Fern Reiss

Fern Reiss, CEO of PublishingGame.com and Expertizing.com, is the author of The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days ( about book promotion), The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days (two versions: traditional and self-publishing). She offers a free Expertizing email newsletter on one of her websites. In a newsletter from publishingbasics.com she revealed Five Things Your Publisher Won't Tell You (about traditional book publishing). In essence, the tips are:

* publishers do little publicity
* a book must sell in four months
* only 5% of books earn their advances
* traditional publishing is sloooooow
* first book flops--you're dead

I think these characteristics are more the novelists' experiences than those of the authors of nonfiction books. Selling a novel, to agents and publishers and at retail, is so very difficult, you might have better luck launching your writing career by starting with a nonfiction endeavor. It has a much better chance of selling (you might be able to skip the agency part), would establish a publishing platform for you, and the experiences you'd gain would be priceless.

Authors' Bar Code Art

When I first saw Scott Blake's Bar Code Clock, all I could think about was the confusion that reigned over the barcode that must appear on the back of published books. For self-publishers, caught in the switch from 10 to 13 digits, it must have been a nightmare. Maybe this would have helped them know what time it was: You can download a working clock for your desktop, sidebar or webpage (uses javascript). I recommend starting at the entry page of Blake's website for maximum artistic diversion.

English Words Missing Hyphens

Reuters reported on a linguistic catastrophe -- Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on. Seems that a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary eliminated hyphens in about 16,000 words. Reuter's Simon Rabinovich blames it on the Internet. Here's what the Shorter OED editor offered: "Printed writing is very much design-led these days in adverts and Web sites, and people feel that hyphens mess up the look of a nice bit of typography," he said. "The hyphen is seen as messy looking and old-fashioned." The shorter dictionary (only two volumes!) unified compound nouns or split them into two words. Decisions weren't whimsical and arbitrary, but based on research into contemporary use, the ed said.

Creative Escapism for Writers

As you may know, I regularly take breaks from writing and expose myself to other forms of expression. I hope for a "cross pollination of creativity". Touring an art exhibit almost always gives me ideas to follow up in my own media. Creativity coach Eric Maisel offers advice about Taking a Creative Escape. He urges breaking out of your rut every two weeks with activities like these:

Find running water--a river, a stream, a burbling public fountain--and sketch there; or just daydream.

Go to a bookstore, pull out all the books on Paris, take them to a table in the bookstore cafe, and visit Paris for three hours over coffee and an almond biscotti.

Set up a casual informational interview with someone whose work or profession interests you

Bill O'Reilly: Out of Context

Checking what's hot in searches today at Google Trends reminded me to post about quotations taken out of context. Why? Because I've observed the current smear campaign against Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly. The first news clip I saw about this fortunately included more of the context of the radio conversation.

He was pontificating on some white Americans' knowledge of black culture being limited to certain music rappers and their nasty lyrics. As a counter-example, he noted how ordinary was the milieu of the black-oriented restaurant in which he was dining. What did some media pick up? Of course, the latter comment, which, taken out of context, sounds like O'Reilly's amazed at how much the soul food crowd resembles white folks.

The lesson for writers is to be very careful with your quotations of others. Try to imagine how they might be used by people with nefarious agendas. Make sure you include enough of the context to allow readers a neutral (I don't dare say balanced) interpretation.

Research Old Magazines

I was especially happy to find OldMagazineArticles.com when I read that "It is a primary source website and is designed to serve as a reference for students, educators, authors, researchers, dabblers, dilettantes, hacks and the merely curious." I seem to resemble that statement. The home page contains an index and a simple search engine, and you can also browse by subject or view recently-added articles. The articles are freely available in .PDF format, almost exactly as they originally appeared. If you register, you can receive email updates on new articles added, even by your categories of interest. The site also offers an RSS feeds by subject area.

Let Writer's Block Flow

Facing the blank page, what do you feel? Just empty? Focus deeper, deeper still. Touch the fear, the rage, feel the sadness that is the undercurrent of an unproductive life. If you are honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge being filled, gripped by strong emotions. What you tell yourself about these feelings keeps you in paralysis, as does trying to hide from them, deny them.

A better approach is to identify your emotions and be aware that you are separate from the feelings. You are not the thoughts or the feelings or the block. They flow through you, and by identifying them, you can let them pass on, flowing out of you. The Buddhists call this "mindfulness" and practice meditation to achieve similar results.

Build a Successful Writer's Website

When writers discover they need websites to be in competition with their contemporaries, they often try to DIY the job. For those thinking about this move, here are some characteristics of good sites for a head start:

* sensible domain name (your own, business, book title)
* rented server space to host your site
* clear ID on the first page
* simple, consistent design
* quick-loading pages
* current information
* accurate spelling, grammar, etc.
* plainly-named internal links
* compatible with most browsers

For more tips, explanations, examples and references, see the second volume of my eBook, Effective Websites for Writers. You can find it on the Writing Help page, along with other useful resources, including free articles.

Build Amazon Widgets for Writers, Readers

If you're an Amazon Associate, marvelous new tools are at your bidding for spicing up your blog and other web pages. They're called "Amazon Widgets" (catchy, no?), javascripts that essentially duplicate all the types of links you could build in the past (and more). Some of them appear to be animated, and they're interactive. Unfortunately I can't use javascript inside a post, so I've had to do a screen capture of the first page of my Wish List widget:

Read all about it at the widget page in Associates Central. They offer gizzies for My Favorites and Unbox Videos, too, as well as the results of searches and "product clouds". Amazon offers to automatically install the widget into your blog (even giving you a choice of blogging software used), but I didn't trust this feature. No foolin' around with this lady's template!

Virtual Book Touring

Today we have guest writer Marina Kuperman explaining how to promote your book electronically. Instead of touring the country visiting book stores, Marina is touring the world, visiting blogs. We're pleased she chose A Writer's Edge for one of her stops.

GETTING THE WORD OUT
By Marina Kuperman

The new wave of internet book promotion is called the VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR. Even if you don't have a blog, you should never overlook this method of getting the word out. The goal is to contact bloggers in your category and ask them to give you a write up. It can take the form of a mention of your book, an interview, a review, or whatever you ask the blogger to write. This is networking, so you want to offer something back. I've noticed that when I do a blog tour, bloggers are more into it if I do a write up about their blogs or what they want to plug, plus (if you have a blog and/or website) exchange links with them.

For my young adult book Turtle Feet, Surfer's Beat and also the online teen community associated with this book at www.turtlefeetsurfersbeat.com, I've tackled the blogosphere and gave a shout out to as many bloggers as possible. I chose specific categories to my book. Because my book deals with marine preservation, surfing, and teens, I had a wide range of people to contact. I decided to get the support of other writers, surfing blogs and environmentalists. The majority of these people are super nice and extremely supportive of my work, gladly doing write-ups about me; and I did the same for them.

Marina also writes a blog, Turtle Feet, Surfer's Beat where you can follow her virtual book tour. She has graciously agreed to respond to questions in the comments section, so send 'em in.

Writers' Words: Bring and Take

Confusion is growing about the use of "bring" and "take". And no wonder. I was watching Hide and Seek last night. The actors consistently misused "bring" when they meant "take". They were in the country, talking about returning to New York with the character played by Dakota Fanning. So, the woman wanted to "take" the child back--except she said "bring". The father suggested waiting two weeks to see if there was improvement and if not, he would "bring" her back (from where they were). No, no, no! If I am HERE, I take something THERE. If I am in San Diego and you are visiting Paris, however, I might ask you to bring me back some perfume (Chanel No. 5, preferably). Bring it here. Take it there. That's the shorthand to remember.

Text with Pictures

A ramble through the art museums this week reminded me of an urge I experienced at one time to create a series of paintings with accompanying text. I don't recall if the picture was to illustrate the text or the text to explain the picture. Either way, this notion now feels to me fundamentally wrong. I'm thinking that if a picture needs a verbal description to be understood, then the artist has failed, but it doesn't seem so much that the reverse is true. Why is this? An illustration can illuminate, deepen, clarify. Does this mean the writer has failed? Maybe. When an artist takes inspiration from text, though, is it reasonable to expect the resulting art to be a "readable" message all by itself ... or, if you will, just pleasing to view without needing to know the passage that prompted it? Am I a victim of my own fuzzy thinking?

Write Boring Science Lit

From: How to write Consistently Boring Scientific Literature

Table 1. Top-10 list of recommendations for writing consistently
boring publications.


Avoid focus

Avoid originality and personality

Write l o n g contributions

Remove implications and speculations

Leave out illustrations

Omit necessary steps of reasoning

Use many abbreviations and terms

Suppress humor and flowery language

Degrade biology to statistics

Quote numerous papers for trivial statements

The previous quotation is from a paper or article by Kaj Sand-Jensen of the Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Univ. of Copenhagen, Denmark. I wasn't quite sure if it is a serious academic piece or meant to be a humorous send-up of serious academic literature. It hauntingly reminded me of working on the thesis for my M.A. Otherwise, I think Sand-Jensen's points are well-taken directions for any nonfiction writing, especially anything meant to persuade others or to support a point of view (like op-ed articles, letters to the editor and personal essays).

Habits to Prevent Writer's Block

Not to become obsessive/compulsive, but developing little rituals or habits surrounding starting to write can help prevent, and possibly overcome, the kind of Writer's Block in which you sit down to write and nothing comes. In fact, this very type of block can be considered a habit--a bad one. Fortunately, from self-help psychology we've learned that it takes three weeks to develop a bad habit and three weeks to unlearn it by substituting a good one.

What kind of habit to develop? It doesn't really matter, as long as you practice it consistently, every time you attempt to write. Some people like to light candles or incense, play certain music, clean and arrange a desktop, assure an ergonomically correct posture, even to blog as a way of priming the pump, so to speak. For others the simple procedures of starting their computers, opening a word processing program and finding or setting up the right file can do the trick.

When I write by hand, I MUST have a certain kind of ink pen (black Uni-ball Micropoint, if you're interested), unless I'm writing poetry. Then I need a sharp pencil, with or without a functioning eraser. And I prefer being curled up on my couch with a full-size composition-style notebook. And lots of tea to drink. It's as if these signals tell my mind, "O.K., you're ready to write creatively."

This procedure of developing a set of habits to foster writing works best if first attempted when you aren't suffering from a block. Otherwise, you risk associating them with failure. Start with several elements. When you feel them firmly in place, you can begin to reducing the number gradually, one at a time, until maybe you need only one activity or object to induce the desired result.

More U.S. Copyright Fees

From the U.S. Copyright Office - Fee Adjustments: 2007:

Sometime between October 1, 2007, and January 1, 2008: The Office will charge a fee for contents titles listed on an application for a collection, for example, for the titles of songs contained on an album. The Office will include these titles in its public registration records to make them more comprehensive and more useful to those who search the records. A fee will be charged for each title: $1 for each contents title in an electronic filing: $3 for each contents title on a paper application.

So, while they've lowered the rate to register from $45 to $35 if you register electronically, they've added more fees for those who register collections. Pity the poor poets and song writers!

Playtime @ Blogger

Just too much! Blogger Play

Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click "show info" to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

Leave it to Google to find yet another way to addict us to their products ... oh, look! And that one!

Get Books in Barnes & Noble

One of the many myths about self-publishing is that if you pursue that course, you can't get your book carried by major stores like Barnes & Noble. Let's see what Marcella Smith, Small Press Business Manager, Barnes & Noble says:

The process for contacting Barnes & Noble for our decision about whether or not we want to distribute the book into our stores is pretty straightforward and pretty simple. All you need to do is send a copy of the finished book to us along with a cover letter letting us know how you're going to promote the title, what you're marketing and publishing plans are, when you plan to publish the book and what your credentials are for writing it.

Sounds simple enough. You might also consult the book store's online help desk's Publisher and Author Guidelines and the details about Submitting Content for a heads-up on what is involved if B&N accepts your book.

Newspapers' Failures Online

Pity the poor papers! With more people than ever claiming to receive their daily news via the Internet, is it any wonder the papers have gone online and experimented with every available electronic gimmick? Some are successful, although the last bastions of subscription-only services are falling soon with the NY Times and Wall Street Journal opening up. For an online look at online flops by papers, read this special article at the Editor and Publisher website.

I like the attitude shown by one paper's editor:

Still, veteran Web spinners such as Jim Brady, washingtonpost.com's executive editor, understand the need for online operators to hit some snags and stumbles if they truly want to succeed. "Failure isn't to be feared on the Web, it is to be embraced," he says. "If you are not failing, you are not stretching as much."

It's a good example for today's celebration of Positive Thinking Day!

Perfect Pitch Calls for Writers

Some time ago I wrote about pitches replacing press releases, but here's a new twist: making your pitch by phone. I found some tips for the successful execution of pitch calls on the Your Communications Plan page of the Communications Consortium Media Center. They explain that "The purpose of a pitch call to a reporter, editor or producer is to propose a story idea, an interview or coverage of an event." This could be a promotional tactic for your new book, CD, course or class, or writing service. For a successful pitch call, the CCMC recommends (in more detail):

* Be succinct and persuasive.

* Make your calls in the morning.

* Follow up with written information.

* Use pitch calls to build relationships.

I'd suggest that even if your pitch is turned down, follow up with a written thank you note and include your business card. The thank you will get attention, and the card may get you business or promotion eventually.

Remembering 9/11

Reading for Writer's Block

Not to develop a writer's block, but to get around one. And I am not necessarily suggesting reading about it, although much material is available from Amazon about writer's block! In general, reading can help with several different kinds of literary constipation. Take my friend Susie, for example. She was having problems starting to write a mystery novel. Part of the story involved a New Age healer who used crystals.

"Do you know anything about the topic?" I asked.

"Just that it exists," she confessed.

Suse is lucky enough to be able to buy any book she wants, so we browsed through a big box book store and found a perfect reference on the topic. She probably could have found something similar in the public library. Later Susie said that reading about the different types of crystals, especially their uses, gave her several plot points and got her out of the writing slump.

Let's look at what really happened: reading something related to what she was writing about fulfilled two functions to ease her writer's block. First it filled a knowledge gap she hadn't realized was holding her back. Secondly, it provided sparks of inspiration that ignited her zest for writing again.

Read around the block.

Nice Matters

"This award is for those bloggers who are nice people; good blog friends and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world. Once you've been awarded please pass it on to 7 others who you feel are deserving of this award."

Mine came from Missy who scribbles about The Incurable Disease of Writing.

And I am sending it out to these bloggers who have supported me with my incurable disease of breast cancer: Bhaswati, who is At Home, Writing in India; Paula in California at The Writing Show; a funny lady in Florida, Bonnie Boots; Damian McNicholl, author and blogger; Mark Leslie; Beth Allen II; and Troy Worman at OrbitNow. Nice people, all.

And then there is my support system via phone and email: Maryam in Iran; Eileen in Illinois; Epp; Kay; Elizabeth in the U.K.; Faye, Jennifer, Kim, Beth and Charlene in Ohio; Barbara in Guam; Larry, Sam, Noel, and Karen here; Lisa in New Mexico; and dear departed Dona, who lost her struggle with this illness.

The Internet is full of nice people whom I also feel deserve this award. Like fellow writer/editor Lillie Ammann; Matt Keegan, The Article Writer; Phil Gerbyshak, cat herder at 100 Bloggers; and ProBlogger Darren Rouse who ran Blogger Idol, through which I met many other nice bloggers.

I'm sure I've left out others who have been just as nice to me through the years. Please don't feel bad if you're one of them--just remind me!

Overheard Lines

Things actual people actually said somewhere, captured by an eavesdropping playwright in San Francisco (or his spying friends):

Girl: "So do you think that crawfish are just baby lobsters?"
Boy: "What? No. They have two different names."
Girl: "Well, tadpoles are baby frogs ... how do you explain that!"

From Overheard Lines

Writing Op-eds & Letters to the Editor

The media center at the Communications Consortium website has a hot page on Op-eds & Letters to the Editor. This is a popular area with which to begin a nonfiction and freelance writing career. To define:

Letters to the editor allow you to offer a short rebuttal to an article or commentary, or add a crucial missing perspective. Most letters should be 150-250 words. ...
An op-ed is a column or guest essay published in the opinion section of a newspaper (Opposite the Editorial page). Most are between 500-750 words, and most outlets will take submissions by fax, e-mail or mail.

Although the piece is geared toward organizations, the tips about keeping your writing short, factual, and on-topic apply to anyone submitting such works.

Best of all, perhaps, is a chart of details on how to submit an op-ed or letter to the editor in more than a hundred of the largest circulation papers in the U.S. In the chart are addresses; fax/phone numbers; and hot links to email addresses, editors and the papers' websites. Need I point out that many of these publications will have book review sections and accept news releases on other writing-related topics?

Successful Writers Radio Interviews

Lorilyn Bailey, creator of GuestFinder, an Internet-based directory of more than 200 authors, experts, spokespersons, and entertainers who are available for radio, TV, and newspaper interviews, has posted Tips for Successful Radio Interviews. Bailey covers what to do in advance of a telephone interview, on the day of it, and during the broadcast/recording. These include:

* providing questions
* practice, practice, practice
* clear your work space
* turn off the computer
* don't say "umm"
* offer useful information

The article is so comprehensive on this subject that I think I'll add it to the Free Articles on my Writing Help page. More and more writers are filling the airwaves with interview, talks, seminars by radio, Internet broadcasting and podcasting. We all need to know how to perform at our best during these opportunities.

Screenwriter Movie

If you have a broadband Internet connection, you've got to see The Screenwriter Movie from Sceneplay (it also requires Flash). This is one of the most soothing, best-constructed videos on creativity that I've ever seen for free. Sure, it's a tease to get you to visit a commercial website, Sceneplay.net, but it's a subtle tease. Palatable. Be sure to turn on your speakers, because the soundtrack is lovely. Beware, too ... it may expand your mind a bit. The parent website offers a free newsletter that boasts "SceneZine is the only regular publication focused exclusively on the basic building block of great scripts."

Specialize for Freelance Success

At conferences, panels of experienced writers are often asked, "If you have just one piece of advice to give beginning writers, what is it?" I think mine would be: specialize. I wish someone had told me that when I was starting out; however, it would have been somewhat like the advice rendered in the movie The Graduate: ("plastics") a gamble. At that time, it paid to be a utility writer, capable of covering any topic. Who knew the field would become so crowded (thanks to the Watergate scandal which glorified writing as a career).

One reason I suggest that specialization leads to success is that freelance writers must have high production rates. If you already have the knowledge base on a particular subject, you are far ahead in the research department. Every time you write about your topic, you don't have to learn about the background or the history of it. You save that time to focus on extending your knowledge, keeping up with the far edges of the field. The time saved means you can write your pieces faster and get out more of them than you would if you had to repeat in-depth research for each one.

Another reason to specialize is to become an expert by way of a body of published work. This applies to fiction writers as well as journalists. Once you're considered an expert, more income opportunities open up. Public speaking and other types of appearances, teaching, publishing books and subsidiary materials, consulting, testimony as an expert witness--these are just a few that come to mind.

Specialization is also the way the publishing world operates at this time. Think of all the stress on niche on the web, in magazines and ezines. Carve out a corner of the world, we're told, and make it your own. Instead of versatility in jumping from one subject to another as a writer, the skills required now are dancing among the various media in this transition phase between the all paper world and the (maybe) all electronic one to come. Competition is horrendous. Make yourself the "go to guy", dependable, reliable and knowledgeable in one area that you can mine for success. I'd suggest something in science, but you have to please yourself, too. Your specialty will become part of your identity, so you'd better enjoy it.

Jump Over a Writer's Block

Having promised to write about Writer's Block weekly, I think I've fallen down on the job. I wasn't blocked, honest! If you aren't completely blocked, write the parts you know first.

Then jump ahead in your story or novel and write a scene you know will take place. You might even write the ending. There's no rule that says your writing m