MEET TERRY TYLER

I have to admit I’ve not read all the books featured on my guest blogs. That had been my original intention so I could make some really intelligent comments about them and gush about how much I loved them. Of course, that never happened I’m not Superman or woman in my case.

This week is different, as I’ve read 3 books by this author and loved them – despite being in a genre I would never even consider – but they were recommended, so I bought the first, read it in a day and then immediately got the second …. What I loved about her Renova trilogy was the premise that it could, one day, come true.

Terry Tyler the stage is yours.

First of all, I’d like to thank the lovely Lucinda (sorry if I’ve made you sound like a 1960s magician’s assistant) for inviting me to her blog!

I wasn’t quite sure what to write about for a while, but I imagine this might be of interest to other writers (and maybe come as a surprise to readers)―I’m talking about THE FEAR that lurks in so many writers’ minds all the way through the production of a novel.  What is it?  It’s the fear that you’re writing a load of rubbish.  If it’s a sequel or a series, and the previous one has been well received, you can add to that the worry that readers will find this one a disappointment.

After writing many, many novels (15 published, 9 or 10 unpublished), I’ve found that my process always follows more or less the same pattern:

Step 1: Get idea.  Mull it around for a while to see if it has legs.

Step 2: Develop plot in head.  Write basic plan.  Start writing.

5K words: Question my conviction that this idea had legs.  Feel unable to get into the heads of any of the characters.  Have to force self to write, every step of the way.

6K – 15K: Start to understand who the characters are but worry they are wishy-washy duplicates of those I’ve written before.  Realise plot isn’t going to work quite as I thought, and make various alterations.  Feel sure it’s banal rubbish.

16K – 30K:  Well, I’ve got this far, so I may as well carry on.

40K: Consider scrapping.

50K – 60K: Start thinking it might be okay.  Realise what wasn’t working and why, go back and make notes in mauve about where I have to change/add things, but it’s okay, it’s fine, they can all be dealt with in the first rewrite.

70K: Begin to love it!  Feel it’s really coming together!

71K: Me to husband: “I think I’ve lost any talent I’ve ever had.  It’s garbage.”

Husband: “You always say that.”

Me: “Yes, but this time I mean it.”

Husband: “You always say that.”

72K – 80K: See light at end of a tunnel.  Try to push to back of head what a huge task the first rewrite is going to be.

80K- 90K: Realise it’s going to be far too long.  Tell self that a story should be the length it needs to be, and as long as it’s well edited and your readers are enjoying it, it doesn’t matter if it’s 15K words longer than originally intended.

90K – 100K: Who cares about those who say that 70K is the ideal length for a popular fiction type novel, anyway?

105K – end: Thank God that’s over.  Type ‘the end’, feel a nanosecond of victory, go and stare at telly.

1st rewrite: Ahh.  This really is terrible.

2nd rewrite: No, but it seriously is.

3rd rewrite.  Hang on.  I think it might okay.

Subsequent rewrites: It’ll be okay.  It will, it will.

Send to proofreader, who is also first test reader, then spend every day I don’t hear from her thinking that she doesn’t know how to break the news to me about how bad it is.

Next, there is the second test reader, who is über-picky, which is good, but it’s very hard at the time!  Then there are all the final amendments, the realisation that I should have added a scene here and there, the massive plot hole, etc., but onwards I go to the end.

Then it’s up and ready to press ‘publish’ on the given day, and I feel a tiny moment of accomplishment and deep joy.  Next, the ARCs are sent out, and the whole panic process starts all over again.

I sometimes wonder why I do it!  Recently I read a tweet that said something like, ‘how come writing is the thing I want to do most in the world, all the time, but at the same time the thing I want to do least?’

That just about sums it up.  Now, I must go and carry on with the current WIP that is currently over 90K words long and nowhere near the end, a mess of mauve notes, with characters that have changed personality between chapters 14 and 15….

Thank you once again, Lucinda!

Thank you, Terry, what a relief to read that I’m not the only author who agonizes over the rubbish I scribble.  I realize now there are more books of yours for me to find.

Check them out on Terry’s Amazon page

Amazon UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Terry-Tyler/e/B00693EGKM

Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com/Terry-Tyler/e/B00693EGKM

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TerryTyler4

 

and her blog

http://terrytyler59.blogspot.com/2018/05/

Till next time, take care.

PICKS AND PROSTITUTES

Once upon a time when I started writing for radio, I learned very quickly how to think in sound. It was easy to transport listeners from the bottom of the Mariana Trench to the heights of Mount Everest. All you needed was a sound engineer, a box of pebbles, a few whooshing noises, bubbles blown into a glass and so on.

Later when I graduated into writing for television, I was hauled over the coals more than once for including stock shots that would need to be purchased at enormous cost, so I learned to think in visuals – finding innovating ways around expensive underwater scenes and moon shots from Cape Canaveral.

In between, there were articles for magazines, speeches, newspapers, adverts etc etc.

Then, after a pretend retirement came the books. This can’t be so difficult I thought. I was wrong. The grammar Nazis criticised what I thought was perfect English, I’d been at it for years after all. But no, I’d erred on the wrong side of the written rules, which for a book novice like me, were unacceptable to the general reading public. So, enter the editors and hopefully, all those niggly things were put right. I had a better idea of where I was heading.

Now we come to the nasty bit. How to tell the world you have written a masterpiece (well a full-length novel) it was time to learn the marketing side.

I signed up for numerous ‘helpful’ newsletter and blogs, studied their advice, tried all kinds of different approaches. Most, however, were invitations to spend money on learning this technique or another. If only I spent anything up to $/£1,000 I would be an instant overnight success.

Not having that amount of spare cash lying around, I took what little I could gain from the ‘free’ bits, but it was only after a few months that I realized that one course of action contradicted another.

Use Pinterest – No, Pinterest is out Twitter is the new shout out.

Give book 1 in the series away for free and readers will buy the rest – no, a free book is only read by 2% of the readers who download it.

If you’re an unknown writer, you will only gain readers by giving your books away for cents. No, if you price them that low, everyone will consider them worthless.

Every day I must receive at least half a dozen ‘offers’ in my inbox. I’ve investigated the people behind these and it seems that most of them have had success with books – but mostly ‘how to’ books.

Many of them must be so busy running courses, recording podcasts and writing enticing emails to sell their advice to find the time to actually write. So, does that suggest they are making far more money from selling courses than they ever get in royalties?

The Big Hole, Kimberley

It reminds me of the stories of how so many people got rich during the diamond rush in Kimberley. They were not the miners at the rock face, nor the farmers who originally owned the land, but the merchants who supplied the shovels, picks, beds, tents, beer, and prostitutes to men who’d trekked for miles across land and oceans to make their fortune. The shop and brothel keepers may not have found the one diamond that made them rich, but they made a steady living supplying the tools along with hope to desperate men who handed them their last pennies.

The ones who succeeded in making a fortune from the diamonds themselves were those who could afford to buy several shares and then rent out their claims for a share of the profit, or, the men who determined the price of the diamonds once they were liberated from the rock.

Many of us probably feel like those miners. We don’t buy picks and axes, we buy space in promos, we burrow into the pages of social media, we collapse at the end of the day juggling life and marketing and networking while trying to find the time to write the next novel.

And that’s usually the bottom line for many of these promotional guides. ‘If you’re not selling, then write another book, build up your back catalog.’ That’s enough to keep most of us from complaining their system doesn’t work for writers who are now hundreds of dollars poorer while their sales figures barely peep over zero most days.

Of course, the bottom line is maybe our books are not good enough – our genre is not in vogue right now – the market is saturated – we don’t have the high-level contacts  – readers are now trained to only read free books – most people don’t read they prefer games and Netflix.

There could be any number of reasons, but the poor writer is left wallowing in a pit of self-doubt and worthlessness. Being driven to write is a disease we can’t escape and like a fly in a spider’s web, we are trapped vacillating between writing and marketing with only so many hours in the day to allocate.

What are your thoughts?

Meet Kathleen Gage

Kathleen is one of those people who can obviously sell stuff and that makes her a hero in my eyes. A guest post with authors in mind look out for some great tips on boosting your book sales. Every one of her books was reached a #1 on Amazon.

Authors: Piggyback off trending authors and stories to gain visibility

As an author, you not only have to write your book, you must take responsibility for marketing and promotions.

Now, more than ever, you need to find creative ways to get in front of your readers. It takes more, much more, today than in the past to do so.

Early on in my writing career, a popular way to gain visibility was with media releases.  Another was with radio interviews, but often it required going into the station.

These are still viable strategies, but today there’s more available for authors who are proactive in their marketing.

Social media, blogging, podcast shows, joint venture partnerships, affiliate marketing and online article directories offer multiple options in one’s marketing.

Where Have Other Authors Appeared?

A quick Google search on authors who write in a similar genre as you will bring up ample listings of where you can target your message. For example, with my upcoming memoir, my readers also enjoy the works of Cheryl Strayed, Lisa Nichols, Elizabeth Gilbert and Janet Attwood.

By using the search term “Cheryl Strayed blog postings” (or any of the other authors) there are countless listings of where Cheryl has either guest posted or been featured. All of these are potential locations for me to have my work featured.

Although the research is time intensive, the results are worth their weight in gold. The information is put in a spreadsheet to keep it organized.

Hiring a VA (virtual assistant) to do this type of research frees up your time to write your posts, interview and put your efforts into the activities only you can do.

For anywhere from $10 – $20 an hour for a VA’s time, you can get quite a long list of potential locations to have your writings featured.

Breaking Stories

Another way to gain lots of visibility is by piggybacking from breaking stories through the process of newsjacking.

According to the official site for Newsjacking, “It is the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story and generating tons of media coverage and social media engagement.”

That’s quite a mouthful to basically say, “Newsjacking is a way to utilize trends in the media to enhance traffic to various locations including your social media channels and your blog posts.”

Finding Trends

Trending stories are as close as Twitter, Google, and virtually any search engine.

According to David Meerman Scott, who wrote the book on Newsjacking, “When there is news in your marketplace reporters and analysts are looking for experts to comment on the story. Newsjacking gets you media attention.”

As a story develops in real time, potential clients may be interested in what’s happening moment by moment.

With the ability to post real time on blogs, videos and social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram utilize trending stories to increase your authority positioning.

Specifics to Finding Trends

A simple Google search with the key words, “Trending news stories” will bring up lots of listings where you can position your message. Every major news outlet stays on top of trends. You can also go to Twitter and find out what is trending for Twitter users.

For example, if you own a company that provides disaster relief insurance, there are plenty of current events that you could use to inform consumers.

There is so much going on locally and nationally, you won’t have to do more than a quick Google search to find plenty of opportunity to educate the public on various aspects of disaster relief and preparedness.

More than simply promoting your products and services, educate the public on how to prepare for disasters. This positions you as an authority and “go to” resource.

Book Launches Benefit from Newsjacking

Book launches are ideal for trending topics and newsjacking.  Also look for any holidays or celebration days you might be able to position a story around. As you get closer to your launch, check for hot trends.

During your launch, keep an eye out for anything trending that would allow for your book to have a connection to. This is newsjacking at its best.

Gaining visibility for your book is an ongoing process. One way to get the most for your efforts is to do something every single day to let potential readers know about your book. To learn powerhouse ways to do this, get my FREE report – Hit #1 on Amazon. Click here to access.

Kathleen Gage is the author of several books including, Power Up for Profits; The Smart Woman’s Guide to Online Marketing.

Kathleen works with successful entrepreneurs who are ready to quit playing small in order that they can get their signature message out in a BIG way through speaking, writing, information products and a targeted online presence.  www.PowerUpForProfits.com and www.themarketingmindset.com

Food for thought for many authors here and some new ideas. If, as I read somewhere a new book is uploaded to Amazon every 5 minutes, we all know that competition is getting harder by the day.

Thank you, Kathleen – and I hijacked your other book off your author page too. I watched the video and it looks as if your report will be mega helpful, I’m sure a lot of us have problems honing in on keywords, one of my biggest nightmares.