Thinking about the days of the week

For those paying attention at home, I’m in the midst of a blog rethink and redesign, at least as far as my writing approach to this blog is concerned. I will reupholster the electronic furniture a bit and possibly hang some new wallpaper, but suffice it to say, I’m aiming to make this a place worth visiting. 

Of course, I already have ideas and I’m putting some things together so I’ll be able to hit the ground running. Here’s one idea that I’ve been mulling.

Folks of a certain age will remember a song from many moons ago known as “I don’t like Mondays.” I want to do something about the whole Monday malaise. Ideally, I’ll make things better for writers rather than contributing to the “blahness” of the first workday of the week. But you never know.

My idea is “Marketing Mondays.” Most fiction writers aren’t any fonder of marketing than the rest of humanity is a fan of Mondays. So a couple Mondays a month, I’ll explore ways we writers can improve our marketing and promotion efforts. Yes, at some point I’ll probably talk at least a bit about email lists and newsletters. Hate them or hate them, if they’re done the right way, they’re highly effective tools for building your platform, which, among other things, help you stand out in a crowd. And few things are as crowded as the book publishing world these days.

So, what’s the right way to do marketing in such a busy field? Well, I’m hoping to get some comments on that type of thing from writers and publishers who can address it better than I can. If you ask me, the answer boils down to how you build an audience for your novels and short stories: Write something entertaining and engaging and write it well.

I’d love to hear some other topics you’d like to read about with regard to where your marketing and audience development efforts might be lagging. Feel free to share in the comments below or send an email to matt@elephantsbookshelfpress.com.

Soon to come: other days of the week.

Back to School

Remember the Staples back-to-school commercial from a few years ago? You know it: the one where the father is dancing through the aisles of the supply store behind his shopping cart while his kids plod along behind him, their heads staring at the floor, all while Johnny Mathis sings "It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

Even before I had kids, that was one of my favorite commercials, and I'm not a big fan of watching ads. And now that I'm a dad, I understand it on another level. It truly feels as though things are falling back into place, the tumblers are landing in the correct slots to unlock the door.

That's how things have felt for me lately. We have just launched Billy Bobble the Witch Hunt, and I'm working on the next novel, Don M. Vail's Lost Wings. Busy, busy, busy!

But in the busy-ness, I have the exciting fretfulness of a student starting a new school year. I worry about the reviews for R.S. Mellette's wonderful book -- will readers think it's as engaging and provocative as I do? Am I doing enough to get the word out about it? (Probably not. None of us, not even Stephen King, ever do. Don't believe me? Without googling it, what were the names of his last two books?)

So I've been boning up again on online tutorials, re-reading articles about marketing and promotion, and trying to put lessons learned into practice. I wish I had one that I could share that has been hands-down better than everything else, but to me they all seem to be about building audience incrementally, reader by reader. Slow going, to say the least. But valuable, nonetheless

What has worked for you? Have you found anything that worked really well for your book? I'd love to conduct an interview with someone who has a great author-promotional effort to share. We can even do some shared marketing, where we'll give away some books -- yours and ours!

Who's game? After all, It's the most wonderful time of the year.

The Next Big Thing (Week 28)

I'm very grateful for being asked to participate in The Next Big Thing, which Jayne Denker is spreading across the blogosphere.

1- What is the working title of your book?

The latest is The Fall; we’re also launching the submission request for the next anthology, which has a working title of Summer Burn.

2- Where did the idea come from for the book?

This time last year we were finishing up what became SpringFevers, the first anthology from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. We didn’t have a title for the collection yet. All we had was an organizing framework. Spring Fevers is a collection of relationship stories. But as we were coming up with Spring Fevers, our editorial team suggested that we do more anthologies and use the seasons as a connecting theme. From there sprouted The Fall, which as a title lent itself to sharing tales from the apocalypse. Of course, with the hoopla and concern about the Mayan calendar predicting a massive change in the world as we know it on December 21, 2012, we thought this would be the perfect year to do The Fall, so we hustled ourselves right into another project.

In a sense, Summer Burn will be somewhat of a mix of the previous two anthologies, in that we’ll focus on relationships that are by their very nature short-lived. The emphasis will be on the burn rather than the summer. One of the questions to be explored is whether a relationship is meant to last or not.

3- What genre does your book fall under?

It’s an anthology, and the stories in The Fall touch on a variety of genres. We have what might be considered “traditional” apocalyptic tales – stories of individuals and communities dealing with war or plague or some version of destruction and its aftermath – as well as atypical apocalyptic tales that share a sense of humor. I think readers will be pretty surprised to find a lot of laughs on the path to Armageddon. But to be more specific, you’ll find Young Adult, Steampunk, Romance, Fantasy, and some straight forward

4- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Hmm, that’s actually difficult for me. I’ll try to answer for the story I wrote, “The Last Day of Fall,” which focuses on four people who decide they need to leave the relative safety of where they live after a devastating string of terrorist attacks left it a fallow field. I have images in my mind of who these people are, but I purposely left the physical details of the characters rather vague. I picture the main characters, Michael and Beth, to be in their mid-twenties. In my mind, he’s slim, dark-haired, probably still fights off the occasional pimple. She’s small and lithe with an athlete’s build. I suspect there’s any number of young up-and-coming actors who could fit those roles. I’d need to do a casting call and whip through their comp cards before setting up an audition.

5- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The Fall is an exploration of the apocalypse, with glimpses of ancient prophecies, technological Armageddon, failures of government, a distracted deity, and yes, zombies sharing the moment with love, yearning, humor, and hope.

6- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The Fall, like Spring Fevers, is published by Elephant’s Bookshelf Press, which is the LLC I launched earlier this year. They both contain stories by agented authors as well as those who are still seeking representation. I do not have an agent currently, but I do intend to seek representation when my novel-in-progress is ready to submit. I value the control of independent publishing, but I also respect the advantages of traditional publishing.

7- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The short answer is about six months. After the necessary prep work we did as a team, we launched a request for submissions back in April and made decisions on stories as we received them. The submission deadline was in August, but we’d already been editing the previously approved stories before then. We were scheduled to publish on October 29. If that date sounds ominously familiar, it’s because Hurricane Sandy swept through much of my home state of New Jersey that same day. 

I lost power in the midst of applying for the copyright online and had to delay publication a few days. Even as they expressed sympathy for my situation, everyone involved in the publication of The Fall found a certain level of irony that a collection of stories about the apocalypse was itself affected by a disaster of almost apocalyptic proportions. In the days immediately after the storm, I was able to do what I needed to publish  aided by the generator at the first aid squad where I’m a member.

8- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This is a horrible thing to admit as publisher, but I’ve not fully compiled that comparison. I think it’s a small field because it’s not very lucrative. Instead, I’m competing against the enormous number of inexpensively produced independent publications, so spreading the word has been critical. Indeed, that’s really what we’re trying to do overall in Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. My goal with these anthologies is to help build awareness for each of these authors. Ultimately, when the first of these writers attracts broader attention with their debut novels, their new fans will look for their earlier works. We’ll be here and good readers will continue to be exposed to the family of writers in the Elephant’s Bookshelf Press catalogue. Personally, I love the idea that my little company could help readers discover not only the early works of authors they know from novels they love but also other talented authors who might not yet have a publishing deal.

9- Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The first anthology, Spring Fevers, arose from an email conversation between writer Cat Woods and me. I’d been thinking of exploring independent publishing and an anthology seemed like a good way to get started. I decided to be a bit more entrepreneurial with the project and created a publishing company. The goal of Elephant’s Bookshelf Press is to help emerging authors establish themselves. We’ve published the first stories of writers I think will eventually be able to make a fine career out of their writing. We also have stories by several agented writers whose debut novels are scheduled to be released within the next year or two.

10- What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The final story in The Fall is one that readers will either love or hate. It’s called “The Last Sacrifice,” and it’s written by a South African writer. It’s a disturbing tale that depicts a tribal high priest whose faith to his gods is total, despite a series of disappointments when the gods seem to disapprove of the sacrifices that have been made. I think readers are going to either love or hate that one. There won’t be much middle ground. It’s very intense.

Tagged for next week (Week 29) are some of my very talented writer friends. Check out their blogs next Wednesday, December 19, when it's their turn to post answers to these same questions about their own works-in-progress!


Ryan Graudin (Ryan Writes)

Tell Us About New Writers

As I've noted on this and my other blog frequently, I spend a fair amount of time in a community created on AgentQuery. (And for other writers who've not heard about it, this is a great place to get honest assessments of your work, including your queries or synopses, before submitting them to agents.)

But lately that has gotten me thinking about where do new writers come from — from a reader's perspective. I've been fortunate to have a broad array of books cross my path, most of which are from friends and family. Sometimes these are gifts, other times, they're simply recommendations people make. I suspect some of the books are simply neglected children that they know will find a good home in my collection.

But when new writers, like those people I've struck up friendships with in AgentQuery Connect (like Facebook for writers), finally get their big break, how do they get others to know who they are and what their writing is about? Obviously, that's a marketing issue, and the marketing of writers — including the added importance of writers promoting themselves — is a big business.

I think nothing is as important as word of mouth. So I'd like to allow you to share names of favorite new writers you've found. If it's yourself, that's fine, too. And if you can share a Web site, I'm fine with that. In fact, if there's demonstrated interest shown, I'll start a new link list of writers that Elephant's Bookshelf Readers recommend.

How do you find new writers and who are your new favorites?

Tag, You're It!

Back from vacation and after digging through the first strata of emails, I received this today: an announcement that Barnes & Noble has launched a video magazine series called "Barnes & Noble Tagged!"

Though I've peeked at its first couple of minutes, I've not watched enough to say it's well done or not, but my initial impression is the image quality is good, the volume level may be a little low (which means you have to remember to turn your speakers down later or you may blast something later), and the books are decidedly mainstream. I intend to watch it more thoroughly, and I encourage book lovers and writers to give it a shot. We all need more ways to promote reading and to promote writers of all levels.

Personally, I'd like to see less about Jodi Picoult, who has done well to establish an audience, and more about excellent writers who remain relatively or completely unknown. Of course, I have a vested interest in that, since I hope to be one of those "relatively unknown" excellent writers who claws his way to everyone's consciousness and sells boxes full of books.

[And for those of you who asked: No, I didn't finish all the revisions this past week, which I regard as a blessing. It means that I'm putting in the appropriate amount of time to make sure I do it right (these weren't merely correcting a couple typos; it's a matter of weaving things in and tightening up loose strands), and that I actually relaxed a bit during the vacation. I needed that! And thanks for asking.]