Business Archives - Page 7 of 12 - Writing As A Second Career

6 Things You Can Do With Short Stories

When I read fiction, it’s almost always novels, which is probably why that’s what I tend to write.

But in the early 2000s I attended a writer’s retreat where the instructor insisted we write a 3-5 page short story each night and exchange them the next day.

Something about the page limit worked for me. Those stories were the first fiction I got published. One was included in the first episode of an Internet radio show, Parade of Phantoms, where the producer read horror stories. (These days it would probably be a podcast.)

Since then, I’ve only written short stories here and there, but I may change that.

At the recent Master Business Workshop in Oregon, there was an entire panel discussion on what you can do with short stories to enhance your fiction writing career.

Here are the suggestions I thought most helpful:

Post regularly on your website

One author posts one short story per month on his website.

Having fresh content each month keeps the website ranking higher. It also gives his fans a reason to return to the site. Finally, it draws new readers to the site who may then check out his other work.

As he’s posting the story, he also puts it for sale on Amazon for $2.99. He said that some readers start the story on the site but then buy it because they’d rather read on their Kindles than on screen.

Tie it to your novels

If you write a series, a short story about one of the series characters can be a tie in to the novels. It’s a good entry point for new readers. It also is a sort of reward for fans who want more about those characters and don’t want to wait for the next novel.

You can publish these short stories yourself in ebook format or you can submit them to magazines and perhaps draw in those readers.

Give it to Patreon supporters or email list subscribers

A short story that’s exclusive to people who donate to you on Patreon (if you’re not familiar with Patreon, here’s how it works) or who subscribe to your email list rewards them for their support and encourages others to sign up.

Another option is to offer it first to your supporters for a week or month and then offer it for sale as an ebook or submit it to magazines.

Submit it to an anthology or include it in a bundle

Publishers put together anthologies on certain themes. Some look for new stories, so you can submit to those. Others look for already published stories, so it’s a way you can earn money or publicity a second time if you’ve already had the story published.

Many indie authors put together anthologies, also called bundles. You can look for another author who is doing so or you can take initiative and create a bundle yourself.

(Bundle Rabbit is one platform that allows authors to create bundles of novels or short stories.)

Option It For Film Or Other Formats

Many movies have been based on short stories, such as Breakfast At Tiffany’s (short story by Truman Capote), Total Recall (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick) and, more recently, Arrival (Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang).

Short stories also can be adapted into plays or short films.

You generally need your story to be selling well (or at least for your work as a whole to be well known) before anyone who can pay you for an option will be interested.

But even if you get paid little, any adaptation can be helpful for publicity and can be a learning experience.

A few years back someone I knew in high school was making his first short film and asked if I had any short stories that might work. I sent him a few, and he made a film, which he called Willis Tower, of my short story The Tower Formerly Known As Sears.

I learned a lot from his interpretation and also from seeing what the actors did with my characters. While the film didn’t get distributed, a couple newspaper articles wrote about it when he submitted it to film festivals. It’s also a nice credit for my author bio.

Submit it to traditional magazine markets

I put this last because it’s the option most of us are familiar with. At the conference, though, hosts Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch made some points about this option that are worth repeating.

Start with the big markets that pay well, as it’s the best publicity you’ll ever get for your work
As you wait for a response, and it may be a long wait, you are free to submit another story to that same publication
If the story isn’t rejected, keep trying additional markets
If you do sell it to a magazine, you typically are only selling the right to print it first, so you can then use the story in any or all of the other ways listed above

Have you written short stories? Feel free to share your experience in the comments.

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Rockets, Romance, And Marketing Cross-Genre Books

One reason a lot of writers love publishing their own work is that it need not fit nearly into one box.

My Awakening Series, for example, fits into Horror as that category existed when I was growing up. Back then it included what I think of as “quiet horror”–like Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (my favorite King novel) or The Omen. (In case you’re trying to figure out how old I am based on that, I’ll tell you–51.)

Yes, The Omen had some scenes considered shocking at the time and a little bit of gore, but it mainly relied on psychological and supernatural suspense.

These days, some publishers wouldn’t consider that to be horror. As an independently-published writer, though, I can choose to write books like it, and I can market to readers who love what I love regardless what it’s called.

Some writers also are drawn to indie publishing because it allows them to cross genres in the same book.

Indies are free, for example, to include romance in science fiction or add a supernatural element to crime fiction (such as J. F. Penn does in her London psychic/London crime thriller series, which is my favorite of hers).

Traditional publishing tended to frown on these types of books, finding them hard to market.

In some ways, though, things haven’t changed. Indie or traditional, it can be a challenge to market books that don’t fit neatly into a genre category.

That’s why this week I’m recommending an episode of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast that specifically addresses marketing a book that falls in more than one genre.

In A Successful Cross-Genre Launch with Chris Fox, author Chris Fox is interviewed about creating covers that hint at more than one genre but aren’t overbusy, how to use Amazon Ads to test tag lines pre-launch, and reader reactions to cross-genre books, plus many other points to help writers market their work.

In keeping with the theme, I recommend this podcast episode whether you write science fiction and/or fantasy or not because the tips and information are relevant to everyone.

SFFMP 156: Finding Success with a Cross-Genre Book Launch with Chris Fox

Until Sunday-

L. M. Lilly

Meeting With Yourself Can Help Your Writing

A few Sundays ago I wrote about the importance of play to your writing.

This Sunday I’m suggesting you add 10-20 minutes of structured time to your schedule each week. Why? It can save you time by freeing more minutes and hours to write, do whatever else you need to do, and relax.

Cool sculpture in Chicago’s main Chase Bank branch where I sometimes meet with myself. It has a lovely sitting area.

The 10-20 minutes is for meeting with yourself to plan your week and intentionally choose what tasks to do to reach your goals.

I wish I had done this in my solo law practice. Having come from a large firm environment that was very structured, I used to joke when I was my own boss about meetings.

I’d say I met with my management committee, meaning me, and approved the number of hours I’d worked or the amount of business I’d brought in or my budget expenditures.

The joke was on me.

Had I had a few meetings with myself, I might have realized I was recreating in my solo law practice what I’d left Big Law to avoid.

I was working long hours, including every weekend, and always felt I had too little time to write or do anything outside of work.

So how does this apply to writing?

Having learned from my mistakes, late every Friday afternoon, I now leave my home office and go to a cafe for tea or a restaurant or bar for a glass of wine.

I look at my calendar and To Do lists, schedule my writing hours, and schedule the hours I’ll devote to business.

I also note what tasks I’ll do.

For writing, that means which specific project I’ll focus on. For business, it means choosing whether I’ll be catching up bookkeeping, scheduling promotions, updating my author Facebook page, etc. Depending how busy I am (and on how much I’m enjoying the wine), this takes about 10-20 minutes.

Holding these meetings saves time.

That’s because rather than spending 5 minutes deciding what to work on every time I sit down to write or devote time to my business, I made these decisions once.

It also saves time by keeping me on track with what I want to accomplish. When I’m choosing tasks, I ask myself if the task is necessary and whether it’ll move me toward one of my main goals. If not, I cross if off the list.

When I’m deciding what writing project to start or finish, I ask how it fits with my overall plan. If it doesn’t, I can change course before devoting hours and hours.

Big picture, meeting with yourself ensures you won’t spend time on unnecessary tasks that don’t actually accomplish anything. (Such as checking your sales dashboard on Amazon five times a day, which feels business related, but doesn’t move you toward any goal. Not that I have ever done that.)

It also keeps you from staring at a blank page, uncertain what to write next.

(This used to be my favorite Starbucks to work at, but now it’s all high top tables, which I don’t like. Sigh.)

What about spontaneity?

You can have that even if you meet and plan.

One way is to list an alternate task if you really really are dragging your feet on something. Rather than fight how you feel, you can switch to something else. (And next time you meet, ask if you really need or want to do that task you avoided.)

Also, especially if you’re working at another career or profession, you can build in flexibility.

Your plan for the week can be your best case scenario. If you have a week that’s reasonable at your other career, you’ll spend all the time you scheduled on your writing.

Favorite outdoor meeting spot at a different Starbucks.

If it’s busier than usual, you’ll spend less time on your writing, but it’ll probably still be more than if you had no plan at all.

What’s really nice is as you get better at scheduling, once you accomplish what you set out to do for the week, you are done. It’s time to relax and watch that movie, go out to dinner, or just do nothing without that nagging voice in your head telling you that you “should” be writing.

Sunday is a great day to assess the coming week, so why not try this out today?

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Getting The Most From A Long Writers Conference

Today I’m headed home from an 8-day writers conference.

At a conference, unlike a retreat, it’s not about taking time away from your day-to-day life to write as much as you can or to hone in on a particular creative project.

Instead, it’s about taking in information and meeting other writers. Participants usually attend lectures and panel discussions led by experts.

At the one I just finished, we attended talks or presentations from 11-1, 3-6, and 8-9:30. Five out of 8 days included 2-hour lunches at tables of 8 or 9 people led by one of the panelists. Each night there were free form late night discussions.

Three things to remember to get the most out of a busy conference (and leave without getting sick or losing your mind):

(1) Know yourself

(2) Set your goals

(3) Get outside

Know Yourself

Faced with a conference full of experts as well as tons of other people with whom you share a love of writing, it’s tempting to spend every waking hour learning or interacting with others.

This is why you need to know yourself.

Nightime view of beach – not that’s not a snake.

If you’re a high energy person who likes to be in motion from the instant you wake up until the second your head hits the pillow, you will likely be fine attending each event and chatting with people on every break. You may want to arrange more times to interact during unscheduled hours or to visit local stores or attractions.

On the other hand, if you’re someone who prefers to spend some time alone each day or needs quiet to recharge and take in what you’ve learned, pick a few sessions or events you wouldn’t be too disappointed to miss if you find you need to step away.

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, leave some downtime. Otherwise, you’ll have trouble focusing during the day or sleeping at night.

It’s also good to pick up snacks (or groceries if where you’re staying has a kitchenette). That way if you need some quiet but don’t want to miss any formal sessions, you can eat a meal or two in your room.

At this conference, I attended every talk or panel and each lunch.

But I am not a night person, which was exaggerated by being in a different time zone. So I skipped the late night discussions, though I did meet once for breakfast with other attendees.

Set Goals

Learning every fact and figure, trying every recommended strategy, and shaking every hand is rarely effective. Too much information can be overwhelming. Also, after you’ve met the tenth or twelfth person, it’s hard to remember who was whom.

Instead, before the conference, pick 2-5 people you’d really like to meet and have a conversation with. That’s often more valuable than coming home with a long list of names.

(The photo above is not my favorite of me, but Joanna Penn is one of the people I really wanted to chat with. I love her podcast The Creative Penn, and I also love her fiction under J.F. Penn, especially her London Crime Thrillers, which include a hint of the supernatural.)

Similarly, while I take notes on each session, I figure out in advance what I’m most hoping to learn. It’s not that I don’t pay attention to the rest, but the 2 or 3 main areas help me organize my thoughts and my notes.

This time I wanted to figure out my 2-3 major goals for next year. I got started on that. I also realized I need a solid 5-year plan.

Get Outside

Sitting in a conference room, lecture hall, or classroom all day makes you tired no matter how much sleep you get or what your natural energy level is.

Getting outside, ideally for a walk, gets your heart pumping and makes you more alert and happier.

Checking out new surroundings is also good for your brain. So no matter how engaging the materials or how many people you want to meet, spend a little time outdoors.

What are your tips for getting the most out of a conference or other educational opportunity?

Let me know in the comments.

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Marketing Your Novel: Wide vs. Exclusive

This week I’m at a conference for writers on business and marketing. More on that in coming weeks. (We’ve been asked not to blog about it until the end.)

Because I’ve been so focused on marketing, this Friday I’m recommending A Tale of Two Marketing Systems, one of the best articles I’ve read on the difference between selling your books wide–meaning on multiple platforms such as Kobo, iBooks, Nook, etc.–and selling them exclusively through Amazon.

Being exclusive to Amazon offers benefits, including putting your ebooks into Kindle Unlimited. People then read the books as part of their subscription. The author gets paid per page.

The rate varies, but it can adds an income stream. My non-fiction book Super Simple Story Structure: A Quick Guide to Plotting and Writing Your Novel is in KU. Every month anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of its earnings are from page reads.

Probably more important, in my view, is that the subscription model makes readers more likely to take a chance on a new book or author because it doesn’t cost them any more.

Going wide, though, also has advantages.

Here are just a few:

You reach readers who don’t read on Kindle;
As I wrote about in Boosting International Sales Of Your Books, you reach more readers in other countries;
You have multiple income streams from multiple platforms, so a change to how one of them pays, sells, or markets doesn’t affect you as much.

Also, while a percentage of my income now comes from KU, I don’t know if I’d earn more or less if I instead made those books widely available.

Some authors-in fact, most authors I’ve talked with–are adamant about the pluses or minuses of wide or exclusive. That’s why I like Gaughran’s post so much.

Rather than advocating for one or the other, Gaughran analyzes the different marketing strategies that work best for each. He compares the KU approach to the hare and the wide approach to the tortoise.

My two biggest takeaways were:

The way to succeed is completely different depending on whether you are wide or exclusive;
Choose one or the other, but don’t try to mix both.

That second point raises some questions for me, as right now I’m mixing both. My Awakening series is wide, and my standalone novel, short story collection, and all my non-fiction books are in KU.

Based on the article, I’m thinking I might make all my fiction wide. If I do, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

Negotiating Rights And Learning From Old School Publishing

This Friday I’m recommending two blog posts by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, editor, and publisher. I came across both because I’m heading to a conference focused on the business aspects of being an author, and she’s one of the presenters.

Her blog contains a wealth of information for authors.

For example, in Business Musings: Pulphouse, Alternate His tory, & the Modern Era, Rusch talks about launching a quarterly hardback magazine with her husband in the pre-Internet, pre-ebook days when publishers had to pay for print runs and sell mainly through book sellers.

She covers what worked well–such as creating an Issue Zero with a striking cover and blank pages to send to authors when asking them to submit stories–and the many, many mistakes made.

One mistake involved not having a plan to deal with the 90-120 day lag time between paying for the costs to publish and collecting revenue. Another was underpricing the publication.

While much has changed in the publishing world since then, Rusch shows how the lessons learned apply to authors today.

In Business Musings: My Day in Negotiation, Rusch discusses negotiating rights, including for television deals, and why she prefers to do so herself rather than relying on an agent.

If, like me, you think it’ll be quite a long time, if ever, before you’ll need to deal with offers for movie or television rights, this is the right time to read the advice.

In fact, it’s probably the best time because you can consider it and learn more before you’re in the middle of a discussion. Plus, when there’s an offer on the table, it can be hard to get past your excitement and be objective about the terms of the deal.

Business Musings: My Day in Negotiation

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

Boosting International Sales Of Your Books

It’s easy to focus on marketing and selling your books mainly in the country where you live, especially for those of us who grew up when print ruled the world and it was hard to buy books from another country.

These days, though, many authors make a significant portion of their sales from readers who live in countries other than their own.

As this article from BookBub explains, there’s a lot you can do to increase international exposure of your work. First, be sure to make your work available on the platforms popular in the countries you hope to reach. For instance, Kobo is the most popular e-reader in Canada, so if you publish only on Kindle, you’re missing a lot of readers.

Another is to target your advertising to particular countries.

Just yesterday, I placed my first Facebook ad for the 4-book Box Set for my Awakening supernatural thriller series. I decided to try targeting readers in Canada who like Dean Koontz and similar authors and who listed interests that included e-readers, Kobo, or reading. It’s too early to say how it’s going, but my readership in Canada has been growing, so I figured it was a good way to start my ads.

For more on growing your international sales, check out the BookBub article:

How to Market Your Book to Get Worldwide Exposure

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

Author Beware

If you’re publishing your own work or planning to, there are companies and individuals out there looking to make money off of you.

That’s not necessarily bad. Professional cover designers and editors, for instance, provide a valuable service that authors should expect to pay for.

Unfortunately, though, some individuals and companies offer services at prices far higher than their value, make promises they can’t keep, or are out-and-out scamming authors.

That’s why this Friday I’m recommending two sites to check when you’re contemplating spending money on publishing, David Gaughran’s website and the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Self-Publishing Advice Centre.

The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) provides advice on writing, marketing, book rights and contracts, book design and formatting, and more.

You can use the Search function on the self-publishing advice page to search for a particular company or type of service, or you can click on a specific topic to scroll through information. (You can also search on the specific topic pages.) You don’t need to be a member to read any of this information.

David Gaughran also regularly writes about topics to help indie/self-published authors succeed. Recent topics include improving results with ads on Amazon, scammers in the Kindle store, and the importance of making sure your book is exclusive to Kindle Unlimited if you participate in that program.

He also exposes services that are bad deals for authors. As with ALLi, you can use the search function on his site to see if he’s written about a company or service you’re considering paying.

Have you found a site that’s particularly helpful in calling out services, individuals, or companies that may be taking advantage of indie authors? If so, please share it in the comments.

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

Where Does The Time Go: Tracking Time And Your Writing Life

As I talked about last Sunday in Will Eating The Frogs First Help You Write More?, it’s easy for time to get away from you, especially if you’re working full time (or more) in another job or profession, raising children, and/or have other significant life responsibilities. Even in a slow week, whatever time you thought you’d have to write can melt away.

So how do you hang on to that time so you can use it?

First, you need to figure out where your time–all of it–is really going. Then you can choose how you want to spend it.

Tracking Your Time

You already know the large tasks and responsibilities. It’s the 10 minutes here or half hour there that’s unaccounted for. It might not seem like much over the course of a morning or a day. But over a week or a month it adds up.

It’s easy to track to your time. Some people use spreadsheets or apps or special programs, but all you really need is a piece of paper or a screen (on your phone or computer).

Write down or type today’s date and the time. Yes, right now. Now write what you’re doing. A short description, like “read blog.” When you finish, you’ll write the time again, note the next thing you’re doing, and when you finish that. And so on for the next week.

One day might look like this:

If you have kids, or you work longer hours, or you’re caring for an ill relative, you’ll probably have more entries, but you get the idea.

If this sounds like a lot of trouble, remember, it’ll pay off. Because once you know what you’re doing with your time, you can make choices.

Adding And Evaluating

At the end of the week, group your tasks into categories and add up how much time you spend on each one.

Look for these things:

Tasks you could spend less time on by being more efficient
Activities you could skip
Tasks you can group together
Time spent unintentionally

Spending Less Time

Tasks you can spend less time on each week are ones that could be done more efficiently another way without harming your life. For example, if you can take a train to work rather than driving, you might free 40 minutes a day for writing while you commute.

If you spend an hour and a half a week driving to and from the grocery store and shopping, you might be able to free half that time by shopping on line and having the groceries delivered.

If you watch news 30 minutes a night to keep up with current events, look for a website that provides highlights you can read in 10 minutes a day. That saves 2 hours and 20 minutes a week. Which means you could write for 2 hours and still have an extra 20 minutes one day if you want to read a news story in depth.

Skipping Time

You’ll probably find some activities you don’t really need to do. Maybe you went on-line to pay bills, which should have taken 10 minutes, but spent another 20 scrolling through social media sites or articles. Or you watch more TV than you realized.

Whatever those activities are, consider each one. All of us need time to wind down and relax, and if those activities help you do that, you don’t want to cut them completely.

But be sure whatever it is actually helps you relax. Does reading social media posts help you unwind or make you angry? Does watching a talk show before you go to bed help ease you toward sleep or get you thinking too much about world events, kicking your brain into high gear?

If it is quality relaxation time, consider cutting it by half for week so you can write and seeing how you feel. You might find that works out fine. If not, you can experiment and adjust.

If the activity isn’t helping you relax, cut it completely and write instead.

Grouping Tasks

When we switch from one task to another, we lose time. We spend a few minutes figuring out what to do next, putting together what we need for that task or getting ourselves situated for it, and adjusting our mental state.

By grouping similar tasks, you can cut that time without losing out on anything you want or need to do.

For example, once a week I take out my calendar, my general To Do lists, and my list of monthly goals and I write a rough schedule for each day of the following week. It takes me about 15 minutes a week but saves me about 15 minutes a day.

Similarly, if I need to shop on-line, I try to cover all my shopping for the next week or two in one 30-minute session. I visit Peapod to buy groceries and Amazon for things like office supplies, bird food, soap, etc.

If I’m working on a legal matter (which is rare, as I don’t take a lot of legal work anymore), I set aside an entire morning to research, write, and make phone calls on the same case. That way I get my file materials and shift my brain into lawyer mode once that week, rather than shifting constantly between fiction and law.

Unintentional Time

All of the above should help you spot unintentional time–time on tasks that don’t matter and to which you don’t mean to devote minutes let alone hours.

If you’re talking to or texting with your brother because you want to catch up and care about your relationship or there’s something important to discuss, that’s intentional. If you’re reading emails with links to articles that don’t interest you or answering texts from a friend who doesn’t have enough to do at work and is just passing the time, that’s unintentional.

With each activity, ask yourself if it makes you happy or serves a purpose that matters to you. If not, that’s time you could spend writing instead.

All the examples I gave might or might not be ones you personally can use.

You may never watch news or TV. You may work a much longer day at your office or devote your evenings to your kids, only turning back to your own tasks after they’re in bed. And that’s exactly the point of doing the time audit. It lets you can figure out where your time is going, find whatever pockets there that allow some flexibility, and choose how best to use them.

Even if you find only 30 minutes a week, that’s significant–it’s a little over 2 extra hours a month that you can write. And, as we talked about in Writing A Novel 15 Minutes At A Time, you can get a lot done in a lot less time than that.

Good luck!

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Listening To Jim And Bryan Talk About KOBO And Audiobooks

A while back I wrote about earning additional income from a book you’ve published in ebook format by an creating an audiobook. At the time, the only way indie authors I knew were doing so was through ACX, an Amazon-related company.

The latest option on this front, though, is KOBO. Because for my Awakening series, I entered ACX-exclusive contracts, those books will stay with ACX for seven years each.

If you’re starting out, though, you may want to explore other options, which is why I recommend listening to this week’s Sell More Books Show.

Each episode is always valuable, so I recommend listening to all of it. If you’re short on time, though, and are particularly interested in audiobooks, you could skip to No. 2 of the Top 5 News items. You’ll find it 44:51 minutes into the podcast.

But, again, definitely worth listening to the whole show. It includes Amazon’s efforts to deal with scammers, info on making Amazon Ads pay, and tons of other great tips.

Episode 180 – Kobo Audiobooks, AMS Advice, and Scammer Crackdowns

Until Sunday–