Beem Weeks's Blog - Posts Tagged "indie-writers"

Okay, so here's a fun little game that hopefully will spread the indie word. Being “IT” means that you share information about your “work in progress” also known as “WIP” The Rules 1.) Give credit (including a link) to the Author who tagged you. 2.)Play by the rules, therefore you must post the rules! 3.)You MUST answer all 10 questions (below) some are quite hard but do your best. 4.)List five other Authors with links at the end that you have “tagged” so that the game can continue.


Link Back
The indie writer who tagged me is Dawn Husted. She is the author of a WIP called Safe, as well as published works like Nicova, Silently Screaming, and Windor Series. Her blog address is http://dawnhusted.weebly.com/1/post/2...

Q1.) What is the title or working title of your WIP?
The Secret Collector.


Q2.) What genres does your novel fall under?
Historical fiction/coming-of-age (Same as my first novel, Jazz Baby, though a decade earlier.)

Q3.) What actors (Dream Cast) would you choose to play the characters in a film version?
I haven't really given that angle any thought. I could see a cast of up-and-comers, the ones who would make their names on a piece like this, the way so many eighties actors became names after filming The Outsiders. If I had to choose one, Chloe Grace Moretz as lead character Violet Glass.

Q4.) What is the main outline for your book?
15-year-old Violet collects secrets of those family and friends around her. Some are benign secrets, little things that are more embarrassing than serious. But then there are those secrets that could destroy friendships and family ties. And she has her own secrets to protect, as well. It's 1910 and slavery only ended a generation earlier. Emotions are still quite raw on both sides of the issue. Woman are a full ten years from the right to vote. These things mold and shape Violet, who she is, who she'll become.


Q5.) Will your book be Indie published/self published, or represented by an agency and sold to a traditional publisher?
It's going to be the indie route again. I'll go with The Fresh Ink Group for this book, same as I did for my first novel Jazz Baby. They do phenomenal work. Yeah, I'd love to have that big publisher budget for publicity, but that's not likely to happen anytime soon. Besides, indie is the wave of the future. We'll have to wait and see how far this format can go.

Q6.) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
The first draft isn't even completed yet. I'm just at five chapters in. That's taken about two months to write. I'm notoriously slow when it comes to writing. Jazz Baby took nearly a decade from start to publication. But that's due to many re-writes (I believe strongly in the re-write process) and my giving up on the story a time or two. I had to be talked into finishing the story by a good friend.

Q7.) What other books in this genre would you compare your book to?
I guess I haven't thought about that. There's one novel I read about ten years ago, The Midwife's Advice by Gay Courter. That story isn't so much an inspiration as it is a thought. Same era, different region of the United States. Maybe there are elements from a film like, say, Paris Trout, starring Dennis Hopper.

Q8.) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The era inspired me. Early 1900s America is an interesting time. And the idea of a girl, a young woman, who is able to keep secrets that could destroy lives is very intresting to me.

Q9.) What else about the book might pique readers attention?
Sexuality. Betrayal. Dark voodoo overtones. Zombie-vampires who fall in love with werewolves--JUST KIDDING!

Q10.) Five other Indie Authors you have tagged

Sienna Rose http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
Richard Van Holst http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
Christoph Fischer http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
Liam Perrin http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
Carol Traulsen http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/18...

So you’ve written the next great novel, put in the time and effort to get the manuscript polished to a high sheen, and spent untold amounts of money to get your masterpiece edited and published. It’s there on Amazon for everybody in the world to buy, read, and review—if only they knew the book exists! Sure, you’ve tweeted about it, posted short blurbs on Facebook, joined amazing author sites like Koobug.com and Goodreads. Maybe you’ve even spent a little extra money to have a web site set up. Is this enough? Are there other things an author can do to push sales closer to something resembling respectable?

Have you considered joining a book club? I don’t mean your grandmother’s book club, either. I’m talking about the Rave Reviews Book Club.

“Rave Reviews Book Club,” you wonder. “What exactly is Rave Reviews Book Club?”

I’m glad you asked. Rave Reviews Book Club is a unique group of authors and readers joined together by a desire to help lift the indie publishing industry to new heights. Let’s face it, there are many amazingly talented authors whose work is languishing on the e-shelves of Amazon.com, Smashwords, Barnes&Noble, and other internet outlets, never to be read or even acknowledged.

This is where Rave Reviews Book Club comes into play. It’s a simple concept, really, one designed to benefit member authors. Here’s how it works:

An author joins the club. This author submits the title of his/her book(s). Eventually, this book becomes one of the club’s selected reads. Fellow members purchase copies of the selected book, they read it and post reviews on Amazon.com, Koobug.com, Goodreads, Barnes&Noble, and any other site that accepts book reviews.

The author benefits from sales and reviews. The reader discovers new favorites.

Each member agrees to buy, read, and review at least four (4) of the selections over the course of the year. Think about it; that’s just one book every three (3) months. Easy enough, don’t you think? Promoting indie authors is the primary goal of this growing membership.

Rave Reviews Book Club even offers prize giveaways, Twitter support, and a weekly Author Spotlight blog tour.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, just visit the website for further details on becoming a member yourself.

http://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordp...

And don’t forget to tell them Beem sent you!

What would make a writer forego the traditional road to publication? Why would an author entrust his/her hard-fought creation to the Great Unknown that is the indie publishing industry? The answer, if we’re honest with ourselves, is because indie is the only ones who will have most of us at this point.

The above statement is in no way a reflection on the quality of the works being created by indie authors across the globe. I’ve read many self-published writers that seriously rival traditionally published authors.

The problem is with the middlemen. I’m talking about the agents and publishers who anoint themselves the all-knowing gods of the written word. Agents turn down most manuscripts that cross their desks. They cite this reason or that, making claims that nobody is interested in your sort of story. Maybe if your switch the characters, make them vampires or warlocks, just maybe there might be interest.

An agent is a catch basin for the big publishing houses. The agent will stop any and all garbage from slipping through the cracks. So the agent is the one who holds all the power within the publishing machinery. An author can create a true masterpiece that will never find its audience simply because some agent in a stuffy office has deemed the work unworthy of being sent to a publisher.

Publishers are worse than agents; they won’t even accept your manuscript without agent representation. Why? Well, because these publishers know exactly what readers everywhere want to read (or so they believe). Besides that, they don’t want to be bogged down by piles of pages from hopeful authors looking to be the next big thing, the latest shining discovery of the literary establishment.

But in the words of Bob Dylan: Oh, the times, they are a-changin’. Writers are no longer beholden to the whims of a fickle publishing industry. The need to court the trend setters and decision makers no longer applies to us writers. There are numerous outlets available, each allowing us a reach into the worldwide marketplace. Sure, it may lack the prestige of signing a contract or being able to tell anybody who’ll listen that you’ve got an agent. But keep this in mind: You own your work. You reap the lion’s share of the royalties—which is fantastic if you’re fortunate enough to sell a few thousand copies. Most importantly, you are a published author with a product that’s available to the world, right alongside Stephen King and James Patterson.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a catch basin in the indie world, which means garbage seeps through, tainting the market with its toxic odor. A reader must wade through piles of poorly written tripe in order to discover the gems that most assuredly lie just beneath the surface.

So here’s the question each writer must answer for him- or herself: Are you writing for prestige or are you writing to be read? If the prestige of an agent and a major publisher drives you, then, by all means, hold out for that prize. It might take a while, sure, but there’s also the possibility it may never happen. However, if being read by those who appreciate a good story is your true motivation, then self-publishing in the indie world just might be right for you.

So Keith Richards is writing books for the kiddies now, huh? Well, he's certainly not writing for your kids or mine. No. Keith is writing for his own daughter. But he's not penning a book to read to his child. Mr. Richards is helping his daughter write a book. That's right; a rock-n-roll guitarist is now a children's author.

Or is he?

Some might say Mr. Richards is merely lending his globally famous name to a project undertaken by his own child. This would allow the young lady to bypass all of the struggles many of us in the real world face daily while trying to promote our hard work to the public. Enter Keith Richards; his daughter's work is now immediately known across the globe—even before it hits the bookshelves.

The ink of the indie author is his/her blood, sweat, and tears. We're all still paying our dues in this effort to reach readers.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge Rolling Stones fan. Keith is an amazing guitarist and a brilliant songwriter. His memoir "Life" is one of my all-time favorite reads—because of the content, not his writing skills. (Even this book he's "writing" with his illustrator daughter is being co-written by two other authors.)

Imagine if, when the Rolling Stones were a band of young upstarts, while playing clubs across the U.K., honing their chops and building a following, another band came along and took a recording contract that could have gone to the Stones. Now imagine this other band had never played a club gig but rather secured their record deal simply because one member's father was a famous record producer or movie star. Struggling musicians everywhere would have certainly taken offense with these usurpers.

Perhaps Keith's daughter is a gem of a writer just waiting to be discovered. Then again, maybe she's truly awful! Either way, let her work stand or fall on its own merits. To attach a world famous name to this project takes away all of the struggle. Struggle builds character.

I'm reminded of an actor named Nicholas Coppola, nephew of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola. Young Nicholas had a bit part in the 1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Much of his performance ended up on the cutting room floor—this despite his family connection. The thing is, everybody in Hollywood knows the Coppola name. That's all anybody ever wanted to talk about when the struggling actor showed up for auditions. So Nicholas, wanting to forge his own career, changed his name...to Nicholas Cage.

When a person rides the name and fame of another person, the work is usually diminished in the eyes of many. Do your daughter a favor, Keith, let her sink or swim on her own. If she's a woman of character and talent, she'll thank you for trusting in her abilities.

Should indie authors seek reviews from traditional mainstream sources? If we, as writers, opt for the self-published path, should we still consider sending copies of our work to The New York Times or Publishers Weekly?

Roger Sutton, the editor-in-chief of Horn Book magazine, a mainstream book review publication, recently published an open letter to “the indie author feeling dissed.”

In his open letter, Mr. Sutton does make some valid points. He says there are just too many self-published books flooding the market. Some estimates put the number at around 300,000 indie releases per year. To attempt to review even a portion of these works would prove daunting. Imagine being tasked with the responsibility of combing through that many books in search of just a handful of gems or potential gems?

Many self-published works are just plain awful, Mr. Sutton claims. This statement, unfortunately, holds some manner of truth. While he specifically points to children’s books, Mr. Sutton certainly isn’t out of line in stating this as fact. Though I’ve not read many children’s books in recent years, I have come across my fair share of poorly written books in need of serious editorial repair. Some, I would even say, should never have been written. I won’t post a review—good or bad—of those rare, truly-awful stories.

Sutton also points to the fact that many self-published authors have no sense of audience. Again, I’ve experienced this first hand. I get offers to review books fairly often. “I’ll send you a free copy in exchange for a review.” I find these requests in my DM box on Twitter, my message box on Goodreads, and in my email accounts pretty much every day. I’ve accepted some, usually those that grab my attention with the blurb. Most, though, are genres I don’t read: Sci Fi, romance, vampire/werewolf/witch stories. A quick perusal of the books/genres a reviewer has read will let an author know if this person might be interested in reading your book. I wrote a historical fiction novel that I would never think to send to a reviewer that specifically targets the science fiction market. This is just a simple common sense move.

Finally, Sutton claims self-published authors don’t know the market. This is true. But does anybody really know the current, ever-changing market that is the publishing world? Many of the articles I’m reading tell of a shrinking market, of book stores closing, and mainstream publishers struggling to maintain the vast kingdoms they spent the past century building. Every one of us that has published a book understands the biggest obstacle we face is in marketing our work to the world. We don’t have a ready-made audience we can tap into with best-seller results. Most of us lack the big budget needed to get our work before the eyes of hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of readers. I can’t afford to advertise my novel in Writers Digest or Publishers Weekly. I can’t even afford to advertise in my local newspaper on a regular basis.

The point is mainstream reviewers don’t care to review indie books. The Washington Post receives about 150 books a day, says Ron Charles, editor of the Post’s Book World. These books have agents and mainstream publishers backing them. They’ve also been professionally edited and marketed. The Washington Post and other mainstreamers won’t even look at an indie book. I learned this the hard way when I wasted money and time in sending over fifty copies of my novel to some of the biggest newspapers and publications in the United States. That was over two years ago. To this date, I have not heard a single word from any of those publications.

My advice in searching for reviews for your work: Be genre specific. Seek out those reviewers that prefer to read the genre in which you write. Forget mainstream reviewers; most are still snobbish when it comes to judging indie books. If you’ve chosen to go the indie route for publishing, follow that same path when marketing your work. There are many amazing indie review sites that have built solid reputations for offering fair and honest opinions of self-published books. As the indie publishing industry grows stronger, so too will indie marketing and reviews. All of us want that mainstream recognition; just don’t lose your sense of worth if it doesn’t come. Write on and have fun!