Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2016 i The Writer

Each October, I have the privilege of collaborating with the Boston Book Festival team on the One City One Story program. I read submissions and help choose the story that will engage the entire city with themes, characters and plot. Then the author and I take the stage during the festival for a town hall-style group conversation. Discussing a story with its creator and the general reading public (rather than a book group or students) is a powerful experience. I’ve watched each year as authors – Richard Russo, Tom Perrotta, Jennifer Haigh, Rishi Reddi and Jennifer De Leon – marvel as a passionate audience dissects their work, forms theories and asks thoughtful questions about the story and the writing life. That’s why I am always delighted when The Writer hosts…

“Nothing is beautiful from every point of view.” –Horace “Invest in a proper edit and a good cover, price your work competitively, run regular 99-cents sales, advertise on reader sites, start a mailing list this second if you don’t have one already and make damn sure that the sign-up is the very first thing readers see after ‘The End.’” —David Gaughran, Let’s Get Digital: How to Self-Publish and Why You Should “Start as early as possible and develop a written marketing plan that’s specifically tailored to the book and the target audience. Ideally, authors should start building an audience and online following before they even begin writing.” —Dana Lynn Smith, CreateYourBookMarketingPlan.com “Reach out to media outlets, and offer yourself as a guest. The media can reach thousands of potential book…

START HERE. 1 DETERMINE what you are capable of doing and identify what you would like to do to promote your book. Plan at least six months prior to your book launch and then execute each step. Hire someone to do things you know you won’t get to do – because of time, ability or preference. 2 DIVERSIFY your PR campaign just as one does with a financial portfolio. Do as many types of media as possible: social media, radio, TV and print. Vary between local and national media. Target specific subject areas that match with your book reader demographics. Don’t rely on just one type of media. 3 WRITE A BOOK that is actually marketable. This means not only should the book be well-written, timely and appealing to the…

Caroline Knox @CXonk I finally have my first copy of my book! Hoping to sell it through farm shops so marketing campaign starts soon! Mojca Mars @mojcam My book is still selling and I’m not even doing marketing. Wondering what will happen after I start doing marketing. Ryan @ryanfield To really show your gratitude to readers keep your e-books priced fairly ALL the time. #indieauthor Aimee Coveney @authordesigner Your #authorwebsite is more vital than you think. Readers, agents etc expect an eye catching, professional design. #writingtip #indieauthor BB Gallagher @bb_gallagher Got my first scathing review! Now I feel like a real author! #ammarketing #ya #yalit #bookreview C.L. Wells @clwellsauthor Promotion is a monster that most new authors don’t realize is hiding under their laptops. #ammarketing #amwriting #RAWR Ann Anderson @Ander…

“I’m always asking myself the question: Why is this night different from all other nights? Meaning, why is this moment important to single out from all others?” says Caroline Bock, whose short story won first place in TW Two Roads Diverge contest. She is the author of two young adult novels, Lie and Before My Eyes, and her short stories and poetry have appeared in such journals as Ploughshares and Zero Dark-Thirty. Bock has a MFA in fiction from The City College of New York. Prior to focusing on her writing, she led the marketing and public relations departments at Bravo cable network, IFC and IFC Films. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two children and works as freelance bookseller with the independent bookstore Politics & Prose. We…

The bus driver quit last night, and Ruby is behind the wheel of Big Bertha again, going fifty down I-95 in the dark, the bus jostling and rattling over hot tar. It’s late August, and even with the windows down the sweet, muggy air hangs over the women, heating the tops of their instrument cases, warming the expired cold cuts Tiny asks Ruby to keep in a bag behind the driver’s seat so she can make sandwiches and sell them to the other girls for a profit. I gotta hustle, baby, she says, sending Ruby out to buy the meat at the nearest grocery store while the girls practice. The band lives on the road, gig to gig. They stay up late, practice in the gymnasiums at colored schools, do…

“A gentleman is only a wolf with patience.” Werner stood to the side and with a sweep of his arm, let the girl start up the stairs before him. His cavalier stance belied the pounding in his chest. Scanning the parlor, he noted the walnut furniture, rich brocade and etched glass lamps – all signifiers of a nobler past, before a red light bulb found its place in the street-level window. Another man sat on a divan across the room, legs splayed carelessly, knee bobbing. One hand covered his eyes, kneading his forehead, his whole body preoccupied with waiting for a night in a whorehouse. Werner’s practiced disinterest returned to the girl in the skimpy dress, wrong for the late September chill. He followed her up the staircase where an…

IF YOU’RE A HOME BODY, PROMOTING YOUR BOOK CAN BE ONE OF THE MOST DREADED PARTS OF THE PUBLISHING PROCESS. HERE ARE SOME TECHY WAYS TO SPREAD YOUR MESSAGE WITHOUT FEELING THE PRESSURE OF THE MASSES. Host a Twitter chat. If you use Twitter, connect with your readers by hosting a one-hour chat about your book or a subject related to its content. Decide on the topic, the date and time, create a chat hashtag and invite people to get in on the discussion. socialmediaexaminer.com/how-tohost-and-promote-a-twitter-chat Be a podcast guest. Podcasts are popular, and many include interviews as part of the show. Find the podcasts you think your ideal reader would listen to and approach the host about being a guest. The interviews are usually done over the phone and are…

I’m confused about how to reveal direct thought in first person. Can it be included with the rest of the narrative? Or should I use italics? A first-person narration is filtered through the narrator’s perspective and told using the narrator’s voice. As a result, first person is often moving swiftly between observation, thought, description of action and more. All of this is coming from the narrator’s consciousness. Let’s take a closer look. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” the narrator’s wife has a friend from her past come to visit – a blind man named Robert. The narrator is uncomfortable with this. Late that evening, the wife goes upstairs to change, leaving the narrator and Robert alone. After she’d left the room, he and I listened to the weather report…

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.“ –Virginia Woolf WEEBLY weebly.com Create a website on the go from a phone or tablet using the Weebly app, or log in from a computer to build the oldfashioned way. No matter where users work, progress will be synced across all devices, including while in offline mode. The free edition provides unlimited pages and hosting, plus access to themed templates. Packages run up to $25 per month, offering elements such as site stats, multimedia and fully-integrated eCommerce. The blog post editor allows for easy posting and responding to comments, while the form builder customizes information collected from site visitors. YOLA yola.com Many of the free website builders imbed third-party advertisements…

• Use your computer’s Find tool (control + F on PCs, command + F for Macs) and count how many times you used your keyphrase in your text naturally. Coming up short? Look for pronouns and try to replace them with your key phrase. After all, “They” or “It” send zero signals to Google; “freelance writers” or “grammar” does. • Slip keywords into your subheads. (Subheads break up your content and create eye-catching white space for web readers, so they’re vital even if you’re not trying to add more keywords.) • Add keywords to your images’ alt text. (Google can’t read pictures. Alt text is SEO-speak for the data that tells Google what your image is about.) You should be able to enter this in your site’s publishing platform, such…

AT THE CORNER where Lydia thought she left her car was a lake of crushed glass. She was sure she had parked the car, directly behind the “no parking from here to corner sign” and “no parking construction sign,” which since there wasn’t any construction that she could see, she assumed it was fine. She was three blocks from the campus and a pair of slender, ephemeral students hurried by her. She remembered this for them: “The City College of New York, founded as the Free Academy and opened in 1849 began as an educational and political experiment. It was the first public college in New York and it soon became known as ‘The Poor Man’s Harvard.’” As she stood in the gutter, where she was sure she had parked…

LIKE MANY DEBUT AUTHORS, I spent the months leading up to my book’s release date dancing around with excitement, nerves and energy to burn. I knew my publisher was doing lots of work to get the book out there, and I was eager to step up and do my part to help. But what would increase my chances even more for success? As a former executive editor with more than 13 years of experience at three major publishing houses, I was all too aware that there is no magic formula for making a book a success. If there were, authors and publishers would follow it every time, and all books would sell to expectations. An author and his or her publisher can pour huge amounts of time, money and talent…

1 Query letter: The first communication with an agent, or sent in tandem with a proposal, this short letter should summarize your project, list your credentials and briefly speak about your target reader demographic. 2 For fiction: Prepare a list of your previously published work, and have sample chapters ready to send. Sometimes agents request that these be sent along with the query, or they request them later. Either way, the sample chapters should not be drafts – they should be final or close to final and edited. 3 For nonfiction: Whereas fiction is sold based on the finished product, nonfiction is sold based on the idea of a finished product. Because of this, nonfiction authors must create a book proposal, which consists of a book outline, chapter summaries, comparable…

The curtain rustled on the other side of the confessional. Worn leather creaked against old wood as some sinner knelt in the dark. Father Debhin sighed. He marked his place in the worn paperback, a gift from his brother Louis in America. The excellent Mr. Perry Mason had the case of The Haunted Husband nearly wrapped up, but the climax would keep until after vespers. The young priest slid the partition open and waited patiently for the penitent huddled in the shadows. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” whispered a tiny voice. “This is my first confession.” “Congratulations on your first communion then,” said the priest. “Back home our priest don’t confirm us until we’re twelve, unless we’re dying, of course. It’s two more years for me.” “Then go…

Erica Jong’s groundbreaking 1973 novel Fear of Flying was an instant best-seller and a cultural touchstone upon publication. Noted for its forthright exploration of female sexuality, it has now sold more than 27 million copies in 43 languages. Since its release, Jong has published more than 20 books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Her latest novel is Fear of Dying. It follows a year in the life of 60-year-old Vanessa Wonderman as she grapples with issues surrounding sex, mortality and aging. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED ABOUT WRITING? My most important lesson as a writer is: Forget about trends and write from your heart. Write the book that you absolutely must write. Don’t try to outthink the best seller list. HOW HAS THIS HELPED YOU AS A…

NAME Joanna Penn YEARS BLOGGING 7 GENRE Book publishing expert WEBSITE thecreativepenn.com Can a blog help with a book deal or with book sales? If you can bring a large, readymade audience to publishers, then of course they will want to publish a book with you. This is most common in the nonfiction niches. In terms of help with book sales, you can essentially build up an email list and an audience that want to hear from you through your blog and content marketing. When your book is ready, all you have to do is announce it to your list. This is how I launch my own books straight into the best-seller lists, because I have built up an audience over many years. Your blog posts tend to be long.…

WHERE DO YOU READ THE WRITER? Send a photo of yourself and a short description of the location to tweditorial@madavor.com. Writing Prompts In the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Rear Window, create a short story in which a character is confined to one room in an apartment building. Why is he or she stuck? What intrigue takes place outside the window? Or is the intrigue internal? Concentrate on building drama with as few characters as possible. Try crafting the story first as a monologue. Then switch to third person to discover more about character, plot, motive and scene.…

Many authors are introverts. When they hear the words “book promotion,” they want to hide in the nearest closet. But we all know books don’t sell themselves, so authors need to connect with readers. But it’s important to be true to yourself, too. “Don’t try to force yourself into a persona that isn’t you,” says book publicist Lorna Garona. “People will likely see through it, and you will exhaust yourself.” Garona also notes the importance of setting reasonable goals. “Don’t cram your schedule with marketing tasks that feel like chores,” she advises. “Pick one or two that you are comfortable with and work them smartly.” Authors should take control of marketing and promoting their books, says public relations specialist Susan Schwartzman. “If you are an introvert and don’t relish the…

Colum McCann’s short stories have a quiet shock value. They are deeply contemplative and mercilessly sharp. They start with small images and build to global issues and suspenseful narratives. In “Treaty,” a story in a quartet of works in his collection Thirteen Ways of Looking, an elderly Irish nun is traumatized when, on a TV newscast, she sees that a man who raped her nearly 40 years ago in South America has become a prominent member of a peace treaty panel at an institute in London. The story is a portrait of a woman whose body is the site of a powerful wrongdoing, one that has shaped her emotional, spiritual and professional world over the decades. As the nun’s story delicately unfolds, the world itself becomes implicated as a breeding…

In the short story “Gargoyles and Stars,” we meet Lydia who is searching for the car she parked at her alma mater in New York City. She’s a cheerful woman with a sense of humor and a commitment to purpose. She has many vibrant memories. Indeed, her loyalty to the past is trumped only by the fact that it doesn’t exist in the present except in her imagination. Her lively inner life is central to understanding both plot and character in Caroline Bock’s tale of a woman on an adventure in old age. Novelist and short story writer Colum McCann chose Bock’s piece as the first-place winner of The Writer Two Roads Diverge short story contest. McCann read the top 10 entries, and placed Bock’s at the top of the…

Short stories haven’t always received the attention or respect they deserve. Yet, the best short stories do what good novels do: Evoke emotion, connect characters and readers and include well-crafted dialogue. All in a short span. That’s what the short stories of Katherine Heiny do in her collection, Single, Carefree, Mellow. She focuses on women and their relationships, but Heiny’s work never reads as repetitive. Each story is unique and stands alone. Each one is infused with Heiny’s nuanced, smart and witty prose. Her characters are not always likeable. There’s infidelity, selfishness. But these darker sides make the stories more engaging and propel the plots forward. Her next project is a novel, and we asked her to talk generally about the craft. Short stories I started writing short stories when…

Evening offshore winds swept the fog from the California coast and toasted the air with ocean salt and pungent kelp. On a cliff high above the rumblings of the surf, surrounded by bent cypress trees, an old Spanish mission guarded the land. The wide mahogany doorway of the church framed a man and a woman in their mid-thirties, both dressed in white, handin-hand. They stood atop the Mission’s adobe stairs and looked down on friends and relatives milling in the courtyard in themed 1930s garb – the women in long chiffon dresses and lace shawls, the men in blue blazers and straw boater hats circled with wide crimson bands. Opening scents of night-blooming jasmine infused the air. From the bell tower, a red and white flag wigwagged at the becalmed…