Effective Websites for Authors

Does your website reach its market?

Having a camera in your phone means on a whim you can make your pets do embarrassing things :-)

(note to self: next time I want a posed shot I'll just use the Border Collie first, went through twenty takes with my Miniature Schnauzer jumping on the keyboard, trying to eat the keyboard, trying to eat the camera...)

This week my youngest bought home a book from the library that she thought I would like her to read to me, it was 'Audrey of the Outback'. Did I? You bet! I'd heard about this book through a podcast interview with the author (Christine Harris) and I'd been very curious about the story.

Depending on the genre we write we often look for inspiration from accomplished authors who have published in that field. I've been reading many children's novels and mysteries to give me an idea of style and format for Dog Show Detective, but my next novel will be about a young boy who tries to solve a murder in a remote town during the 1930's. Audrey of the Outback is a an example of how to make a distant time and place seem interesting to kids.

While exploring the book together, Matilda and I noticed a website address for the author, so we went to have a look. There's a load of information on the net about promoting yourself as an author online and 'building a platform'. I blog and twitter (@charmaineclancy) but I hadn't seen the need for a website before I saw Christine Harris' site (possibly due to the fact that I have no completed novel to promote, but why let that stop me?). Now I owe a double load of gratitude to this author because not only am I gaining inspiration for my novel from her delightful book, but now I can see what a really good author website looks like:

Christine Harris

Do you have a dedicated site for your works? Know what should go in it to attract your specific market?
Kids are consumers in their own right now, early children's books were quite didactic filled with morals and consequences. These stories were marketed to the parents not the kids. Nowadays kids have more of a say in what they purchase and so clever authors are providing websites to inform and entertain them.

I'm still a ways off having a product to promote, but I've taken the step to register charmaineclancy.com for my future home of my fiction. It's probably a good idea to register your domain name early, especially if your name is something like 'Paul Smith' or 'Sam Jones'. Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn says if you wait until your book is published to promote it then you've left it too long. Build that platform now.

Here's some more author websites I found impressive (I also came across a LOT of boring ones, cluttered and confusing sites, so I think it's worth having a professional help you build a great website). Have a look and see what tools they use to appeal to their market. If you've seen another effective author website, add the link in the comments!

Meg Cabot
The 39 Clues
Blank Graphic novel published online. Dark and intriguing the line "John Blank must die" makes you wonder about the protagonist. I am also impressed that there is a link for "interested publishers"
R L Stine Added bonus of teacher resources.
Dave Pilkey
Paul Jennings
Anne Fine
Cynthea Liu
Karen McCombie
Ridley Pearson overcomes the difficulty of marketing to two very distinct markets - adults and YA.

A Linky Kinda Day

I was thinking about how pictures can be used as story prompts (something I like to do in class) and I came across this pic entitled "There's always one idiot to spoil your holiday snaps" in an environmental newsletter. It made me laugh and think about the classes I teach, there's always one kid like that seal, exasperating but delightful too.

I've decided this week is a Linky week, I've been spending a lot of time blog hopping (when I should be editing) and wanted to share some writer's links I've found.

Publishing:

Dreaming In Text Brian Keaney took the time to comment on my blog about self-publishing last week, and his site has many posts regarding this topic. This link will take you to Brian's posts on publishing.

A Newbies Guide to Publishing for the flip side, here is an author exploring what works when self-publishing on Kindle.

Editing:

NaNoEdMo If you've read previous posts from me you'll know I became a huge fan of NaNoWriMo this year, to the point of creating a lesson unit for high school English. NaNoEdMo is a separate site which starts in a few days and encourages you to edit a novel for 50hours in one month. I'll give it a go with my NaNo novel: The Costume Maker.

Story in Literary Fiction this site has essays on editing fiction.

Reviews:

I also branched out more this week and started reading more book review sites (usually I stick to the blogs about writing fiction). Reading reviews can help you find your market, see what similar fiction is out there and get direct feedback on what readers like and don't like in fiction. Here's where I was reading reviews this week for YA fiction:

Rhiana Reads the reviews here are quite honest and critical. Positive and negative feedback is given for popular YA fiction, this week was Evermore.

Teens Read and Write I think I was most blown away with how professional this site looks, makes me want to make mine a bit more snazzy now.  What better way to write YA fiction than to hear what YAs have to say about it?

Hooked on YA Books Blog on YA literature by YA.

Have a favourite link or blog about writing or books? Feel free to add the link in comments, I'd love to visit!

Self-publishing - is it for you?

I'm fascinated with the fast growing industry of self-publishing. Mind you, it doesn't take much to impress me, I'm still in awe that there is 'Internet'. This week I upgraded my phone to an iPhone and I've been over the moon with this amazing technology, although I'm yet to work out why it's so much more exciting than my iPod touch.
Self-publishing has been available even before internet, but it was quite expensive to have books printed, bound and distributed in small numbers. Even if you could afford that, the big issue with self-published books was marketing. Promoting a small-run unknown author was difficult.
But whiz forward to the future... now (yes my retro mind keeps believing that we are living in the future, these are the Buck Rogers years) and anyone can self-publish and the costs begin at...NOTHING.
This new ease of becoming published is met with mixed responses.

Negatives:

• There seems to be an assumption from many consumers, bloggers and Podcast hosts that open self-publishing produces poor quality products. Litopia After Dark have often likened self-publishing to vanity publishing. To go this route you will be pushing against these opinions.
• It's hard work. Unless you are prepared to pay premiums to have someone else do the work for you, then you will need to be able to not just write a great book, but edit it perfectly, layout your pages (which is more difficult if you have a nonfiction book as you may want break-out boxes and diagrams) and convert the file to be read online. Then you'll need to work out how to get your book to readers and more importantly, how to get readers to your book.
• There is a lot of unpolished work on the net, your book will be buried amongst those and people may not be patient enough to keep downloading if they've already sifted through files and files of rubbish books.
• Podcasting book chapters has worked well for some but if you have a decent sized novel, then you are relying on keeping listeners attention for a long time. Admittedly I have started downloading several Podcast books, but usually loose interest by halfway through.

Positives:

• Trail-blazing heroes like Seth Harwood (Jack Wakes Up) have provided great examples of the right way to push your novels via Podcast. 
• There are a number of locations to place your e-book online now, one of my favourites is Scribd, this is an online community where you can download content (a lot is free) and upload your own work.
• By providing samples or first works free for download, you can build up an audience. I recently downloaded How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey from Scribd, and although I haven't read very much of it yet, I was inspired enough to purchase Frey's book How to Write a Damn Good Mystery from Amazon.
• Marketing is achievable with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. There are many gurus providing information and training on how to give yourself a good online platform, one of my favourite resources is The Creative Penn which has helpful hints, free downloads, e-books on marketing for authors and Podcasts to follow. I recommend this site often.
• Your market is growing rapidly. I was one of the many who whinged that I could never read a book online. Even as little as 12months ago, I would find papers I needed for my studies and print them out to read. Now I am a hungry consumer of paper books, e-books, kindle books and audio books. I dipped my toe in the water with some free e-books and quickly moved on to happily purchase books to read on my iPhone (hurry up iPad!). My kids have also downloaded several audio books and comic book apps to their iPods, this market is not just for adults. Below you'll see our excited Miss 8yrs getting her mini-laptop for Christmas.

Digital time is a bit like dog years, 1yr =7, so if you're looking for texts on self-publishing I recommend that you check publication dates. I found books on Amazon from 2000, a lot's happened in the last ten years! Check that the blogs you read are recent posts too.

Which way would I hope to go with Dog Show Detective? I'd always imagined it as a paperback series when I started writing (optimistic, but it helps to have an end goal pictured in your mind) but now I love the idea of kids downloading my book or listening to it on their mp3 players during a long drive. There's still a lot for me to learn about online marketing and production of e-books, so for now I guess I should just get back to finishing the book.
What are your thoughts on self-publishing?

One More Word

Found these Random Friday questions on Ink-fever's blog, so thought I'd do the 'pass it on'. The trick is you can only use one word to answer - I struggled to make sure all my answers worked only on one level - none of those fancy double entendres here!
Why is this relevant to your writing?
In a previous blog we looked at doing character profiles and how that can affect your understanding of their actions. By using this quiz for your characters and using only one word answers, you'll be prioritising their traits, opinions and skills. Your narrative can form in a more natural way if you understand what is really important to the characters, what do they want and what do they need?
Your first time through go quickly and answer whatever comes first when you think of that character, then go back over and see how well your instinctive answers worked.
The second reason this quiz is a good exercise, whether you do it on yourself (like I did) or your characters, is for the practice in brevity. If Twitter has taught us anything, it's that there's always a shorter, punchier way to say things.
...And just because I'm sharing 'me' stuff, here is a pic hubby took of one of our dogs and our cat watching the front door because I was due home any minute. He calls it 'Waiting for Mum'.

Charmaine:

Your Cell Phone? Unloved

Your Hair? ‘Ranga

Your Mother? Next

Your Father? Celebrates

Your Favorite Food? Quack

Your Dream Last Night? Homework

Your Favorite Drink? Mulled

Your Dream/Goal? Write

What Room Are You In? Study

Your Hobby? Bloggin’

Your Fear? Limitless?

Where Do You See Yourself In Six Years? Mirror

Where Were You Last Night? Numfar’s

Something That You Aren't? Arachnologist  

Muffins? Jellybean

Wish List Item? iPad

Where Did You Grow Up? Didn’t

Last Thing You Did? Giggled

What Are You Wearing? Smile

Your TV? Shiny 

Your Pets? Abundant 

Friends? Facebook

Your Life? Amusing

Your Mood? Imaginary

Missing Someone? Found

Vehicle? Zoom

Something You Aren't Wearing? Tattoo

Your Favorite Store? Petshop

Your Favorite Color? Sky

When Was The Last Time You Laughed? He-he

Last Time You Cried? Steinbeck 

Your Best Friend? Internet

One Place You Go To Over And Over Again? Bookshop

Facebook? Funny

Favorite Place To Eat? Outside

You blogging this weekend? Try using these questions for your own Random Friday.

Opposite Day

My kids have a favourite little game where they give me the response I don't want and then tell me it's "Opposite Day", they say there should be a day at school like that. I ask how would you know it was opposite day and they respond that you would ask someone. The trouble is if you asked on the day and they said it was, then that would mean it wasn't? And if they said it wasn't then it might be, but if it actually wasn't opposite day then that would still be the response? My 11yr old said you should ask the day before. Sometimes the answer is so obvious it takes a child to find it.


As writers for children we need to tap into that magical way of viewing the world where even the complicated things are simple. I think this can apply to our plotting and structuring of narratives.


I came across this talk that seemed to prove to me there would no one right or wrong way to write my story, I'm hoping it will ignite your imagination too (it's very short):



This week I watched Monsters Inc (again) and thought the opposite idea applied to this script. If kids are scared of monsters then couldn't monsters be scared of kids? And what would happen if a kids wasn't scared of the monster, but loved him instead?


While writing Dog Show Detective I carefully plotted and planned every step. This was helpful for most of the story, but when you get to one section that doesn't seem to fit, it can be hard to let go of all that planning. This certain event 'needs' to happen in the story because that is what we planned. Maybe not.


Freewriting or Riff-writing is a way of approaching edits for dull or awkward parts of your manuscript.  Romance Writer's Revenge has more information about this style of writing. To over-simplify, instead of writing to the plan, just write anything. 


Go random, go wild, maybe go 'opposite'. If you planned for your villain to escape into the night, have him trip on his way out and break his neck - then what? Everything in your story might change, and that might be scary - but it might be brilliant too. You're not married to this idea, if you write a scene the opposite way to what you intended, it may just prove that your original idea is better, now you'll have depth because you'll know why the characters act that way.


There is no wasted writing, you can always find hidden treasures for your story or ideas to be gently put away and returned to for another day and another story.

The Red Pen and the Manuscript

The edits for Dog Show Detective are moving along, I have now scribbled all over the first six chapters. How to Revise Your Novel is the course that I have been using to help me learn about editing and I gave you an overview of the 1st step last week. This week I decided to focus on a book I downloaded straight to my iPod from the Amazon Kindle application, called Manuscript Makeover, by Elizabeth Lyon.


I haven't gotten very far into the book yet, but there has been some insightful views revealed already.


Here are couple of hints from the book:


Read a lot, and especially read loads of what you write - okay we kinda knew this, which is why I've been reading Trixie Beldon, The Thief Lord and other children's mysteries. What Lyon adds though is you should keep a file. This could be a notebook, hardcopy or electronic, but keep a record of all the really effective examples you come across in your reads. You could have one for great dialogue, one for character description, another for use of flashbacks. These passages can be used to measure the success of your own writing or as a guide for when you get stuck for ideas on how to describe the setting without boring your reader.


This file brings us onto another strategy from Lyon: Modelling. To refine your style take a descriptive passage that impresses you and try to imitate the syntax and emotion of the sentences for your own description. Manuscript Makeover provides examples and many more strategies for improving your writing style and tackling editing your manuscript. I'm enjoying it!


This week I'd like to leave you with a few editing links I found - beware, it's tempting to spend all your time reading sites and blogs on editing, leaving you no time to actually chop at that manuscript!


Book Dreaming - I love this blog, it's colourful, cheerful and has great content. This particular post has tips on editing that I liked.


Query Traker.net - This blogger is well known for advising on Querying publishers and agents, but this post tells you how to tackle editing a whole novel without letting it overwhelm you.


Improve Your Writing with these Editing Tips - Some tips on spotting problems with your prose, like try reading it backwards!


AboutAScreenplay - Just as relevant for novels. Make sure all your scenes contain the right formula to move the story along and capture the reader. Learn more about CONFLICT.


Dog Show Detective - The Edit:
My main lesson this week was to increase the conflict in each scene. I throw in loads of obstacles and challenges. Don't let your characters off lightly!