Funny old business launching a book

First you have an idea, then you think it through, conjure up characters or sometimes try to stop them yammering at you, then you imagine a setting and stir all together into a really sticky problem. 

Several months later or sometimes a year later, out comes a typed manuscript. If you’ve chosen to go the indie publishing route, give up a social life, television and sleep. Now you enter the world of running a business or at the least managing a complex major project. Think ‘Grand Designs’. 

Commissioning a cover
Ah! First you need to think about what image you want to project, what brand to create for your work. What concept is behind your book? What image or idea will the cover convey?

The 2019/21 Roma Nova covers by Jessica Bell Design

The design will kill or make your book, so you need to be clear about these things. This is your chance to wander into bookshops and surf online book stores to see what is attractive in your genre and call it ‘work’. 

Next you will need to listen to your chosen cover designer who may want to do something different. The professional ones tend to know what sells and what doesn’t while still producing a creatively satisfying window into your work. But you will need to work with them, contributing without being insistent or protective. You will need good communications and an eagle eye to check each round of cover proofs. Oh, and you’ll need to work up some super-enticing back cover copy, and, if possible, some supportive endorsements.

Editing and proofreading
Realistically, schedule 4-6 weeks, depending on whether you have booked your editor in time. You will have self-edited anyway and sent out the manuscript to your critique partner, beta readers, street team or writing circle, before the final version goes to the professional (paid for) editor. I usually have three rounds before going to the copy editor. This takes time and concentration; none of it should be skimped. After the copy edit and revisions, your book is formatted and then comes proofing. By now, you are so fed up with the manuscript, you want to hide under the table, but no, you have to gather up your grit (as my heroine Carina says) and get on with it, meticulously. If you really, really can’t bear to face it, commission a professional proofreader.

Formatting 
Now your book is taking shape. You can use a formatter (human being) or risk uploading it as a Word document to a distributing retailer and let their software produce a file, or format it yourself with publishing software. Set aside time for this and for making cups of tea to refresh your patience. 

I use Vellum software which does all the hard work for you with a range of pre-set templates, but which you can (if you are fussy geek like me) tweak to produce all kinds of different effects.The beauty is that you can play with it before you buy. Although you can use the same Vellum file for ebook and print versions, I use separate  files as I like things in different order in the different formats.  I allow plenty of time for this stage, but I have to say, it always takes less time than I’ve budgeted for. 

Now you have to proof the files Vellum has generated before you upload them to distributors and retailers (see above).Your eyes will go into bulge and red-rim mode again and you may have to do corrections and last minute tweaks. When completely sure (and I never am, but time presses), order your print proofs.

Pre-launch stuff

Tony Riches' The Writing Desk blog

Tony Riches’ The Writing Desk blog

While you’re waiting for copy-edits or structural edits or beta readers and at least 4-6 weeks before publication date, you spend days at the email coalface contacting all the friends, fellow authors, bloggers and reviewers you know to ask for their help launching your treasure. You will have set up a spreadsheet, of course, to track it all to include name, email, website, what you agree on after a little negotiation (guest post, review, Q&A), date agreed, date drafted and date sent. 

When the post is published on that person’s blog, you then should tweet, post on Facebook or wherever and check back for comments, especially if you offer a giveaway of your book. And enter the URL in your spreadsheet so you can repost/retweet in a few weeks’ time without scurrying around the Internet.

Next, write those guest posts, and send them in with appropriate images at least a week before the due date. Nothing annoys bloggers more than receiving the material the day before!

Write posts on your own blog about research, motivation, character studies, and post short extracts. Set up tweets and posts, etc. in the week or two before publication date including little graphics sporting a ‘Pre-order now’ sticker. And if you have a spare moment (falls over laughing), set up tweets, etc. for publication day itself. 

The day or two before publication….
Get some sleep. You’ve done the heavy lifting for now. The odd tweet, a last minute blogpost, chatting in groups – these are all pleasures of the ‘lull’.

Publication day
And breathe…

You’ll post on all your social media that your book is out, chat to fans who bought your book on pre-order, perhaps host an online party and generally bask in congratulations. A glass of bubbly is completely allowable even at 10 a.m.

There are zillions of books and tons of advice about publication day events, so I won’t duplicate them here, but for indies, this is just the start. Your blog appearances are beginning, and you’ll need to keep up with those hosting websites. Reviews will come in and you’ll move onto he next phase of marketing.

What?

Post-launch marketing
This phase lasts years, possibly into infinity. ‘Long tail marketing’, or continuous marketing, is normal in the indie world as you control it. Your work is not sidelined after a few weeks to make way for the next author’s launch. You are the star of your own show. I still market my first trilogy, especially my first book, INCEPTIO; that’s five years old and it still attracts five star reviews from new readers. 

But you’re still going to have to keep up the hard work. Oh, and write the next book at the same time.

 

ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short(-ish) stories ranging from 270 AD to 2019 is available now as an ebook on Amazon, B&N Nook, Apple/iBooks and Kobo and as a paperback from your usual bookshop.

 

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series.Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. Double Pursuit, the sequel, is now out!

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

October 18th, 2018 | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Category: Authors, Blogging, Books, Getting published, Marketing skills, Roma Nova, ROMA NOVA EXTRA, Writing life, Writing skills | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

Five quick and dirty writing tips

Writing friend Keith Dixon asked me in one of those round robins on Facebook to share five writing tips, but without copying his (curses!).

After nine, soon to be ten, books you’d think it would be easy, but the problem is that over that time, I’ve gathered a jumble of writing dos and don’ts. It probably did me a lot of good to sit down and write down some of the essential ones! Here are my five:

1. Bash your story out. We know that editing, refining, honing, etc. are crucial for a good story, but you have to have something to work on. First drafts are always crap, to use a technical term, but give you an initial framework. And it can be fatal if you stop to edit as you go as you can easily lose the flow of your story. and it’s the story that always counts.

2. Research round your subject, period and environment but don’t get caught in research thrall. When you have a good general grasp of these three, start writing. You will inevitably need to look up specific things (how different is a Glock 17 from a Glock 26 and does it matter?) but just mark the place in your text with something (asterisks, emojis, different coloured text, whatever) and go back at the end of your writing session to fill these in.

3. Avoid long passages of description. Readers are not daft and half the pleasure of reading is forming your own picture in your mind of what the author is writing. The convention these days is to start right your story in the middle of the action – ‘in media res‘ if you want it in Latin. I have to confess that having to wade through a lot of verdant forest or dull city streetscape for two or three pages before anything starts or a character pops up does put me off a book these days.

4. Get your money’s worth out of your characters. I have a lot of characters, but none of them is there without a purpose and I often bring them back later in the story or in another story in the series. Doing this with secondary characters (e.g. Lurio, Flavius, Paula Servla in the Roma Nova series) reinforces interactions with the main ones, and the world they live in. As a reader, I love glimpses of such ‘old friends’.

5.Give your characters food, rest and a loo break. They need to wash themselves and their clothes, change shoes, put on a warm jacket. Readers like characters who, however clever or courageous, do stuff they do. Habits help define and reinforce characters and their emotional reactions; Aurelia reaches for French brandy, Carina for coffee or Castra Lucillan white wine, Conrad for whisky. But be very sparing; you can use these actions as beats, pauses or in place of dialogue tags. But no cups of tea every chapter, please.

So, do you have any favourite ‘quick ‘n’ dirty’ writing tips?

 

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO,  PERFIDITAS,  SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA,  INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO.  CARINA, a novella, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories, are now available.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. NEXUS, an Aurelia Mitela novella, will be out on 12 September 2019.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Download ‘Welcome to Roma Nova’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be first to know about Roma Nova news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

September 19th, 2018 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Characters, Insights, Writing life, Writing skills | Comments are closed

Lazy and Dozy on the Internet

Dozy (No offence to ostriches)

I love the Internet; its variety, its information, its madness, its connectivity and above all its denizens. I belong to groups, lists and forums, many of them inside Facebook, some on Twitter, some on email. After being on Twitter since 2009 and Facebook since 2011, I’ve sifted out  amusing people, good contacts, reliable sources of information. These are continuing pleasures.

But ever more, I’m starting to see two particular denizens growing in number – Lazy and Dozy.

Dozy can be forgiven to an extent; perhaps they’re new to the ever more complex Internet, they aren’t a frequent visitor, they’re time-strapped, they’re not a geek, just a normal person. But I’d suggest they pay attention to other people’s contributions first and try lurking a little before butting in or leaping in with inane questions or irrelevant points.

Dozy doesn’t read preceding threads where the answer to their question may lie, or where somebody has already made the point in an informed way. Dozy often quotes headlines from the Daily Fail, the Daily Distress or the Dumb newspapers or bogus Facebook groups or blogs. They don’t check where the info comes from, they don’t think what impact their post or comment may have – confusion, hurt, even panic. And in the viral age, their misinformation can spread faster than the old-fashioned wildfire. And they can be the naive unwitting spreader of ‘alternative facts’.

Lazy (No offence to seals)

Now, Lazy is extremely annoying; they can’t be arsed to look up the simplest thing. Not only do they not read previous threads/conversations, they think their question or comment is so important that other people don’t have anything else to do but answer it. A classic: “Does anybody know the address of the Kent County Council?” My reply (if can be arsed to make one): “Google Kent County Council”.

Other manifestations are not reading the files in a group or not bothering to click through to a linked site or blog and read it themselves. I’ve posted blogposts on Roman life or history in appropriate Facebook groups and commenters have made a point or written a comment that exactly duplicates what I’ve written in that linked post. I’ve pointed it out and received the reply as a follow-up comment “Oh, I don’t bother reading blog posts these days.” as if it was a virtue. No, they are just content to make (sometimes fatuous) comments or they consider themselves too important to descend to reading the blog post.

Oh, and have I mentioned spelling and punctuation? “i really lik the dahvinchy code caus itsreallymisterious.” (Genuine!)
I hesitate here because I am a rubbish typist, but at least I review before I post or I go back and edit it as soon as I notice (or somebody else does!).

Neither Dozy nor Lazy thinks before they type. Neither takes responsibility for what they post.

Now, everybody is 100% entitled to their point of view and has a right to comment. I take that as written. Reacting quickly is part of the fun of the Internet, especially on Twitter and the odd typo is forgiven. But nobody has the right to be Lazy or Dozy. In the end, they will embarrass themselves and look useless to others, but sometimes not before they have annoyed, mis-informed or hurt others.

How to avoid being Lazy or Dozy

  • Read the thread/previous comments
  • Be original
  • Quote your source and make sure it’s credible
  • Click through to the linked blogpost before commenting
  • Use Google for easy questions
  • Check the ‘About’ section, the pinned post and the Files section in a group first
  • Use humour appropriately
  • Make your headline enticing but not clickbait-y
  • Learn from what others say

(Yes, I’ve used the neutral ‘they’; Lazy and Dozy are found in all genders.)

 

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO,  PERFIDITAS,  SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA,  INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO.  CARINA, a novella, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories, are now available.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. NEXUS, an Aurelia Mitela novella, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Download ‘Welcome to Roma Nova’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be first to know about Roma Nova news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

August 29th, 2018 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Blogging, Insights, | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)

Conflicting emotion

Conflict and emotion are two pillars of fiction writing whether in high-end literary fiction or the most melodramatic genre fiction.

A story will often start by providing the main character with a conflict, be it professional or personal. Sometimes it’s the place where the initial event is set (weather, nighttime, urban, with unlit streets), a dilemma delivered by another character (friend, enemy or stranger) or an inner conflict (love, friendship, betrayal, values, choices, memories). Sometimes, it can just be a gun barrel or the tip of a razor-sharp knife.

In real life, you’d often freeze, be frightened, stunned, angry, helpless, and/or want to lash out (but probably wouldn’t). In fiction, it’s the same, and the main character reacts  in an equally emotional way. But where we would dither around and then make a nice cup of tea or gulp down a glass of wine and tell all our friends about it over the next few weeks, the conflict served up to a character in a novel and his/her reaction to it is the springboard for the book’s plot.

Simultaneous destruction of the Cordelière and the Regent  by Pierre-Julien Gilbert

It can be as dramatic as a shipwreck, catching a lover in flagrante delicto, discovering debts instead of an inheritance, or a burglar in the house.

Or it can be an agonising dilemma between job or love, being true to your values, a past memory where your life took a wrong turn or failing a friend.

Once the character has this dilemma and is struggling to make sense of it, emotions should be in overspill mode, even if the writing style is succinct and spare.

Readers want to feel for the character, to share their emotion and to root for them. So how do writers express this?

  • Let it build, even if it’s an instant reaction.
  • Set up a happy or contented character for a fall – a classic method
  • Put the character in a terrible situation, then pile more on – the ‘If it wasn’t bad enough already, X happened’ approach
  • Add pressure from another source, especially a negative element from a previously trusted friend
  • Expectations not met – another classic
  • Expectations exceeded or an unexpected pleasant surprise which can make the character overjoyed or even suspicious
  • Anticipation/dread of having to do something
  • Disappointment/betrayal/hurt contrary to previous experience
  • A secondary character questions the main character’s expectations
  • Make your character unwell, then introduce a challenging incident
  • Let your character feel the various stages of the reaction – disbelief, anger, sorrow, determination to act

  • Use both words and actions to show the reaction – often actions reveal more plus allow the reader to interpret the emotions
  • Let the conflict sink in and give the character a secondary reaction later especially at a point where they need to be thinking clearly
  • Use physical reactions to show emotions, but don’t overdo it
  • Let emotion/reaction to conflict inhibit physical movement or action
  • Character initially dismisses the emotion/reactions but allow the reader to guess differently
  • Add in environment elements – rain, snow, hold-ups, too bright sunlight, noise to reinforce the feeling
  • Introduce constraints to speaking out loud or in confidence

Some examples…

‘What did you expect?’ Miklós said. (secondary character questioning)

I’d kept my gaze on the back of Sándor’s neck, too miserable to speak (emotion inhibiting action), as we’d ridden home in the car engulfed by driving sleet (weather element). As Sándor got out to close the black metal gates behind us (constraint to speaking in front of minor character), I slumped against the seat.(physical sign of internal reaction)

‘I don’t know. (uncertainty) I thought they would at least talk to me when they saw me. (expectations not met) We’ve shared so much.’ (sense of betrayal contrary to previous experience)

‘You know how hard they all are,’ he said. ‘You should know – you’re very much one of them.’ (secondary character questioning the main character’s expectations)

‘Apparently not.’ (hurt contrary to previous experience)           RETALIO, Chapter II

 

‘You seem a bit tense, love. Are you all right?’ (secondary character questioning the main character) He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. (physical sign of emotion) A wave of warmth rolled through me. (internal reaction) How could he have the power to do that after all this time? (expectations exceeded) We were an old married couple.

‘I’m fine, really. Maybe a bit tired. (character initially dismisses the emotion) But there’s something else. Probably nothing to worry about, but—’ (and again!)

SUCCESSIO Chapter II

As the tunnel doors swished open, I felt my irritation at Mossia unwrap itself and flood back.(secondary, later reaction) What in Hades was she playing at? (negative element from a previously trusted friend) By the time I arrived at our end, I was annoyed for not being able to figure out whether she’d told me something significant or not. (reaction building up)                            PERFIDITAS  Chapter I

 

The thought of writing directly to Caius to express my feelings and ban him (anticipation/dread of having to do something) made my hands tremble so violently I couldn’t hold a pen firmly enough (physical indication of emotion). Half an hour later, after creating a pile of torn-up drafts (physical indication of emotion), I wrote Countess Tella a formal letter, informing her of my mother’s illness and cancelling all visits from her household. It would have to do. (dismissing further emotional reaction)

AURELIA Chapter II

Emotional conflict is crucial for grabbing, then gripping a reader’s attention and it’s a good way of exposing your character’s weaknesses, strengths and above all, humanity.

What are your favourite ways of expressing conflict and emotion?

 

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. Double Pursuit, the sequel, is now out!

Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

August 21st, 2018 | Tags: , , , | Category: AURELIA, Books, Characters, PERFIDITAS, RETALIO, Setting, SUCCESSIO, Writing skills | Comments are closed
Older Entries »  
  « Newer Entries