixed genre novel.

Part science fiction, part romance, part mystery, part fantasy, The Z Word is all entertainment. From the out-of-the-box zombies to the creepy mind control, heroine Seffy Carter grows from vacuous airhead with a serious case of denial to savvy survivor unwilling to drink the KoolAid.

If you were alive in the 1980's--whether you rocked the decade or you were a baby being rocked in a cradle--you'll love the song references and cultural allusions. Though one might think this book is for young adults since they are the protagonists, that's not the case. This will keep you turning the pages late into the night. Warning: if you finish at 2 AM, you might find yourself visiting the Kindle Store for Book 2: The X Factor.

The best thing about this series is that the heroine Seffy grows--in all ways. In the beginning, you feel like slapping her and telling her to grow up and quit whining. By the end of the book, you're rooting for her because she's changed. When you get to the second book, you're totally in her corner, and you're wishing she'd see that Trent is not just a babe, but a babe who loves her--just as she is. And that's priceless.

Well done, Ms. Street!

Other titles

I understand the author has 2 other books in the series to publish. For now, the series consists of these titles:

Book 1: The Z Word
Book 2: The X Factor
Book 3: iRobotronic
Book 4: Kumbaya Much

Takeaway Truth

If you like books that are different--books that can't be easily pigeon-holed--this series is for you.

Want your own Kindle? Click here.

Round Up: Today's News

Wow! Lots of things going on this morning.

Kindle France is online. My Sales Report has added kindle.fr to the drop-down tab showing distributors.

French publishing is very conservative and book prices are generally set in stone with little variation so this is a major cultural step for outside books.

Kindle France will be offering about 35,000 ebooks in French from local publishers, along with 825,000 ebooks in other languages--most of those in English.

Of course, the Kindle France store will be selling the entry-level Kindle for 99 Euro which, today is about $133.00 USD. They also offer free shipping which is a good savings.

So if you are an indie author and you selected Worldwide Distribution through Kindle, your ebooks will be available for sale in France.

If you are an author whose publisher distributes your ebooks, then your books may be available if your publisher has the right to sell that title in France. Everything is determined by contracts and reciprocal agreements.

Kindle Available At Office Depot

Also this morning, Office Depot is selling the Kindle. According to the email announcement I received, it's supposed to be available at most local stores and online.

Walmart has been selling Kindle since May of this year. Ditto for Best Buy, Staples, and Target. Walmart also sells Nook and Kobo readers.

With the Kindle available in so many retail outlets, it just means that ebooks will become even more popular as a gift for the upcoming holiday season and also as an impulse purchase for those who have thought about it but have delayed buying an ereader.

Joel Friedlander Course

My friend Joel Friedlander, noted book guru is what I call him, has a series of online videos called The Self-Publishing Blueprint that are definitely worth watching if you are thinking about publishing your own writing.

For those who want in-depth information and knowledge, he has Self-publishing Road Map. I don't know if he's still taking registrations, but you can click the link and find out. First, do watch his free videos.

West Houston Workshop: Michael Hauge

West Houston Romance Writers of America is bringing in Hollywood script consultant and plotting guru Michael Hauge for an intensive all-day workshop on Saturday, Nov. 12. This will be open to the public after Oct. 16. Attendance will be capped at 100. Check out details at the West Houston website.

Dan Calvisi

I want to tell you about my friend Dan Calvisi. Dan's the real deal when it comes to being a Hollywood insider, screenwriter, and--dare I say it--all around nice guy. (I know, I know. You can't be a nice guy and make it in Hollywood, right?) Dan's promised to guest blog at some point in the future. For now, let me tell you more about him.

Daniel P. Calvisi is a professional Story Analyst and screenwriter with more than 15 years experience in the business of screenplays. He's worked for Miramax, Dimension, director Jonathan Demme, and 20th Century Fox. He was the guy who evaluated the written submissions that resulted in these films: Chicago, Spy Kids, Choclat, The Wedding Singer, Scream, and so many more.

Heads Up

Why am I telling you all this? Because Dan has taken all that he knows and put it into a book that you MUST get if you're a writer. Story Maps: How to Write a Great Screenplay isn't just for screenwriters. I've read it, and I have no aspirations to head out to LaLa Land and sign on as a screenwriter to anyone who would have me.

I read it because knowing the beats in a screenplay, knowing how good screenwriters do pacing so well, and all that must go into a successful 120 page script will make a novel writer focus on what's important in the book they're writing.

How many times have you heard someone say: "I just can't get a handle on this story or this character...." Well, this book will help you do just that.

Get It Today

I'm going to be posting a review next week of his book and what he calls his Booster Pack next week. So get a jump on this and get a copy today.

If you can't make it to Houston for the other workshop, get Dan's book Story Maps: How to Write a Great Screenplay today--it's for screenwriters and book writers--and guess what? It's only $14.95, and it's worth every penny.

Takeaway Truth

The reading world is changing, and the publishing world is trying to keep up. I'll do my best to help you stay up to date with both and learn how to write better too.