writingblogs

Joni Rodgers was a volunteer with the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina when she had the idea for The Hurricane Lover. The novel came to life over a long, slow period – a whirl of ideas, each falling into place day by day. Very often those insights come in the form of music – for the nature of her characters and for the tumultuous arc of the story itself. Joni Rodgers is at the red blog today drumming up a storm with her Undercover Soundtrack.

I just got an e-mail from a Bring Your Book to Life Program participant who’s a little stuck. Thought I’d share a few ideas–three related to book outlines: 1. Go Deeper in Your Book Outline: Sometimes you just need to be clearer about what goes into the chapter and where you’re going. A more detailed outline can get the juices moving. 2. Forget Your Book Outline: If the outline is constraining you or taking you in the wrong direction, maybe it’s time to put the outline aside and try writing without one. 3. Pick a New Spot to Start: Look[...]

--Some writers refer to them as their journals, others call them notebooks or writer’s diary. And just as they all have different names, each writer uses them for many different purposes.

So out of a strong sense of curiosity and a need to learn what sort of things I should consider putting into my writer’s diary, I decided to ‘google’ and see what came up. [This is always a fun way to spend an hour/afternoon/day.......]

I began with Teralyn Rose Pilgrim’s blog ‘A Writer’s Journey’ where she shared her thoughts on the benefits of keeping a writer’s diary.

Basically she wanted to keep track of exactly how much time she spends actually writing. What a great idea!

But Teralyn went even further. By keeping a diary for a month she discerned the following:

1. How long she wrote
2. What she wrote
3. What she’s struggling with (this one cinched it for me!)
4. What else she did that day
5. Why she didn’t write as much as she had planned

Her final suggestion is to write in short sentences, with just an outline given.

So exactly how will this work for me?

Well, each day I wake up, get dressed, go downstairs, turn on the computer, make a cup of tea, and then take my warm mug to sip as I check my e-mail, marking what needs to be read, which needs responding to, which has links I want to follow, and deleting the rest.

Then later in the morning, after the school run, I return to the computer with the intention of beginning my writing practice. Except that I usually get distracted and find something which catches my eye, and makes me forget the time.... Then the inevitable happens – an hour has passed by and I have done little more writing than respond to e-mails (yes they were important but they could have waited until later when I didn’t need to focus quite so intently upon their content).

And this is why I think keeping a daily diary of what exactly I have written on that day is such a wonderful idea – it is an aid or writing tool which helps me to keep track of myself, and forces me to be absolutely upfront and honest about how much writing I am really and truly doing!

--“2 hours of writing short story. 20 minutes editing one section and plotting a structure. 15 minutes writing this post for blog. ½ hour reading and responding and commenting to e-mails and other writing related blogs I follow. 10 minutes checking out She Writes and Romantic Fiction.org. 1 hour reading novel for enjoyment and research for novel.”

That’s it! Some days my entry is shorter, some days longer. I keep my writer’s journal in my LifeJournal for Writers on my lap top.

Other possibilities for future inclusion could be making note of any problems I am having with a story. So for example, if I were to include that for today, I would write about my difficulties with incorporating dialogue into my short story. I find it much easier to write about what’s happening, almost as if my stories are filled to overflowing with back stories of all the characters. Great fun to imagine and write! But eventually I shall have to go back and remove a lot of it, and in the process attempt to capture the essence of the back story in brief narrative and longer dialogue. A challenge to someone who is more used to writing book reviews than romantic short stories!

Finally I personally distinguish between a writer’s diary, as above, and a writer’s journal. For me a journal is the place to record any and every writing related idea, thought, dream, which strikes me and I know from experience is always best written down as soon as possible, before it dissipates and disappears! I know at the time I usually think my memory is good and that of course I will never forget that brilliant idea, but guaranteed, it will be gone within 5 minutes!

In point of fact I need to keep 2 writer’s journals on the go – 1 at home on my lap top, and the other a small notebook which fits into my handbag so I am ready and waiting when inspiration strikes! Note that Peggy Kurilla below strongly recommends that you be specific when jotting down your ideas so that you can recall exactly what it was that struck you!

“Just make certain that your jotted notes are complete enough to trigger your memory later. I once wrote (in my smorgasbord, which serves as general catch-all): “I have a great idea for a romantic suspense between a small-town sheriff and the big-city pagan who comes to live in his town.”

Hm. Well, I’m sure it was a good idea. I don’t remember a thing about it at this point, other than that note. Knowing my themes and topics, there would probably have been some conflict between conservative Christian types and the pagan woman, but suspense? I have no clue. So I chalk this up to a lesson: be specific in your idea notes.”

Do you keep a writer’s diary? What sort of things do you include in it?

Here are a few more links to excellent blog posts on keeping a writer’s journal –

--‘On Keeping a Writer’s Journal’ by Peggy Kurilla

---‘Keeping a Writer’s Journal: 21 ways to keep you writing’ by Sheila Bender

--‘A Writer’s Journal’ by Amber Lee Starfire

Thanks to everyone who suggested podcast ideas for me. Two or three people from my mailing list asked me to present on how to break into freelance writing when you have no clips or experience — I’ll be giving those readers a free seat in the Basic version of my Write for Magazines class.

This is my first podcast and my first time using Garage Band, so please understand if this isn’t the most polished presentation ever! But I do like podcasts that come from the heart and offer great information, and I think this one does that.

How To Break Into Freelance Writing When You Have No Clips and No Experience

Add a Comment and let me know what you think! [lf]

This weekend I returned to the theater to see The Hunger Games again.  My first exposure to the story was the media… then the movie… then a casual read of the novel… then a slow analytic read-through and breakdown… and then the film again.

Every phase of this immersion illuminated something new, and taught me something more.

It occurs to me that this is precisely the way we experience our own stories as we write them. And thus, exposes a potential pitfall on that path: it’s easy to settle, to quit learning about our stories before we’ve discovered all of its inherent potential.

My Latest Observation About This Story

Sometimes, when we notice something from behind the curtain of first-look awareness, we can’t un-see it.  This is true on many fronts in life, and it’s an invaluable skill when breaking down stories for analysis.

One of those illuminations is the use and effectiveness of sequencing within a story.  Once again, The Hunger Games becomes a transparent laboratory where we can observe the narrative power of stellar craft at work… through Collins’ use of sequences as a narrative device.

A sequence is, in essence, a scene broken apart into linear blocks.  

Often those blocks use time and place shifts to segregate its scenes, which is the criteria for any scene.  But a sequence links these scenes together into a micro-story.

For example: the sequence in HG when Katniss is sleeping in the tree with the hunter pack camped below, waiting to kill her when she eventually comes down… then Rue awakens her from another tree, silently pointing out the Tracker-Jacker hive a few feet away, signaling that she could cut it loose and drop in on the others below… then Katniss climbs up and begins sawing at the branch, being stung in the process (which set-up the subseqent sequence)… then it falls and all hell breaks loose… then Katniss climbs down and claims the bow from one of the dead girls.

End of sequence.

Was this all one scene?   You could argue that it was.  But when you look closely, you see that it is just as accurately described as a series of linked scenes creating a sort of micro-story, with a beginning, middle and a great ending, one that propells the macro-story forward.

Just as with scenes, sequences are best written to fulfill a narrative mission.

This sequence, which is the mid-point of the story (both book and film), has the structural mission to evolve Katniss from her Part 2 reaction/wandering self into a Part 3 attacker/warrior self (the contextuual definition of these parts).  In a narrative sense, the mission of the scene is to have Katniss gain possession of the bow and arrows, which makes this transition happen.

When you know what your scene or mission must accomplish, perhaps before you write it, and when that mission fits structurally, contextually and narratively (as it does here), something wonderful happens for the writer: you are then free to blow it out of the water. To optimize dramatic tension, pace and empathy through vicarious experience.

Did those wasps scare the bejezzus out of you?  Did me.  Collin’s could have created anything she wanted as a means of Katniss getting the bow and arrow from the girl (who, not coincidentally, had been shown to us as sadistic and arrogant, making her demise gratifying in its violence), but she optimized the moment with this particular choice.

When we are mission-driven in our scene and sequence choices, that optimization and gratification is what can lift our stories to a higher level.  When we are searching for purpose within a scene, then optimization is harder to achieve.

Other Sequences in This Story

One of the cool things about the use of sequences is that they really fill up your pages.  In a 60 scene novel, for example, if you have six sequences of five scenes each, they become HALF of the story itself.  You don’t have to come up with 60 units of dramatic set-up and action, you can cover half of those with six micro-stories that take the overall narrative forward, and in an optimized way.

Here are some other sequences in the HG… notice how much of the story they occupy:

The reaping… the train ride… the training… the opening of the Games… Katniss fleeing… (then the Tracker-Jacker sequence described above)… Katniss reacting to the stings (where Peeta appears as her savior) … the strategy with Rue and the attack on the food… healing Peeta in the cave… the unleashing of the vicious digital dogs… the end battle at the Corucopia… the aftermath.

They’re all sequences.

In planning a story, you can begin by creating sequences and putting them in order and context to the overall arc and concept of the story.  Which is why it’s critical to KNOW the overall arc and concept, you cannot optimize until you do.

Then, sequences defined (in terms of their mission, or what they need to achieve and deliver to the reader), you can break them down into scenes.

And then you can optimize those scenes.

It’s all mission-driven, contextually empowered, and narratively seamless.

You can do it up front with planning… or you can do it in real-time with revision.

We’re not sure how Collins’ did it in terms of process, and it doesn’t matter.  What we do know is that she accomplishhed it with stellar results.  For writers, we can learn from that outcome without needing to see the process, then make our own way toward implementing these techniques in our own work.

Next up: thoughts about the book-to-film adaptation.  Much to learn there.

 

 

Hunger Games 6 — The Stealth Power of Sequencing is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

SCARED SHITLESS - Robert Gregory Browne

The more I go round gardens, and also watch the other visitors, the more I think it’s a shame we just look at them from one angle…

… what if we saw them from this angle, for example…

… so the other day I just lay on the ground and looked up. I ignored my inner whines that the ground was wet, that someone might see me and wonder what I was doing there on my own, that it was a public park etc etc etc …

It was something I remembered doing as a kid, and the canopy of trees still made me feel safe and full of awe in exactly the same way.

And can you imagine how GOOD this smelt so close?

Or how beautiful the colours were when I could look through them on their level?

What a lot I’ve been missing.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this post explaining why I joined the BlogHer ad network is among the most popular I've ever done. I'm running an update in case you missed it the first time. A disclaimer: since this first ran, I did a short stint as a contract editor for BlogHer. -- Michelle V. Rafter]

I’ve been on the BlogHer Publishing Network for several years and am frequently asked about it by writers looking for ways to make money from their blogs.

BlogHer isn’t the only blog ad network out there, but it’s a popular one, especially among women bloggers.

Being part of BlogHer’s ad network hasn’t made me a lot of money, at least not directly — but I’m in it for more than cold hard cash. In 2011, I earned $261 in click-through revenue from BlogHer ads running on WordCount. That’s more than double what it was in 2011, and almost enough to pay for my domain name registration, website hosting and web developer costs for the year. Some bloggers make more — much, much more — and some make a lot less. It all boils down to how much traffic is coming into your site, and what the revenue sharing arrangement is with the ad network you sign up with.

I also like being associated with BlogHer because it lends a measure of credibility to my blogging efforts – I must be doing something right to make it through their vetting process. Plus, it looks good to have ads running on the blog, gives it that magazine or newspaper feel.

And as I mentioned in the editor’s note above, being part of BlogHer’s network also helped bring me to their attention late last year, which resulted in me doing a two-month editing stint for them for a very nice fee.

If you’ve been thinking about joining an ad network and are considering applying to join BlogHer, here’s what to know:

1. Just because you want to join doesn’t mean you can. BlogHer publishes ads on about 3,000 blogs that cover parenting, recipes, fitness, careers, fashion, politics and more. These blogs make up the BlogHer Publishing Network, which is part of but distinct from BlogHer.com, the company’s website, which reaches 37 million mostly women readers each month. BlogHer takes applications from bloggers interested in joining the ad network and accepts new bloggers when they need them. That can take days, weeks or months. Fill out BlogHer’s online application to put yourself in the running. One very important note: you can’t join BlogHer Publishing Network if your blog is hosted by a service such as WordPress.com that doesn’t allow you to run ads.

2. BlogHer ads get prime real estate on your blog. If and when BlogHer accepts you into their ad network, you can run their ads on your blog. However, you can’t just stick them any place you’d like. When you join, you agree to abide by BlogHer policies and rules, one of them being that whatever BlogHer ad unit you place on your blog will be located “above the fold.” That means it will appear high enough on your blog’s front page that readers don’t have to scroll down to see it. There are other stipulations: that ads from other blog ad networks you may belong to don’t get higher placement, that your blog hosting service allows advertising and that you’ll stick to their editorial guidelines. One of their guidelines is that you post at least once a week – if you’ve been an infrequent blogger in the past, it might be a good idea to start posting a couple times a week on a regular basis before applying so you’re in the habit.

3. You can opt out of ads that aren’t a good fit. If you aren’t a parenting blogger, you can opt out of running ads for diapers and baby formula. BlogHer gives bloggers the choice of declining to run ads in multiple categories, including ads for diet products, political parties or the military. Vegetarian bloggers can opt out of ads showing meat or dairy products.

4. Ad rates vary, therefore so will revenue from BlogHer ads on your blog. Like many other ad networks, BlogHer charges advertisers on a rate per thousand impressions, generally referred to as CPM. Those rates range anywhere from nothing for public service announcements to upwards of  CPM of $9 or $10. BlogHer takes a cut of all ads and the balance goes to the blogger as a commission. How much money you make depends on how many of your readers look at a page on your blog featuring a specific ad and how many of them click on the ad. One ad on my blog had 14,000 impressions, i.e., 14,000 separate views, but received zero revenue because it was a public service announcement. On the other hand, another ad only had 1,200 page views but I made $5.30 because the CPM was $7.50.

5. You only get a check once you reach a certain level of ad income. BlogHer pays bloggers 45 days after the close of the month, but only if their share of ad revenue for that period is $25 or more. If it’s not, the company hold funds until the accrued value reaches that amount. Bloggers issues payments as checks or deposits into your PayPal account. Once you’re in the network, you can use an online revenue reportig tools to look up ad activity on your blog and see what commission you’ve earned in a specified time period.

6. Ads aren’t the only way you can make money. If you’re part of BlogHer’s ad network, you’re offered many other money-making opportunities. The company periodically offers bloggers the chance to earn $20, $50 or $100 by reviewing a book or other product, or to enter sweepstakes drawings. The BlogHer editorial staff could ask if it’s OK to run the beginning of one of your posts on their front page, which could increase traffic to your site, which in turn can increase your ad revenue. If they choose to syndicate one of your posts, which means it runs in full on BlogHer, it’s an extra $50 in your pocket. Use this online form to submit a post for consideration for syndication.

7. It’s easy to keep track of what’s going on. The BlogHer team produces a weekly e-newsletter with updates on the network, ad campaigns and more.

8. BlogHer gives bloggers in and out of its ad network opportunities to get together in person. BlogHer’s annual conference got so popular, the company has created a series of spin off conferences on food, business and other on specialty topics. The 2012 annual conference takes place Aug. 2-4 in New York City. You can read more about it on the BlogHer ’12 conference page.

To find out more, read comments from other bloggers in the BlogHer Publishing Network.

And stay tuned next week for descriptions of 8 other blog advertising networks, including Izea, Federated Media and Living on the Cheap.

If you’re running ads on your blog through BlogHer or another ad network, what’s your experience been?

You know those old people who stand on their porch, shaking their fists, yelling, "You kids get off my lawn!" Yeah, well, I've become one of them. Only my beef is with words. In my younger days, I could push through a badly written book. Hey, I paid for it, so I am going to finish it. And I would finish it with a bad taste in my mouth. Now however, I find that my tolerance is a lot lower. I think there is a simple reason behind it too. Back then, before I became a writer, I didn't know any better. Purple prose? -ly words? Was? Telling not showing? I had no idea what the rules were, so I didn't know that anyone was breaking them. I simply enjoyed the story. But now, I can't. I can't make myself overlook the same things I struggle with in my own writing. I try to put on my reader hat, but sometimes, I just can't switch modes and I miss out on a book everyone is raving about. I'm not sure what the answer is. It's like being vegetarian and then one day you eat bacon: You can never go back. ;) How do you turn off the writer in yourself so you can just sit back and enjoy a book?

In last week’s post I explained what a book proposal is and what it should include. This week I asked my friend Diane O’Connell, a former editor at Random House who now has a consulting business to help aspiring authors get published, for the biggest and most common mistakes she sees in book proposals.

Here’s what she had to say.

"The biggest mistakes I see are most often are in the handling of the competition and comparative titles. Avoid these five mistakes that could derail an otherwise promising book proposal:

1. Claiming there is no competition for your book. What? No other book out of the millions published has dealt with the same subject matter? If that’s really true, then all that tells a publisher is there is no market for your book. No market = no book contract.

2. Trashing the competition. Publishers want to know how your book differs and/or ads to the other titles it will compete with — not why those other books are so “bad.” Plus, what if your proposal lands in the hands of a publisher of one of the books you’ve trashed?

3. Including self-published titles (unless they’ve become bestsellers). Publishers want to know how your book will fare against others on the bookshelves, and most self-published books don’t make it into bookstores.

4. Cutting and pasting the Amazon book descriptions. Editors and agents will see through this lazy tactic in a nanosecond.

5. Including too many titles. Just stick with the five most well-known or bestselling titles."

There you have it, words of wisdom from a true expert! To download Diane’s free report titled 50 Ways to Avoid the Rejection Pile, visit her website: www.writetosellyourbook.com

Maria

Maria Murnane writes romantic comedies and provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I made one of my ebooks, Dollars and Deadlines' 10 Truths Every Writer Who Wants to be Published Should Know, available free? (It's still free...for a few more days, anyway.) Well, if you enjoy contemporary women's fiction (or know someone who does), I've making another book free--for a limited time, of course. That's how these things work. My first novel, Did you Get the Vibe?, has been called "a great read" and "A+++ blissful summertime reading." It was translated into four languages when it first was published, and continues to sell steadily in its second life as an ebook. It's been labeled "chick lit" but I promise my characters have more going on in their lives than worrying about shoes and shopping--they're real women you'll relate to, laugh with, and hopefully like as well. Download Did you Get the Vibe? for free through Smashwords; Amazon should have it priced at $0.99 soon--and hopefully FREE once it catches up with Smashwords. (Amazon won't list an ebook for free UNLESS another ebook retailer is doing so--then it follows suit, at least in theory. So far the Kindle version of 10 Truths still is listed at $0.99.) If you enjoy Did you Get the Vibe?, I hope you'll check out my other two novels, White Bikini Panties, and The Honesty Index. The Honesty Index is garnering good reviews on Amazon (from people who don't even know me!) and I'm excited about it. In a future post, I'll share the results on my ongoing ebook experiments. ***P.S. Have you entered my latest giveaway for Writer for Hire? 101 Secrets to Freelance Success? It's not too late! Post a comment about your favorite reason to freelance, and you'll have a chance to win a free, signed copy of the book!

As guest editor this week for SheWrites, it is my pleasure to introduce Tara L. Masih, writer and editor.  Tara graciously consented to an interview in which she shares her thoughts and insights related to Flash Fiction.  I highly recommend The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction - I use it in the classes I teach online, and I also encourage you to go to Tara's website at taramasih.com for links to her stories and books. 

Tara L. Masih is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (a ForeWord Book of the Year), The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (a Skipping Stones Honor Book), and author of Where the Dog Star Never Glows (a National Best Books Award finalist). Her flash has been anthologized in Word of Mouth, Brevity & Echo, and Stripped, and was featured in Fiction Writer’s Review for National Short Story Month 2011. Awards for her work include first place in The Ledge Magazine’s fiction contest and Pushcart Prize, Best New American Voices, and Best of the Web nominations. www.taramasih.com.

Questions for Tara

1. Could you give the readers some background on yourself? I know you are a writer as well as an editor. Tell us a bit about your journey.

I was a realist at a young age. I didn’t believe I could make a living writing alone, mainly because I knew that while I loved writing, I didn’t want it to become a “job.” So I pursued the next best thing, working on books as an editor. I love being in the publishing business. And I love that both my interests, editing and writing, came together in the Flash Field Guide.

2. How did you come about deciding to edit The Rose Metal Guide to Writing Flash Fiction? What motivated you to take on this project?

I had exchanged chapbooks with poet Alan King. He wrote back and told me that my flash had inspired him to try to write some of his own. At that moment, it came to me that there was no one text for writers to refer to specifically geared toward writing flash fiction. I had the experience of working with Rose Metal Press when they anthologized some of my flash in their Brevity & Echo collection. I was impressed with their work and wanted to bring this idea to them. I feel lucky they accepted.

3. How did you decide which contributors to include? Which topics?

The choice of whom to include was a joint effort between me and Rose Metal. We discussed the flash fiction writers and editors we most admired and felt would make the best contributions at that time from the standpoint of passion, interest, and teaching experience. Once I had the list, I steered each contributor in a certain direction, knowing their strengths. The last thing I wanted was a batch of essays all on the same topic. Commissioning new work is never an easy task, but the writers were all professional and eager to participate and did a wonderful job of each providing something unique.

4. What elements/approaches do you consider the most important in terms of writing flash fiction?

I’ve stated before that I think writers make the mistake of thinking flash is just “short writing.” It isn’t. Not good flash, anyway. It’s an art form. Approaching it with respect and learning from the masters is the best way to learn, as with any art form.

5. How would you assess the current Flash markets in terms of publishing? What is your advice to flash writers in terms of submissions?

One of the criticisms leveled against flash is that it is too easy to get published. In some ways this is true. Editors can read your work in seconds, as opposed to hours or days or months. This makes for much faster response times, hence faster publications. There is also the question of quality. Some publications just pump out flash after flash, with no eye to literary quality. And I think that’s fine, I’m all in favor of the democratic nature of editing and publishing. But serious writers should look toward the magazines that publish the top flash writers, and make it a goal to get onto their mastheads.

6. Who are some of your favorite flash fiction writers? Do you have a favorite flash story or nonfiction piece? Where might we find it so we can read it?

Every time someone asks me this question, I forget someone. But off the top of my head, I admire most the work of Jayne Anne Phillips, Michael Martone, Stuart Dybek, Sherrie Flick, Pam Painter, Meg Pokrass, Matt Bell, Rusty Barnes, and Randall Brown. And I don’t have a favorite piece of flash (there are too many), but my favorite book is Yasunari Kawabata’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. You can find it online. It’s simply brilliant.

7. What is your best advice to writers in general?

Don’t give up. Only then will you definitely fail.

8. I must say I am extremely impressed with your writing and editing efforts and will admit that your flash story online, “Fire-on-the-Water,” made me cry. I was struck by the voice in that story as well as its sense of authenticity. How did you achieve this, as the narrator is a young man living in Italy?

It helped that I visited the small coastal town in which the story takes place, although I did do additional research. I think having a passion for your characters and the stories they are trying to tell helps transcend cultural and sexual barriers, in the end. Thanks for the feedback! We writers never know how our stories affect readers unless they tell us.

9. What other projects are you involved in that you’d like us to know about?

I just finished editing another anthology, this one about race and ethnicity and culture. All my projects are very varied. But I like it that way! The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays already won an award and I hope people interested in personal essays and these topics will pick it up. It’s starting some important discussions.

10. What question haven’t I asked that needs to be asked?

Nothing I can think of, thanks! I appreciate the questions.

Thank you, Tara, for taking the time to share your thoughts with the SheWrites community.  I wish you well in all your writing and editing endeavors.  Your time with us is much appreciated!

Because I’m a book person who loves film (even though I’m generally disappointed in the movie version of any book I have loved), I turned with great excitement to “Cannes film festival set to honor the bookworm” in the Guardian. As I read though, my heart fell a little, and not just at the suggestion that literary adaptation is “a lesser form of cinema.” Where are the women authors? More than a dozen books adapted for film are listed in the article, but not a single one written by a woman.

I soothed myself for a moment thinking of films I’ve loved that were based on novels written by women, starting with “To Kill a Mockingbird” (even if the book’s female lead was thrown over for her father) and the entire Jane Austen ouvre.

(PLEASE list your favorites in the comments, so I can add them to my tbw list.)

Then I started wondering why women authors are often ignored in the film-making world. The obvious answer would be commercial viability, but the Twilight series movies by Stephanie Meyer grossed over 2.5 BILLION dollars according to The Numbers, and The Hunger Games grossed $250 million in its first 10 days, the highest ever for a non-sequel film, if Hollywood Reporter is to be believed.

Part of the problem, of course, is that women are dramatically underrepresented among the cadre of those deciding what films ought to be made, and which will be considered for awards. Only 3.6% of directors, 13% of writers, and 21.6% of producers of American films are women. At this years Cannes there is not a single film directed by a woman in competition, for the second time in three years. In the 64 years of the Festival, Jane Campion is the only woman ever awarded the Palme D’Or. For “The Piano.” Almost two decades ago.

So I don’t often do this, but I clicked through and signed a petition created by Women and Hollywood calling for an industry-wide discussion about the underrepresentation of women in film. Signing puts me in the company of Gillian Armstrong, the award-winning director of “Little Women” and “Charlotte Gray” – both based on novels written by women. Of Susanna White, director of the Emmy-nominated “Jane Eyre” BBC miniseries. Delia Ephron. Debra Zimmerman. Gloria Steinem. Care to join us?

And do share in the comments here which woman-written books made into movies you’ve most enjoyed! – Meg

May 22 (1802): Death of the first of first ladies, Martha Washington. Before she passes away, to preserve her and her husband George’s privacy, she burns all but two of the letters they have exchanged during their forty years together.

Writing is a means of communication between two people at minimum: writer and reader -- and sometimes that’s enough. Not everything has to be published for the widest possible audience.

May 22 (1802): Death of the first of first ladies, Martha Washington. Before she passes away, to preserve her and her husband George’s privacy, she burns all but two of the letters they have exchanged during their forty years together.

Writing is a means of communication between two people at minimum: writer and reader -- and sometimes that’s enough. Not everything has to be published for the widest possible audience.

There is an affliction sweeping the nation that until recently has mainly only been whispered about in private quarters, but which agent Sarah LaPolla and author Chuck Wendig touched on this week: Some (some!) vocal self-published authors have a rather substantial chip on their shoulders. Before we start get into name calling, let me state the following: I love self-publishing! I think it's fantastic. I wouldn't by any means rule out partaking in this wondrous process someday and have been pro-self-publishing since the beginning of time, or at least since the mid-2000s. I think it's awesome that authors can find their readers without needing a traditional publisher. And I don't blame people for being frustrated with the traditional publishing process. Yes, some people in traditional publishing are jerks and treat people accordingly. Yes, traditional publishing may well have overlooked your book. Yes, the query process is used as a torture device in some countries. It's frustrating. But frustration is to publishing what carbon dioxide is to breathing: a poisonous but inevitable byproduct. (What many self-published authors don't yet realize is that this is true of self-publishing too.) Also, when I say some self-published authors have a chip on their shoulder, this isn't about me complaining. These chips implanted in those shoulders certainly make for entertaining if slightly horrifying flame wars. People are welcome to say whatever they want, which is why the Internet exists in the first place. I just don't think the chippy authors are doing themselves any favors. Here's why: 1) Your attitude could alienate people you might want to work with in the future Publishing, whether self- or traditional, is a means to an end. It's about getting your words to readers. And guess what: love them or hate them, traditional publishers happen to be pretty awesome at getting books to readers, especially when they're very motivated. You may want to use one of them someday. Now, the idea of a publishing industry blacklist is approximately 110% myth. You're not going to end your publishing career by shooting your mouth off. But all things being equal, people don't want to work with a jerk. Rejection isn't personal. There's nothing to exact revenge over. 2) You're turning off potential readers Most readers, by and large, don't care a whit who publishes you. They haven't heard of 90% of the imprints out there anyway. They're not going to read you because you wear your self-publishing badge with excessive pride. They just want to know if your book is good. Most readers would also prefer that the authors they read are good humans too. So that helps. 3) Your attitude reinforces the idea that self-publishing equates authors who were rejected everywhere else Chuck Wendig puts this one better than I could:

Every time you yell about traditional publishing it just looks like a dumptruck full of sour grapes. Which leads us all to what is likely the correct conclusion: you self-publish because you were rejected and your peen is in a twist about it, not because you have a great story you want people to read, not because you want the control that self-publishing affords you.

4) If you are self-publishing out of frustration with traditional publication you're doing it for the wrong reasons You should be self-publishing because it is the best career move for you, not because you grew impatient with traditional publication or arrived at self-publishing with a desire to stick it to publishers. Are you sure you want to self-publish? Check out this checklist.   By and large self-published authors are awesome, entrepreneurial, creative individuals. Some loud ones are not. It's temping to join the loud crowd, but better in the long run to let your work speak for you rather than your frustrations. Art: The Torment of St. Anthony - Michelangelo

My only hope is to have my story read and for the reader to judge whether its merit is to be catered along the worthy and lucky enough to be published. My vision is my own and my story has been conceived in sheer passion, pits of despair and pending joy. Love cannot grow if hate didn’t exist and hope could not cling to me if denial didn’t persist.

And my only hope is to receive a query letter that doesn’t make me throw up a little in my mouth.

Things have been hectic around Catherine HQ over the last few days, and so when people started saying to me “Great news about CreateSpace and Europe, right?” I didn’t really have time to go and check if it was good news. I presumed it must be, because up until now, paying for CreateSpace’s expanded distribution channel upgrade did not guarantee that your book would appear on Amazon.co.uk which, for self-publishers on my side of the Atlantic, was very important indeed.

So if CreateSpace was now saying that your paperback would appear on Amazon.co.uk (and Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr, and Amazon.etc) in the same way it would on Amazon.com—automatically, and only a week or so after you published—that would be A Very Good Thing.

Which it is.

But now that I’ve had a chance to go investigate, I’ve realized that it’s even better that that.

No More EDC Lottery

Up until now, using CreateSpace only guaranteed that your POD paperback would appear for sale on Amazon.com. It might show up on Amazon.co.uk (and other international Amazons) but if it did, it could take anywhere from a couple of weeks (as it did with Mousetrapped in March 2010) to a few months (as with Self-Printed a year later), or it might never appear at all— or appear and disappear at will (as with Backpacked). If you were lucky, you got the next best thing: a third party seller flogging your book on Amazon instead. But that would mean that your book was unlikely to qualify for Super Saver Delivery, or ever be discounted. In short, it was a bad deal and the alternative, i.e. directing people to buy your book from Amazon.com, would mean higher shipping costs and a longer wait for your customers.

Now CreateSpace is saying that international Amazons are going to be just like Amazon.com: publish, and you’ll be on there. For free, as part of their publishing service. And on the same time schedule, which is 5-7 days. You don’t even have to upgrade to the EDC. (Now, that’ll just be for getting on the likes of Barnes and Noble, I presume.)

So, yay for guaranteed availability!

More Money

This is what I didn’t realize until I went onto CreateSpace to find out for myself what had changed: this means more money.

Flashback to a year ago. I’m selling Mousetrapped, a 232-page paperback in a 5.5 x 8.5 trim size, and I’ve paid a one-time fee of $39 to upgrade to CreateSpace’s “ProPlan” which gives me cheaper unit costs and enrolls me in their Expanded Distribution Channel, or EDC. If I sell a copy on Amazon.com, I pocket around $4.52. If I sell a copy through the EDC, I make around $1.53. And because every online retail site except Amazon.com falls under this EDC umbrella, I only make $1.53 from paperback sales on Amazon.co.uk.

Now that the international Amazons are on a par with Amazon.com and have been taken out of the EDC, there’s a lot more money to be made from paperback sales there—and I don’t have to pay for any ProPlan to avail of it.

More Information

There’s yet another bonus to this whole CreateSpace Europe thing: more information. Up until now, you could only find out how many books you’d sold through Amazon.com and how many books you’d sold through the EDC. You had no idea if those EDC sales were from B&N, other Amazons or a guy with a trunk full of books. (Well, you could probably guess it wasn’t the last one…) But now you’ll know—or at least know more, because your sales will be divided into Amazon.com, Amazon Europe and EDC. Furthermore, your payments will be divided into dollars (Amazon.com + the EDC), British Pounds (Amazon.co.uk) and Euro (Amazon.de, Amazon.it, Amazon.fr and Amazon.es), so it should be fairly easy to figure out where your paperback sales are coming from.

The Downsides

This leads me on to the one real downside of this I can see: separate cheques. Right now if you publish on KDP Select, you receive three different cheques: one in dollars, one in pounds and one in euro. That’s all well and good, but in order to get them, you have to reach the minimum threshold for them, which I believe is a hundred apiece. Up until now, you only ever received one cheque from CreateSpace and it was in dollars. Now, you’ll have to wait to meet that $100/£100/€100 threshold before you receive the cheques, so chances are you’ll be waiting longer to get paid.

The other sorta downside is shipping charges. According to the CS website, if I order stock of my own book, they’re still being shipped from the US and still costing me a small fortune to get to my house ($112 at economy/6 weeks speed for 100 books). That’s approximately a third of what the books themselves would be costing me. But fingers crossed, that’ll get sorted out eventually…

Come Join the Party

If you have titles already for sale through CreateSpace, they won’t be entered into the Amazon Europe channel automatically. You need to do a few things:

1. Log on to CreateSpace and update your royalty profile information
2. Go into each title and manually open the Amazon Europe channel
3. Select your prices: automatic conversions (as with Kindle books) or set your own GBP and EUR prices.

I did this just after midnight yesterday, and this morning I already have a few euro and a few pounds in my CreateSpace kitty. Also yesterday, Backpacked‘s paperback was showing “out of stock” on Amazon.co.uk, but now it’s in stock and reflecting my new end-in-99p price. So the switch-over must take effect as soon as you do it on your account.

Now that’s customer service for you.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I LOVE CreateSpace.

(And isn’t it nice to be talking about actual books for once?!)

Thanks to Sally Clements for alerting me about this!

Filed under: Self-Printing Tagged: Amazon Europe, createspace, CreateSpace in Europe, POD, print on demand

As the English language evolves (and we start to learn grammar from text messaging), more words that aren't actually words worm their way into our lexicon. Sometimes we embrace the change (“okay,” believe it or not, was not always an acceptable word), and sometimes we send it back to the pits of hell (ask any grammar enthusiast about “irregardless”).

I'm spotlighting two examples of not-actually-words today: alright and alot.

Why Alright is All Right

Alright is technically not a word. The correct form is “all right,” as in that movie from summer 2010 with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a couple raising Mark Ruffalo's biological kids.

But increasingly, “alright” is used in a more casual writing context, like in written dialogue or in that quick email you sent off to your sister about coming home for Memorial Day. The English language is sort of fine with that.

But if you're writing anything more formal, you're better off using “all right” to avoid condemnation from your superiors.

Why Alot is A Lot of Wrong

Alot is a completely different story. My automatic spell-checker on my word processor wouldn't let it sit there without compulsively separating it into its rightful two-word form.

It's universally accepted that “a lot” is always two words, and if you need further proof, this post about alot should serve as a reminder of why we don't blend those two words.