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The debt I owe to Davy Jones
In the ’90s, Nick at Night began airing The Monkees. My sisters and I got hooked on the absurdity pretty quickly right before I started high school. (What can I say? We were the target audience, 30 years too late.) Over the next couple years, I met and saw two members of the Monkees in concerts (three different events)—Peter Tork and Davy Jones.
Two weeks ago, I got a text message from two of my sisters within seconds, basically saying the same thing:
I’m so sorry about Davy Jones!
That was how I found out he’d died. He had a heart attack at 66. For some odd reason, the youngest of the Monkees was the first to go.
It was a sad surprise, even if it’s not completely unheard of (I mean, Peter Tork, the oldest of the Monkees, hit 70 just two weeks before). It hit me that night as I saw a clip from the old TV show that he was really gone. But let’s be serious here: he wasn’t a close personal friend, and I’m not going to mourn him like one. His death didn’t make me face my own mortality, or give me a sobering wake up call, or anything else. It was a sad note.
One of my favorite songs actually sung by Davy
But then over the last weekend, I remembered what I owe to Davy Jones.
When my sisters and I started watching The Monkees, I liked the show so much, I had to write about it. Yes, it’s true—I came to writing through fanfiction. Monkees fanfic. (Is this as shameful as I think it sounds?) And though Davy himself wasn’t the biggest reason for my doing that, he was part of the ensemble. He was part of the reason I started to write.
From left to right: my sister (holding one of my favorite photos of Davy from the 60s), my friend, my sister, Davy and me (holding records?), in 1998. And yes, that extra hand on my waist is Davy’s. I’m 15, he’s 52. Is that skeevy? Oh well. (Don’t know where my other sister was 
.)
So thank you, Davy Jones.
How did you get started writing?
Four things an aspiring author’s website must do
Continuing with our series, a repeat of another post from three years ago, part 1 of 2!
We’ve covered the seven things an aspiring author’s website must have. But in addition to having convenient features and good appearance, an aspiring author’s website must do certain things to fulfill its purpose, depending on what phase your career is in.
(Side note: I have a blog where I talk a lot about blogging, I reference some posts on my other blog here.)
The get ready phase: networking with other writers
When you’re in the “get ready” phase, you’re actively writing and seeking out other writers, but at present you’re not ready to submit to agents or editors. Since your career is just starting out, your website may just be starting out, too, though it won’t hurt if you already have a fairly well-developed site.
Before you’re ready for publication, your website can help you find critique partners, talk with other writers about writing, explore your genre with other writers, and make the connections that help smooth the path for your career—or at least make a solitary profession a lot less lonely. This is your time to start building a community of writers.
How can I do this? The easiest way to make your website into a networking tool is to make sure there are plenty of ways other writers can connect with you—and often the easiest way to do that is through engaging blog content and comments.
The get ready phase: find your niche
While you’re preparing for publication, it’s also a good time to get your web presence ready—especially to find the niche where you’ll fit in the blogging and publishing (and publogging?) worlds.
How do I do this? To find your blog/site niche, ask yourself why you’re blogging and what you’ll be blogging about. It needs to be more than just blogging about your book and your career—and at some point, it will probably need to transition to be more than just appealing to other writers, too.
This is almost like a market analysis—using a search engine, look for other sites of authors with similar books/niches. See what they’re blogging about (if anything). See what angle you can add to the discussion, especially if it relates to your books. If you can use your website to show how you and your books will fit on a bookshelf, your site is ready for the next phase.
The get set phase: show you’re professional and marketable
In the “get set” phase, you’re in the process of searching for an agent or editor. (You may also fall in the “get set” phase if you have an agent who’s currently shopping your manuscript.) In this phase, one of your big goals will be to show your target audience (agents and editors) that you’re serious about your writing and your career.
How can I do this? Professional appearance—check out advice from professional website designer Kathleen MacIver of KatieDid Design in the free PDF guide to aspiring author websites.
Also important in professional appearance is the “demeanor” on your website. It’s fine to use casual, laid back text and images—but a website for your career might not be the best place to air out your dirty socks (or any of the rest of your dirty laundry!). Also, be sure to read over (and have others read over) your site for typos, misused words, broken links and images, or anything else that would detract from your appearance.
In this phase, you can still rely heavily on a blog, but it’s a good idea to at least set up a few pages (about, contact, works) with links in the sidebar or create a menu bar to help visitors learn more about you and your writing, and navigate your site.
The get set phase: show off your storytelling
Also in the “get set” phase, and more important in the long run, your website is a place to show off your storytelling abilities. In the end, that’s what’s going to get you an agent, get you sold to a publishing company, and get you sold on the bookshelves.
How can I do this? Showing off your storytelling doesn’t mean that every page and every blog post has to be written as if it were flash fiction. (Unless you want to . . . but that’d probably be weird.) It does mean making sure that you have at least an excerpt of your writing on your site—especially if you’re submitting to agents that don’t ask for or allow sample pages with their queries.
However, do not use your website as the only medium an agent can see your query or sample pages, especially not if they ask for any writing from you. An agent or editor will expect you to email them words (either in the body of the email or as an attachment)—not a link to their website. Never make an agent do more work for your writing when they’re interested. Odds are good that they won’t follow links.
(Side note: if you’re sitting there thinking, “But it’s just one click. Why can’t they do that?”, stop. It’s not just one click. It’s one click per person per item submitted. It’s dozens of clicks per day, minimum, if agents/editors are even interested enough to click on the link anyway. Also some email programs also strip out links.)
What do you think? What must an aspiring author’s website do? What does your website do—and what do you want it to do?
Photo credits: bookshelf by Josh; handshake by ThinkPanama; Click by Jordan McCollum
Posted in Marketing
Tagged author community, author website, blog, community, get ready phase, get set phase, niche, website
2 Comments
It was really, just so—should you cut them all out?
Late last year, I was doing a quick/final once-over of a manuscript. I decided to see how many times I used “just.” The answer was around 300, or about once per page. I went through most of the manuscript and cut out about 90 of them.
Proud of myself for making that effort, I tweeted about it (naturally). An author friend responded that she had cut 242 justs from her manuscript the week before. (Granted, she was editing one of her early manuscripts, so I have no idea how many she started with.)
I had a momentary panic. Yes, this manuscript had been accepted for publication already, but did I need to delete the rest of my justs?
And justs are just one of this variety of word that pretty much everyone uses—and overuses—because it’s so common in speech. But in most writing, these words are pretty empty, almost like throat clearing. (I’ve committed a few of these “sins” in here. Catch them?) A few favorites:
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But if they’re so awfully awful, why don’t we just cut all of them all out? It would certainly be even easier that way (though there would be a number of really odd gaps leftover). Or, conversely, do we argue that we want our writing to reflect how people really speak?
I think the answer is somewhere in between. As Arthur Plotnik says in Spunk & Bite,
Just because intensifiers course through informal speech, must we also use them in journalism and literature? Not necessarily—but we certainly can use them in situations where they feel natural, or communicate a particular tone. At the very least, we should not hamstring our writing styles trying to replace each intensifier with a more powerful locution. (123)
What does that mean? Don’t solve underwriting by overwriting every use. Because how is that any better?
So what should we do? Honestly, I’m not going to say you have to eliminate 50% of all your intensifiers (or de-intensifiers as the case may be). I do think we should be aware of how often we use them—so pull out the Find function and get a count. (In Word 2007 and up, if you Highlight All or use the Reading Highlight function, it gives you a count. Select Whole Words Only, though! Just != justice, justified, etc. etc.)
If the count is fairly high—let’s say one use for every two pages (or more frequently)—start at the beginning and check out how you used it. Take the word out of the sentence. It will probably may lose a shade of meaning—but is that meaning really necessary? Does it actually change the sense of the sentence or even the voice in a bad way? If not, finally cut it.
Editor Alicia Rasley gives more guidelines in an edittorrent post that has stuck with me for almost 3 years:
Of course, sometimes it works to over-modify (especially for comic effect). But this is something to watch for. “An inch below the bottom of her skirt” is a good description. “A little bit more than an inch” makes me envision some nun with a ruler measuring the space. Precision is actually distracting sometimes.
And especially watch out for redundancy. Mountains are high, but some are higher than others, so maybe we will allow “high mountains” (I did grow up in a valley below some not very high mountains, I guess– 3000-4000 feet, so I’d allow “high mountains” if you’re talking about the Rockies, say). But “toweringly high?” Come on.
But if the specific meaning is necessary, if the sense of the sentence is damaged or if the voice breaks because you took the word out, leave it in. If the modifier you’re checking is vital to most of the occurrences you find, use your judgment about whether you need to check the rest. Yep, you can stop. You have my permission.
What do you think? When do you take out intensifiers—and when do you leave them in?
Picture credits: Edit Ruthlessly by Dan Patterson; ruthless editing by Joanna Penn
The Top 7 Things Every Aspiring Author’s Website Must Have
We are moving on to marketing tactics! We’ll start off by talking about author websites. This post originally appeared as a guest post on Nathan Bransford‘s blog as part of his first-ever guest post contest in July 2009. I’ve refined it a little bit.
Once upon a time, my day job involved learning how to get the most out of your website—and how to make your website work for your visitors. So from the perspective of Internet marketing, here are the top seven things every aspiring author’s website should have.
7. A blog. All right, all right. I’m a little partial to blogs, but not everyone likes blogs or is good at blogging. And that’s okay. If you want to call it 
an “announcements” section, or call it your “articles,” that’s fine. But do have at least one section of your site where you can post your news—anything from finishing your latest work in progress to selling a short story. This is also a great place to start gathering a following, especially if you like to connect with other people, share your research and discuss the process of writing.
Free advice: If you already have a blog, you can integrate it with your website. Check out Blogger’s Custom Domain feature and host it at http://blog.YOURWEBSITE.com to make sure everyone linking to you is pointing those links to your domain.
6. Social media. This doesn’t mean you need to run out and join every social networking site you’ve never heard of. But it’s always a good idea to give your website visitors potential ways to connect with you. So if you’re already on MySpace, Facebook or Twitter, or any other large social network, list those somewhere on your site—somewhere easy to find.
5. Search engine presence. Unless your name is John Doe or Mary Smith, it should be fairly easy to 
find your website by searching for your name in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing). One good way to start with this is to buy YourName.com. If YourName.com (and YourName.net and YourName.org) is taken, experiment with middle initials, maiden names, hyphens, etc. Still nothing? Maybe you should consider a pen name that would be easier for your readers to remember, too.
Free advice: If you have some competition for your name in search results, put in a little extra legwork to find places to get links back to your site, especially from related sites—guest blogging, article writing, etc. I mean, we are writers here, aren’t we?
4. Professional design. For real. This doesn’t mean you need to run out and hire a $10,000 website designer, or that your website has to look as awesome as J.K. Rowling’s. You don’t have to dress like a fashion model to pitch to an agent at a conference.
At the same time, you’re not going to wear your ratty jeans and torn up tank top to a business meeting. Just like your nice pleated khakis, your website needs to look professional: clean, polished, easy to read (spell checked!), easy to navigate. Make it easy for your visitors to find the important stuff on your website (see #1, 2, 3, and 7, at least).
3. An about page. Most of us have an urge to list our friends, spouses, pets, children, favorite television shows, other hobbies, and small collectibles in our query letter. Hopefully, if you’re reading Nathan’s blog, you’ll forbear and omit this paragraph from your query. But your website about page is exactly where you should put all that information. After all, if someone visiting your website wants to know more about you, why not tell them?
2. Your work. No, you probably shouldn’t slap your whole manuscript on your website. But you should at least have a short summary of your work on your site. You might also consider a short excerpt—a chapter or less—in addition to your extremely engaging summary. After all, if your work is ready to query, it’s ready to show, isn’t it? This is also a good place to put your writing credentials (if not under #3 already).
1. A contact page. You’d be amazed how often both aspiring and published authors forget (or don’t want) to give their website visitors a way to contact them. Now, odds are low that a literary agent, editor or publisher is going to use your contact page to send you a desperate “Please, please, work with me! Your brilliance makes me cower in inferiority, but I cannot bear the thought of anyone else tainting your work!” note—but there’s always the possibility.
Free advice: Use a simple web form instead of listing your email address to avoid spam email harvesters.
What do you think? What else should an aspiring author have on his/her website?
Photo credits: Microphone—RAWKUS; binoculars—Joël Dietlé; telephone—Maria Li
Posted in Marketing
Tagged Aspiring author websites, author website, author websites, website, websites
4 Comments
March thinky links
It’s the second edition of Thinky Links! Wherein I share a bunch of articles and features that have made me think lately.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before, but I have a problem with the usual, chapter-a-week critique group format. I’ve taken chapters through that format, and while the chapters themselves get better, it’s like putting lipstick on a three-legged pig. The thing needs a prosthetic, not make up. Kristin Lamb has a new approach to the traditional critique group with a Concept critique. (I love the idea, but shudder at the thought of writing out 75 pages of outlines before I begin.) This inspired my fledgling critique group to totally change up our format—and so far, it works! Now if only we could get our schedules to do the same.
I’ve mentioned a couple of Vince Mooney’s points on book marketing, but he also has some fun lists on his blog, including more than 100 nonverbal cues, 200 triggers for creating emotional responses, 100 ways a character might grow in the course of a romance and how to show it and more. While every one of these suggestions obviously won’t work for every character, hopefully there will be something to jog your imagination and personalize your character.
Want to inject more humor into your writing? Author Julie Lessman posts at Seekerville about the whys and hows of humor even in non-comedic novels.
Every week, author Julie Coulter Bellon offers a free first page critique from an anonymous national editor. Interested? Here are the guidelines:
Want your first page critiqued by a national editor? Submit your double-spaced, 12 point font, first manuscript page to juliecoulterbellon@gmail.com with First Page Friday in the subject line. Ms. Shreditor and Angela Eschler critique every Friday. (Please no swearing or explicit sex scenes).
In February, author Kathi Oram Peterson devoted the month to writing about faith—specifically, having faith in yourself and your writing. If your faith is flagging, check out her posts!
Every time I go to author Jody Hedlund’s blog, I read pretty much everything I get my hands on. Most recently, I really liked her articles on time management for busy writers (from a home-schooling mom of 5 and published author!), how to make more time for blogging (and writing), living intentionally but with breathing space (on time management and meeting goals). Apparently my subconscious is worried about something. . . .
Which of these links makes you think? What other great articles have you read lately?
Some fun news!
Hey folks! In case you missed it yesterday, I put out my first PDF writing guide in years, this time on emotion. And my friend and new critique partner, author Julie Coulter Bellon, featured me and my writing guides on her blog today. And man, am I blushing after all the nice things she said. Thanks, Julie!
Also today, it’s the first of March, in case you didn’t notice. That means it’s time for the first ever AI MARCH-A-THON!
!I’m part of the executive committee of a writing community called Authors Incognito (our one and only membership requirement: have attended an LDStorymakers Conference). And this month, we’re setting the bar really high for ourselves. We’re shooting for a Nano-style “31 days of going for the gold”—only instead of 50,000 words, we can set whatever writing-related goals we want.
You don’t have to be a member of AI to join in—come post your goals now and work together with us!
So I dreamed big. I’m already afraid I dreamed too big. But I’m hoping to finish revisions on one book (1/3 of the way through now), read one book, and write one book.
Yeah, a whole one.
See what I mean?
And I’m going to keep up the blog? Oy.
Diving back into my revisions!
New PDF Guide: Emotion: it’s tough
When I figured out which series were the tops in 2011, I suddenly realized how long it’s been since I put together one of my series into PDF format (hint: years). Plus, it’s my husband’s and my second anniversary of our first kiss. I wanted to celebrate, but I can’t really take you all to dinner. So I made you something instead. (Ten guesses what it is!)
I’m starting with the most popular of last year’s series: Emotion: it’s tough. Portraying emotion in 
fiction isn’t easy—but an emotional experience is exactly why readers buy and read books. Using that emotion makes your writing more powerful—when it’s done right.
Emotion might be a double black diamond ski slope, but it doesn’t have to be treacherous terrain in your writing. Hard work, perhaps always. But impossible? Nope!
So check out the free PDF version of the series Emotion: it’s tough!
Photo by Peter Dutton
Posted in News & Contests, Technique
Tagged emotion, free guide, free writing guide, guide, pdf
1 Comment
Commentator Spotlight!
So I’ve added a Top Commentator widget on the sidebar, and I’d like to spotlight a couple of the top commentators today!
Our first spotlight is:
Trisha!
Trisha hails from Western Australia! She’s a writer, a singer-songwriter, an artist and a travel(l)er (to get our American/Commonwealth spellings covered)! This week, she knocked off the first of her goals for the year: completing one of (one of?!) her Nano 2011 novels! DANNA (title tentative, of course) is a YA paranormal novel.
(That’s right: for Nano 2011, she wrote 50,000 words each on two different novels!)
Hooray for finishing! And hooray for 100,018 words—now that’s 30 days and nights of literary abandon.
You can catch up with Trisha on her blog, Word + Stuff! Thanks for commenting here, Trisha.
And our second spotlight is:
Deniz!
Deniz is from Canada! She is a writer and a knitter (I knit too!).
She writes historical fiction of many kinds. And, like, really historical. When I say “the 40s,” I don’t mean the 1940s. Just straight up 43. And the 1490s! (I guess I’m the only one who sees 1492 and thinks about what a seminal year that was for Spain, huh? Well, me and Deniz, amiright?)
She’s in QueryLand, so send her good vibes!
You can keep up with Deniz on her blog, The Girdle of Melian. Thanks for commenting here, Deniz!
And thanks to everyone who leaves comments here. Every one of them (and you!) makes me smile.