iPhones And The Art Of Writing Simply

Consider this sentence:

In order to make a determination regarding whether negotiations should be entered into at this point in time, an evaluation of benefits and detriments was made.

If your brain turned off after the fourth or fifth word, it’s not because you’re not a lawyer. Or, if you are a lawyer, it’s not because you’re not a smart lawyer.

It’s because it’s a terrible sentence.

Try this one instead:

To decide whether to negotiate now, we weighed the pluses and minuses.

The second sentence says the same thing as the first, but using 12 words instead of 26. And the 12 words are simpler and clearer.

The rule of keeping it simple applies to other types of writing too.

Compare my poorly-written version of a sentence from Joy Fielding’s The Wild Zone (see page 113 of Pocket Books paperback edition) to the real thing:

Mine:

At that very moment, she made an identification of the vehicle as the automobile she’d been followed by the night before, which vehicle she’d made the assumption was owned by the detective who had been hired by her husband.

The real sentence:

She’d recognized the car immediately as the one that had tailed her the night before, the one she’d assumed belonged to a detective hired by her husband.

Why Simple Is Better

In both pairs of examples, the second sentence is easier to understand and more likely to keep the reader’s attention. That matters to me no matter what I’m writing.

In law or for business, I usually write to explain something to someone – whether it’s a client, a colleague or a judge – or to persuade someone to see things my way. It’s harder to do either if I make the reader struggle to understand me or, worse yet, to stay awake. When

I write fiction, obviously I want and need to capture and keep the reader’s attention. Excessive words bog down a story and can bury the even most exciting plot twists and characters.

Simplifying my writing also allows me to cover more ground.

In my law practice, I’m usually bound by a page limit. If my sentences are twice as long as they need to be, that means I can make only half the arguments or must cut some of the examples or cases that support those arguments.

And even if I don’t need my whole page limit, I’d rather send a court or a client a well-written 7-page document than a cumbersome 15-page one. In fiction, clearer, cleaner sentences allow me more space to develop character, advance the plot, or describe the setting.

For these reasons, over half my writing time is spent cutting. (I’m not alone in this – the saying “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” has been attributed to many people, including Voltaire and Mark Twain.)

Writing more simply sounds, well, simple, and it is when comparing two sentences the way I did above.

Looking at an entire manuscript, though, can be daunting. So I’ve tried to break down some points I look for when editing.

  • Get rid of words you don’t need:

Lawyers in particular love unnecessary words, I suspect because we spent a lot of money to go to law school and we want to sound like it.

“Attached hereto is the aforementioned contract” sounds like something a lawyer would write. On the other hand, “the contract is attached” is just plain English.

One place to spot words you can cut is in prepositional phrases.

In the sample sentences, I changed “in order to” to “to.” Similarly, “at this point in time” became “now” and “at that very moment” changed to “immediately.”

Using the Find function in Word to search for prepositions, especially “of,” “at” and “to,” is a great way to discover phrases you can simplify. Read each phrase and ask yourself how you might say it in one word or, at most, two.

  • Don’t just be — do:

Another way to make writing sharper is to write in active rather than passive voice.

Active voice: “her husband hired a detective.”

Passive voice: “A detective was hired by her husband.”

“We evaluated” (active); “an evaluation was made” (passive).

Active voice shortens sentences and makes them easier to read and understand. It also keeps the focus on the actor.

If you won an award or a race, don’t you want people to know you won it? And be excited about it? “I won the race” sounds a lot more exciting than “A race was won” or even “A race was won by me.”

Of course, sometimes you want to be anonymous. In his 1987 State of the Union speech, President Reagan didn’t say he’d made mistakes regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, he said “serious mistakes were made….” Who made them? Perhaps no one will focus on that.

Another time for passive voice is when you use it to emphasize the object of the sentence.

For instance, if you and your friend have loved every book that won an Edgar Award, and you want to persuade your friend to read a particular writer, you might say, “An Edgar Award was won by this writer.” The point is “wow, an Edgar Award, that writer must be amazing.”

Yet another reason to use passive voice is when you don’t know who performed an action: “A tower had been built in the village” might be the only way you can frame a sentence if you don’t know who built the tower.

Short of a good reason to use passive voice, however, phrase all your sentences in active voice and see how much more compelling it makes your writing. You can find passive voice by searching for the “to be” words — was, were, is, are. The word “by” also often signals passive voice (think “was followed by” or “was loved by” or “was won by”.

  • Trade nouns for verbs:

I also look for instances where I can substitute a verb for what I think of as a noun phrase. (English teachers or editors out there may know the technical term for what I mean.)

The phrase “enter into negotiations” is an example of what I call a noun phrase – it uses the noun “negotiations” as part of a phrase that conveys an action. But one verb – negotiate – can say the same thing.

Similarly, above, the verb “assumed” replaced the noun phrase “made the assumption.”

As with minimizing passive voice, this type of editing not only eliminates words, it makes the sentences more active and interesting.

While doing this, you can replace a noun not only with a verb, but with a stronger verb or a verb that’s more commonly used or easier to read.

“I talked with Beth” flows better than “I had a conversation with Beth” or even “I conversed with Beth.” Similarly, “I had an argument with Beth,” might become “I fought with Beth.”

  • Trade verbs for better verbs:

Replacing a verb plus an adverb with a stronger verb also helps writing clip along.

A few examples:

  1. Walked swiftly: hurried
  2. Walked casually: strolled
  3. Laughed nervously: tittered

You get the idea.

Find the adverbs by searching “ly”.

Also, even if the “to be” words aren’t part of a phrase that’s in passive voice, consider replacing them with a more interesting verb. “I felt sad” conveys stronger emotion than “I was sad.” “I grieved” sounds even more vivid.

Everything I’ve read about Steve Jobs said he always focused on simplicity in his designs.

I saw this the first time I got an iPhone and compared it to my Blackberry. (Remember those?)

The Blackberry had all kinds of icons for different functions, but after six years I only knew how to do two things on it – call and email. I hesitated to switch to an iPhone because I couldn’t imagine what else I’d do with it.

Within two months of owning one, it had become my daily alarm clock, back up GPS, radio station, oven timer, weather channel, and Internet browser. And, oh yes, I call and email with it.

So borrow a page from Apple’s playbook and don’t clutter your writing with words that take up space and seem too cumbersome to figure out.

Instead, have some fun and write the iPhone version of a legal brief, novel, or business letter.

Until next Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Starting Your Story With A Spark

The first major point of your novel is what I think of as the Story Spark.

It gets the ball rolling.

Your protagonist is going along with normal life as a waitress, a student, a Southern Belle and, bam, something changes.

This also is known as the Inciting Incident.

It could happen on your first page or somewhere in the first few chapters. It needs to happen early, though, because it starts the real story.

What comes before is background or backstory, a glimpse into the character’s normal life and what happened before this conflict occurred or came to a head.

In a movie, the Story Spark typically occurs within the first ten minutes. In a book, it’s often in the first chapter.

The classic example is a murder mystery, where we see a dead body on the first page or at end of the first chapter. As we’ll see, the scene that contains the Story Spark doesn’t need to include the protagonist, though it quite often does. Regardless, without the Spark, there’s no story, and no conflict for our protagonist.

Examples — And Spoilers — Of The Story Spark

WarningThe rest of this article includes spoilers from The Terminator (the first film), Gone With The Wind, and my own first novel The Awakening.

In The Terminator, Sarah Connor in the Climax will fight the Terminator to the death.

The Story Spark occurs in two of the first scenes of the film, when two naked men, one of whom is actually the cyborg we’ll come to know as the Terminator, appear on earth amid lightning. This is important because when we switch to our hero, Sarah, happily cruising on her motor scooter on a sunny California day, we already know there’s conflict on the way.

My very old copy of Gone With The Wind

In Gone With The Wind, though Scarlett is unaware of either at the beginning of the book, the main story will be about her relationship with Rhett Butler and, on a grander scale, about her surviving the Civil War and the death of the pre-war Southern way of life.

The Story Spark occurs when Rhett pops up off the couch, having heard Scarlett’s unladylike declaration of love for Ashley Wilkes, and Ashley’s rejection of her. Rhett laughs, Scarlett throws a vase, and there you have it. The Story Spark for the more sweeping story also occurs at this time. As Rhett and Scarlett spar, the Civil War is declared. Moments later, a blushing beau asks Scarlett to marry him before he goes off to fight.

In The Awakening, the Story Spark occurs on the first page, which is not unusual with a thriller or mystery (see above: dead body on page 1).

Tara’s doctor tells her she’s pregnant, despite that she’s never had sexual intercourse. Her goal when we start the book is to become a doctor. Her plan is to finish college and be admitted to medical school before marrying her boyfriend, having sex, and risking pregnancy. The very moment we see her, in the first paragraph of the novel, she’s encountering the major obstacle:

Tara folded and unfolded the pink referral slip. Her fingers made sweat marks on the paper. “I can’t be pregnant. I haven’t had sex.”

Right off the bat, Tara must deal with the actual turn her life has taken and struggle to explain it to everyone else in her life. That includes her boyfriend, who knows he can’t be the father.

The Tension Before The Spark
  • Gone With The Wind 

In Gone With The Wind, unlike in The Terminator, there are quite a few scenes before the Story Spark.

How does Margaret Mitchell keep readers engaged until then?

Two ways:

(1) As we talked about in Chapter One, conflict occurs on the very first page—the conflict between Scarlett’s nature and the rules imposed upon women in her society.

This actually foreshadows both the major story arcs in the book. We see it again when Mammy insists Scarlett eat before the Wilkes’ barbecue (where she’ll eventually be rejected by Ashley and meet Rhett), so that she’ll eat only tiny morsels there and appear ladylike. Mammy achieves this by playing on what Scarlett wants most—Ashley Wilkes—implying that Ashley prefers dainty, birdlike women.

Seeds are also sown about the Civil War in the very first scene.

Mitchell doesn’t do that by simply telling us war is on the horizon or by giving us a history lesson. Instead, as she weaves in information and descriptions, she frames the prospect of war in a very personal way for our protagonist. Scarlett is talking to twin brothers who both carry a torch for her. She wants to hear about them being thrown out of school (yet another conflict), and they want to talk about war, a subject that bores her. She becomes impatient and insists there won’t be any war.

(2) In that very first scene, Scarlett becomes upset, but hides it, when the twins tell her Ashley is getting engaged to his cousin Melanie. This is yet another conflict that will feed into the larger story arcs.

  • The Awakening
Book 1 in The Awakening Series

In contrast, Tara Spencer’s ordinary, pre-pregnancy life in The Awakening and her goal of becoming a doctor are conveyed not by pages of description or scenes before the Story Spark, but through a debate with her doctor.

The two debate both why Tara can’t be pregnant and how it could possibly have happened. This maintains tension as the reader learns about Tara.

Once again, conflict drives the scene and keeps the reader engaged.

If instead I started with a long description of Tara’s typical day at college or pages of narrative about how she’s the oldest of four and loves her brothers and sisters like crazy, or how hard she works at her job, most readers would stop reading.

  • The Terminator

In The Terminator, tension is maintained a different way.

In the very beginning, there’s a brief voiceover about the machines taking over the world, with short scenes of a grim future with machines and cyborgs hunting humans—emphasis on brief and short. Nothing will kill reader (or viewer) interest faster than a long download of information about the world of the story.

In some fantasy novels, readers have a lot of patience for world building, as that’s part of what fans love about the genre. Even there, however, if you’re a new author it’s best to hook your reader early with compelling personal conflict.

After the voiceover, some conflict occurs in Sarah’s day-to-day life, such as mixing up orders from customers, a child putting a scoop of ice cream in her uniform pocket, and a call from her roommate’s boyfriend.

Some of it is played for humor, as when the boyfriend starts sex talk with Sarah, stammers in embarrassment when she pretends to be shocked and not know who it is, then starts the very same lines when the roommate takes the phone.

But mostly tension and viewer interest is maintained by the scenes that are intercut with Sarah’s mundane troubles.

We see the Terminator pull the list of Sarah Connors from the phone book and murder one of them. We also see Kyle Reese flee from the police, steal clothes and weapons, and start hunting for Sarah. The first time through, we don’t know if he’s on her side or is another bad guy after her, which adds another story question for which the viewer wants an answer.

Finding The Spark For Your Novel

Now to your novel. Think about your protagonist’s main goal, the one that will take the entire novel to reach (or clearly fail to reach).

When is the first time something significant happens that blocks that goal and starts the story?

Does your protagonist encounter this obstacle on page one? If not, why not?

Even if you don’t plan to do it, brainstorm some ways you could rearrange your plot to get that obstacle onto page one.

If you’re picturing your Story Spark occurring a bit later, what else does your protagonist want on the first page, and what stands in the way? (This creates the conflict you need to keep reader attention until the Story Spark occurs.)

Odds are in your first draft, you’ll start too early, that is, you’ll start too long before the Story Spark.

Don’t worry about it.

After you finish the draft and let it sit for a while, it’ll be easier to see which part isn’t necessary and where the story really becomes compelling.

Good luck starting your novel!

Until next Friday–

L.M. Lilly

P.S. For more on the Story Spark and the other key turning points when starting your novel, check out Super Simple Story Structure: A Quick Guide to Plotting and Writing Your Novel.

Figuring Out Your Protagonist’s Goal

Whether readers care about a protagonist almost always rests upon whether they care about that character’s goal.

Your protagonist must have a goal that’s vital to her (or him) and hard to reach so she’ll need to spend the entire novel struggling to achieve it.

Ask yourself: Where does your protagonist desperately want or need to be by the end of the novel?

Not only must your protagonist have a goal, she needs strong reasons for wanting or needing to achieve it. Otherwise the story will fall flat.

In short, the protagonist must care.

Heightening The Protagonist’s Motivation

As an example, let’s start with a goal with low stakes that many readers might not identify with.

If my main character’s goal is to get into a summer internship program in Boston at an international company, but she’d be equally happy to live with her parents all summer and work with her friends as a lifeguard at the local pool, the story won’t be compelling.

If she doesn’t care, neither will the reader.

On the other hand, imagine she has the same goal but the following are also true:

  • her student loans are coming due
  • after thirty interviews she hasn’t gotten a single job offer
  • she’s always wanted to live in Boston
  • the internship has a good chance of leading to full-time employment

Now we have a goal she (and the reader) will care about.

If you want to up the stakes, let’s say:

  • her parents both got laid off from their jobs last year
  • they moved to a one-bedroom apartment in a rural area
  • she’s sleeping on the couch and living far from any urban area with the types of jobs that she trained for
  • she can only afford plane tickets to this one last interview

Now we really have a conflict and so a story.

Active v. Passive

To be engaging, your protagonist must strive for her goal.

That doesn’t mean you need a superhero for a main character. In fact, as I talk about in Super Simple Story Structure, in a battle with the antagonist, your protagonist generally should be the underdog.

It does mean your protagonist must do as much as she or he possibly can to move forward within the limits of the world and the character you’ve created.

Goals And The Terminator

WARNING – Spoilers for the first Terminator film below!

In the first half of The Terminator, from an action hero perspective, Sarah Connor is not particularly active. She doesn’t know how to fight or have any special skills or knowledge.

But for who she is and where she is in life, she does everything she can.

When she’s out at a bar and grill and sees a television news report that two women named Sarah Connor have been murdered, she immediately tries to call the police. The payphone, the only option in the 80s for calling when you’re away from home, is broken.

She’s made a big deal about seeing the news report, which might make it obvious she’s worried. So Sarah leaves the bar and grill, blending with a crowd and staying alert.

When she realizes someone is following her, she enters a nightclub, paying a cover charge just to get in and use the payphone. She persists in trying to reach the correct person at the police station despite being transferred all over. She follows the instructions she gets from the police, then follows the instructions of a stranger, Kyle Reese, when he’s able to fend off the Terminator. She also listens to Reese’s explanation despite how crazy it sounds.

In other words, Sarah Connor is the opposite of the idiot in the horror movie who is alone in a strange house at night, hears noises coming from the attic, and heads right up the stairs to have her throat slit.

Writer Heal Thyself

Ironically, though most of the above advice–including The Terminator analysis–came from my own book on story structure, I had trouble in my latest novel with the protagonist’s goal and motivation.

In my early drafts of The Worried Man, a mystery that will be out May 1, 2018, my main character found her boyfriend’s dead body in his apartment. The police suspected suicide or accidental overdose. She and the boyfriend’s son rejected the thought that either had happened, and the protagonist set out to uncover the truth.

These aspects of the book haven’t changed.

But in the early drafts she had met the man a few months before and dated him, but they hadn’t spent much time together. She didn’t meet the son until after the boyfriend died.

While she had a family history that made her identify with the son, it wasn’t clear what that history was.

The feedback from agents I ran the story past and the story editor I worked with was the same:

The main character didn’t have a strong enough reason to investigate the death or to doubt that the police detectives in her city (Chicago) could do a good job.

In the current version, I made these changes:

  • the protagonist and the boyfriend are about to move in together
  • she finds his dead body the night before the move
  • she has a close relationship with the son and just finished renovating her condo to create a sleeping loft for him
  • her mother emotionally abandoned her as a child, and she’s determined the son won’t grow up believing his father did anything that contributed to his own death and left the son without him
  • police investigated her parents for a crime they didn’t commit and never uncovered the truth, so she doesn’t trust the police to do their jobs or to be fair

My first reader of the final version had no idea of the feedback I’d gotten about the lack of motivation. He also didn’t know what changes I’d made in response.

I was very happy–and vastly relieved–when his first comment was how much he identified with the main character and how he completely got why she took the investigation into her own hands.

For the next book in the series, I hope I’ll remember what I learned!

Until next Friday–

L.M. Lilly

P.S. If you’re looking for articles about your goals as a writer or marketer/publisher, try Set A Single Goal (And Stop Managing Your Time) or Hitting Publish: Why Your First Goal Isn’t To Sell Books.

 

What To Include In Your Book Launch Schedule

Once again it’s March and I find myself getting ready for a May book launch.

New Book, New Series, New Genre

Last year I was launching the fourth and final book in my Awakening supernatural thriller series. (You can read more about that in When Working Harder Might Not Be The Answer Part 1 and Part 2 if you like.)

This year I’m launching Book 1 in a new series. I’m also publishing in a new genre–mystery/suspense without any paranormal or supernatural element.

Because I’m seeking new readers as well as trying to reach existing ones, I hope you’ll find my launch plan helpful wherever you are in your career.

As in any business, it’s always more of a challenge to draw in new customers than to sell additional products to existing ones.

Because of that, I felt I needed a more detailed schedule/plan than I had last year.

Feel free to copy and paste any part of my plan and modify it to fit your books.

The tasks to do begin this week, but I created the schedule by working backwards from the May 1 launch date.

What It All Means

A few notes on the reasoning behind certain tasks and on vendors you might not be familiar with:

  • Book Funnel is a service that allows you to easily deliver free ebooks to readers who are reviewing your books or to whom you want to give an ebook for other reasons (such as for a bonus for signing up for your newsletter). (See Nos. 2, 9, & 10 in the plan below.)

Right now it’s only $20 a year for a basic account. I signed up last night.

  • As I wrote about in Reaching More Readers PublishDrive is where I upload my files to distribute ebooks to a boatload of platforms. (Nos. 17, 23, 29.)

For the other platforms, I upload directly.

Q.C. Davis Mysteries, Book 1
  • I’m setting a later preorder date for Kindle than for Kobo, Nook, and iBook/iTunes (Nos. 19 & 21) because last I checked, in terms of where your book ranks on Amazon’s charts, it’s better to have more sales on the first day than a bunch of preorders.

Why do a Kindle preorder at all in that case?

I want to have a Kindle link available before the release to put on my website and into the back matter of my other books.

  • Vellum is the software I use to convert Word files to files for the various ebook and paperback platforms. (No. 8.)

It’s very easy to use, but so far available only for Mac.

  • When Darkness Falls is an urban gothic horror novel and my only novel in Kindle Unlimited (which means it’s not available on any other ebook platform). (Nos. 12, 16.)

Because it’s in KU, I can run a Kindle Countdown sale. I’m hoping by doing that for the same week as the new release, at least some readers who buy or borrow it will find their way to my Q.C. Davis series.

Gothic horror in Chicago’s South Loop
  • The Charming Man is my working title for Book 2 in the Q.C. Davis mystery series.

As you’ll see in Nos. 36-40, I’m holding off on most of the advertising and outreach to bookstores on The Worried Man until Book 2 is also out. That way the effort and funds have a chance of selling two books in the series rather than only one.

It’s possible I could sell three rather than only two if I’m superproductive and get a preorder for Book 3 underway in time. (Working title The Fractured Man.) That seems unlikely, but I’m ever the optimist when it comes to time.

  • The people I mention sending paperback books to in No. 35 are ones who love mysteries or loved my previous books and who know a whole lot of other people that they might tell about The Worried Man.
The Book Launch Schedule

The Worried Man (Q.C. Davis Mystery No. 1) Launch Schedule

Completed? Date Task(s)
1. __X_ Goodreads

__X_ Facebook

March 12 Create Goodreads and Facebook review teams & invite friends
2.  __X__ March 16 Create Book Funnel Account
3. Contact Kobo re: Worried Man preorder and release date
4. March 17 Contact my book groups re: reviewing advance copies
5. Invite Goodreads readers who like Sara Paretsky and Elly Griffiths to join GR review team
6. Email mailing list re: chance to read and review
7. March 18 Add Coming Soon to LisaLilly.com
8. March 19 Create Vellum files for review teams
9. Add files to Book Funnel
10. ___ Goodreads

___ Facebook

___ Mailing List

March 23 Contact reviewers re: links to ebooks on Book Funnel
11. March 24 Add Coming Soon to all Bios online
12. ___ Countdown scheduled

___ Just Kindle

___ Digital Book Today

___ Other(s)?

Schedule When Darkness Falls 99 cent Kindle Countdown (for 5/1-5/8) plus ads
13. ___ Fussy Librarian

 

___ Bargain Booksy

___

March 26 Schedule New Release ads Worried Man
14. March 30 Contact designer re: paperback cover
15. April 1 Final Edits (if any)
16. April 2 Schedule When Darkness Falls 99 cent ads (for 5/2)
17. ___ Kindle Upload

__ Kindle PreOrder set

___ Nook Upload

___ Nook PreOrder set

___ iBook Upload

___ iBook PreOrder set

___ Kobo Upload

___ Kobo PreOrder set

___ GPlay Upload

___ PublishDrive Upload

April 8 Upload Final Files on All eBook Platforms & set pre-order dates as noted below
18. April 8 Create KDP Print edition
19. ___ Nook

___ iBook

___ Kobo

April 9 Upload for 3 eBook Platforms PreOrder
20. April 16 Upload cover and manuscript files on Ingram Spark
21. April 17 Kindle PreOrder Begins
22. ___ Awakening

___ Unbelievers

___ Conflagration

___ Illumination

___ Also add 1st Chapter of WM to Illumination

___ When Darkness Falls

___ Also add 1st Chapter of WM to When Darkness Falls

___ Super Simple Story Structure

___ One-Year Novelist

___ Creating Compelling Characters

Update Also By and Bio in previous books with Worried Man (include links for Kindle, Nook, iBook, Kobo, website for others)

 

23. ___ Kindle

___ Nook

___ iBook

___ Kobo

___ GPlay

___ PublishDrive

April 26 Final Book Files Uploaded
24. April 27 Add Worried Man To Goodreads
25. ___ KDP Print

___ Ingram

Publish KDP Print & Ingram editions
26. Contact review team re: KDP Print edition
27. April 29 When Darkness Falls Countdown price to 99 cents today
28. April 30 Schedule Goodreads Ad for Worried Man
29. ___ GPlay

___ PublishDrive

April 30 Publish
30. May 1 Worried Man Live on all
31. May 1 Contact review team re: eBook editions
32. May 1 Contact email list New Release Worried Man
33. May 2 When Darkness Falls 99 cents ads run
34. ___ Awakening

___ Unbelievers

___ Conflagration

___ Illumination

___ When Darkness Falls

___ Super Simple Story Structure

___ One-Year Novelist

___ Creating Compelling Characters

May 2 Update back matter with GPlay and print links and upload new files
35. May 3 Send print copies of books to Merry, Anne, Dan L., others who might spread the word
36. June Contact Bookstores in Chicago area re: signings/release parties for The Worried Man and The Charming Man
37. June Set release date for The Charming Man
38. June/July Schedule Worried Man Ads for week of Charming Man release
39. Charming Man release week Run 99 cent sale for 3 days on The Worried Man
40. After The Charming Man is released Schedule Goodreads Kindle Giveaway

If you have other questions about the schedule, please ask in the comments.

Until next Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Writing When Injured Or Not Well

When I was in my twenties, I developed tendinitis in my hands, wrists, and arms. I was working at a temp job as a secretary to 27 people, typing 90 words per minute all day long at a bad keyboard set up.

I was also writing a novel when I got home and playing guitar.

At the time, there wasn’t a lot of awareness of carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, or other RSIs (repetitive stress injuries) from keyboarding.

Dealing With Advice

A lot of people implied or outright said that it was all in my head or due to stress. The suggestion that I could somehow fix myself simply by relaxing only made me feel worse.

My fingers went numb during the night, my hands and wrists tingled, and pain shot up my arms from my hands. Yet the doctor I saw through the company’s workers compensation policy told me to keep working unless or until there was nerve damage. Then I could have surgery, which was the only real treatment option at the time.

That struck me as a phenomenally bad idea.

I quit the job and moved home to my parents’ house in the hope that a few months of not working would help my hands heal. Instead I plunged into depression and anxiety.

Not Working, Not Writing, Not Functioning

For the first four or five weeks home, I found it very hard to get out of bed.

Once I did, I lay on the couch and watched television until the late afternoon. 

I struggled to figure out some other type of job I could do to support myself again. All my work experience, though, had to do with typing and computers. I don’t remember writing, and playing guitar hurt my hands.

I felt worthless.

The main things that I thought of as being who I was — a musician, writer, a hard worker — had all been taken from me. And I didn’t know how I get them back. (All of this also coincided with a break up with my boyfriend of six years, so I’d also lost my primary relationship.) 

In one way, whether I could write fiction or not “should” have been the least of my worries. I hadn’t made any money writing by then, so it wouldn’t help me back to living on my own and supporting myself.

Yet after my fear that I’d never be able to move out of my parents’ house again was my fear that I wouldn’t be able to write. Without writing, I wasn’t sure who I was or how much I’d get out of life.

Health And Writer’s Block

A while back I wrote an article Six Ways To Get Beyond The Myth Of Writer’s Block on issues that get labelled “writer’s block” with suggestions for dealing with each.

Looking back at the article, I realized it contained an underlying, unspoken assumption. Which was that the person who wants to write but can’t is otherwise generally healthy and physically well. (I revised it to try to address that.)

But many people live with chronic conditions that make any type of work or pursuit, including writing, far more difficult if not impossible. Many others are fortunate enough to be generally well much of their lives but nonetheless go through periods where their mental, physical, and emotional health limits whether and how much they can write.

Because of that, I’m sharing what I wish I’d known when I struggled so much with physical pain, depression, and anxiety. With these caveats:

  • What in retrospect I think would have helped me might or might not be useful for you
  • I’m not a doctor or health professional, and this is not medical, psychological, or psychiatric advice

First Things First

If I could go back, I’d tell myself that to love writing and to write can be a wonderful thing, but sometimes other things need to take priority. Things like physical, emotional, and mental health.

I felt I had to figure out all at once (a) all my health issues, (b) a new occupation, and (c) how I’d ever write again without severe pain.

And I felt like a failure because I couldn’t.

Now I’d tell myself that before I could write I needed to be sure I kept breathing and stayed alive. If I was able to write and it helped me do that, great.

If writing made me feel worse, though, then it was okay, and quite possibly necessary, to mentally set it aside for a while and focus on whatever would help me keep functioning.

No Overnight Fixes

While I rarely feel the extreme anxiety I experienced during the year and a half I moved back in with my parents, I’ve had a few times nearly as bad.

Likewise, life events sometimes trigger weeks or months of depression. It’s like a broken bone that hasn’t quite mended. Stepping a certain way or falling sometimes breaks it again.

And though my fingers rarely grow numb, if I am at the keyboard too long, my hands still get sore despite the many accommodations I’ve made over the years. (Those accommodations include using ergonomic keyboards, dictating, switching computers, stretching more, and taking regular breaks.)

If I’d know that decades later I’d still be dealing with many of these issues, maybe that would have made me feel worse.

Multiple Keyboards and RSI

But maybe not.

Because for me the hardest part was that I kept wanting to wake up one day and have my old life back. I only started to feel better emotionally and mentally when I realized that wasn’t happening. That the only place I could start from was where I was.

Accommodations And Work-Arounds

In the long run, my need to find a new type of work led to my retraining and becoming a paralegal and later a lawyer. As a result, a decade later, I was far better off financially and professionally than I had been when I developed the tendinitis.

For the physical aspect of writing, and generally to deal with my on-going hand, wrist, and arm pain, I made dozens if not hundreds of small changes like the ones I mentioned above, as well as lifestyle changes.

There were changes as small as:

  • leaving the aspirin cap off so I didn’t hurt my hands with the safety top on the bottle
  • paying someone more than I earned per hour to clean my small apartment so that I didn’t cause burning in my arms by scrubbing
  • learning that running cool water over my hands for five minutes or holding a cold soda can could ease pain temporarily

Adjusting Your Writing Routine

I also had to adjust my writing routine. I’d once written for 1-3 hours at a time and focused on writing novels only.

Now sometimes for days or weeks or months at a time I couldn’t do that, so instead I did some of the following:

  • Visualized scenes in my mind
  • Interviewed my characters in my mind
  • Wrote by hand in very short bursts (as writing by hand also made my hands worse)
  • Wrote very short poems (less than a page each)
  • Used an old tape recorder to record scenes (this was before any decent dictation software was available, and I couldn’t have afforded it even if it had been)

Some of these strategies came in handy years later when I was working so many hours that for stretches I could only write in small increments of time. (See Writing A Novel 15 Minutes At A Time.)

Flexible Writing Goals

I also found that I needed to be far more flexible in my goals. Though it definitely took me a long time to make peace with that.

If you’ve read The One-Year Novelist, you know I am big on setting specific goals with time frames. When I struggled with depression, anxiety, and physical pain, I had to adjust that strategy.

During the worst of my depression, I didn’t set any writing goals at all. If it made me feel better to write, then I wrote. Otherwise, I didn’t.

When my depression became more manageable and my tendinitis was slightly better so that I could work at a job though still in a lot of pain, I started writing in a journal when I could. From an emotional perspective, that was an easy way to write because I never show my journals to anyone.

But I didn’t set any goals for writing a certain amount per day, week, or year.

I had a general goal in mind wanting to write another novel. But I didn’t worry about when I would be done. I just aimed to finish at some point down the line.

That was unusual for me, because I love lists and plans. They help reassure me that I won’t lose track of anything and ease my anxiety.

In the darkest times, though, lists and plans made me feel worse. They emphasized what I felt I “should” be doing and couldn’t.

So if I could go back, I’d tell myself to try letting go of lists and plans now and then. They can be useful tools, but they’re not the right ones for every circumstance.

That’s all for today.

I hope some of my story gives you some ideas or inspiration if you’re struggling with injuries or health issues.

Until next Friday —

L. M. Lilly

P.S. For more on anxiety and well-being, you might find Happiness, Anxiety, and Writing: Using Your Creativity To Live A Calmer, Happier Life helpful.

The Top 5 Reasons Your Friends Won’t Read Your Book And What You Can Do About It

Maybe you gave your friend a paperback of your first or latest novel. Or you emailed a link to download the e-book free or buy it for a low price.

Yet your friend hasn’t read it or reviewed it.

Or maybe, as several authors I’ve spoken to recently have done, you had a party where you gave away 25 paperback copies of your novel to your friends and colleagues and asked them to please read it and consider leaving a review.

No one did.

What can you do other than feeling disappointed?

Below are five main reasons your friends and acquaintances don’t buy or read your novels and what you can do in response.

Reason 1: They Don’t Like Reading

It seems shocking to those of us who love to read and write novels, but some people simply don’t like to read and/or they find it very difficult.

I recently heard a podcaster who believes that paperbacks and e-books alike will disappear entirely in favor of audio because reading is hard. While I like listening to audio while doing other tasks because it makes good use of my time, I can read much faster than a narrator can speak, so it’ll never replace reading for me.

Also, I love the experience of reading a book.

If your friends find it difficult, though, they may read if they have to for work, but the last thing they’ll do when it’s time to relax is read your novel or any book.

Solution:

If your friend is not a reader, pushing your book will do nothing but make that person feel bad.

If your friend is otherwise supportive of your career as an author and wants to help, ask your friend to pass your novel on (or recommend it if it’s an e-book) to someone who does love to read the type of book you’ve written.

Be clear about what type of reader that would be and about the genre of the book you’ve written. Don’t task your non-reading friend with figuring that out.

Reason 2: They Don’t Read Your Genre

Some people love to read but don’t happen to read what you like to write.

They may enjoy stories or narratives but prefer to read about real people, so they read biographies rather than novels.

Or they read novels but they love mysteries and you write westerns, or they love romance and you write horror.

It’s tempting to think that our friends should be willing to switch genres for us.

But if you think about what you love to read and don’t, it can be hard to switch to an entirely different genre.

I will cross over a little bit, but not that much. I don’t read a lot of science fiction, but if a friend who knows what I like recommends a sci-fi book I’ll check it out.

On the other hand, if my friend wrote a long literary novel about a highly dysfunctional multi-generational family where everyone behaves horribly to everyone else and is deeply depressed, I’d rather bang my head against the wall than read it.

And if I did read it, there would be almost no way I could honestly write a positive review or, even if I set honesty aside, that I would know what to say that would be positive.

I just deeply dislike that kind book, despite that many such books win prestigious literary awards.

Solution:

Despite that this type of friend loves to read, your solution is the same as for Number 1 above.

But there is good news. Because your friend overall likes to read, she’s more likely to know other readers or to understand who would be the best person to whom to give or recommend your book.

Reason 3: They Read An Average Number Of Books Per Year

Most of the research I did listed 12 books per year as the average number that people read.

Keep in mind, though, that this number is skewed by voracious readers. These are people who read anywhere from 2 to 5 books per week or more.

If we take out those people, most people read only 1 to 4 books per year.

If your friend falls into that category, it’s a big commitment to read your book. If the person already has a couple favorite authors, that fills the reading quotient for the year.

So this friend may in theory want to read your book and be excited about it but may simply not get to it for a long time.

Solution:

This friend may very well buy your book to be supportive, so go ahead and tell him about it or give your friend an autographed copy.

If your friend is really excited for you, ask if he will shelve the copy somewhere where other people might see it, maybe on a shelf above his desk at work, on a coffee table at home, or on a virtual shelf on Goodreads.

That way, your friend can help you even if there’s no time to read the book right away. The same friend might also be willing to post a picture of himself holding the book on social media with a note about how excited he is to have it.

As far as actually reading the book, don’t push. Putting on pressure makes it less likely your friend will want to read, as it will make it seem like a chore.

Give it a little time and back off and you may be surprised to find one day that you have a new diehard fan or a great review.

Reason 4: They Read A Lot More Than Average, But…

It can be especially upsetting if you have a friend who talks about books and seems to read a lot of fiction, but who doesn’t read your novel.

Because most people read only 1 to 4 books per year, though, a person can read much more or much more quickly than average and still not read a lot.

Someone who reads 12 books a year, for instance, is reading more than average. And if that person likes to read novels, she probably has a number of favorite authors who put out at least a book a year. Once that person reads each book by a favorite author, that leaves only a few slots left.

Also, how much people can read depends on what’s happening in their lives. If your friend just had a newborn or got a promotion or is caring for an aging parent, there simply may be almost no time to read.

Solution:

If your friend doesn’t read your genre, see Number 2 above.

If your friend does usually read the type of book you write, ask what format is the preferred one. If your book is only available as an e-book, and your friend only reads paperbacks, you may need to wait until you issue a paperback version of your book or offer to print a copy from your word processor for her.

Also try the approaches in Number 3 above.

In addition, because your friend is a bit more of a reader than those in previous categories, you can feel a little freer to let this friend know how much it would mean to you if she would read your book (and post an honest review if she’s comfortable doing that).

Finally, be sure to read Number 5 below, as if your friend is not reading your book, it may be the reason why.

Reason 5: They’re Afraid They Won’t Like It And Don’t Want To Have To Tell You

Your friend may love to read and may read in your genre and yet still hold off on reading your book.

That’s because it can be very awkward if you read your friend’s book and you really don’t like it. You are then in the position of needing to lie to your friend and/or, if you’re being pushed to write a review, to write something that will hurt your friend’s feelings or that you might not be comfortable writing.

Solution:

If you are giving the friend a copy unsolicited, make clear that you are not pressuring that person to read it. You can say something like, “I promise I won’t quiz you on it.”

You can also say something like, “If you love it or hate it, I hope you’ll post a review, because having more reviews, even if they’re not all 5 stars, helps a book sell.” (Which is true.)

That way, your friend knows that you understand that you may not love the same types of books. Also, it’s unlikely your friend is going to post a truly bad review. If she or he doesn’t like the book, either there will be no review or you’ll get a neutral review.

You can also tell your friend that if she fears she doesn’t have time to read it, it would be helpful to do the things suggested in Number 3. That way if your friend doesn’t like the book, she can avoid mentioning it but still be supportive in other ways.

One Last Category

There are acquaintances and friends who simply will never buy or read your book and it has nothing to do with whether they are readers or not.

You may have referred clients to them, donated to their political campaigns, or given gifts at baby showers, christenings, and birthdays for each of their children, but even if you directly asked them to, they won’t get around to spending a few dollars on your book or reading it if you give it to them.

Often these are people who don’t understand how important writing is to you, particularly if you have another career.

Regardless what you say, they’ll see it as a hobby that there’s no reason to get excited about or support.

Or these friends may simply not be very supportive people. Presumably they have other great qualities about them that you value and that’s why you’re friends.

Appreciate those qualities and let go of your hope that they’ll read your books or be encouraging about your author career.

Hopefully, though, most of your friends don’t fall into this category!

If they do, you may want to make an effort to add some more positive, supportive friends to your circle.

That’s all for this week.

Until next Friday —

L. M. Lilly

Earnings From Traditional v. Indie-Published Books

I get a lot of questions about whether a writer can earn more with a traditional publishing deal or by publishing indie.

That depends on a lot of factors, as I wrote about in Do You Need A Publisher, Part 3: Money, but this week a great opportunity presented itself for a concrete comparison.

On the Sell More Books show Jim Kukral talked about his book contract with traditional publisher Wiley and posted a link to it in the show notes.

The contract was for his non-fiction book Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue, but the terms are similar to contracts for fiction.

For comparison, I’ll share the 2017 numbers for the third book in my Awakening series, The Conflagration. I published it in May 2016, so it’s fairly recent and was available all of 2017.

While I’ll talk about my personal impressions of Jim’s contract and views, this article is not legal or financial advice. If you need legal or financial advice, you should consult a professional about your own particular situation.

The Traditional Publishing Contract

In the contract, the publisher agrees to pay a $15,000 advance against royalties. An advance means that until the advance is earned back through royalties, no additional amounts are paid to the author.

Royalties vary by type of publication and number of copies. 

Mass market paperbacks have a 7.5% royalty. Hardcovers have a 15% royalty for the first 10,000 copies, 17.5% for the next 10,000, and 20% after that.

The royalty is based not on the price the consumer pays but on the publisher’s “dollar receipts,” which are defined as the U.S. dollars the publisher earns less any discounts, bad debts, book returns, or other credits.

Even before discounts or returns, the publisher doesn’t receive the price the consumer pays but rather receives whatever the retailer (such as Amazon or a local bookstore) pays the publisher.

What does this mean in actual dollars?

Most books don’t earn enough to cover the advance, so it’s likely that from August 2010, when the hardback was released, through now the $15,000 was the total paid to the author. (For more on the royalty calculations, read on.)

That’s an average of about $2,000 per year.

Self-Publishing Dollars

Now to The Conflagration (Book 3 in The Awakening Series) which I published myself.

In 2017, I earned about $2,600.00 in royalties, the bulk of that from e-books, but some from paperback and audiobook. If you multiply that by 7.5 years, about the amount of time Attention! has been out, it looks like I earned more: $19,500.

But I spent money on a cover and on having the book converted to e-book format (something I now do myself on Vellum), and on advertising. Also, though sales of the series have been pretty steady, there’s no guarantee The Conflagration will earn the same amount each year.

Taking off $700 the first year for costs and assuming a more conservative $1800 a year to account for a possible drop in sales and future advertising, my total for 7.5 years would be $13,600.

From a pure royalty and cost perspective it’s a toss up which approach is better financially, but there are a few other factors to consider.

Beyond The Royalties
  • When the author gets paid

The Kukral/Wiley contract provides an advance on royalties, so even if the dollars came out the same overall, having the first $15,000 up front is better than spread out over 7.5 years.

On the other hand, beyond the first $15,000, the publisher is only required to pay royalties every 6 months, with amounts under $100 held until the next period.

Most platforms through which I published pay 60 days after the royalties are earned and there’s no minimum (or a $10 one).

  • Transparency

The publisher sends a statement every six months showing royalties, but many traditionally-published authors have told me it doesn’t seem to them the publisher figures match up with their books’ ranks or what they believe was sold.

The sales figures I see are almost in real time or at most a day or two behind.

Occasionally there are system glitches, but I more or less feel I’ve got a pretty good sense that what I’m getting paid matches actual sales.

  • Marketing And Advertising

In the Attention! contract, the publisher has the right to both set the price of the book and market or advertise it as it deems appropriate.

Most traditionally-published authors find that they must do most of the marketing themselves, just as I do, yet they are unable to offer limited price discounts that might jumpstart sales the way that indie-authors can. (I had my best sales numbers ever for The Awakening Series and doubled my earnings when I made the e-book editions of the first book free, yet that’s not something you’ll see a traditional publisher doing.)

On the other hand, for those books the traditional publishers truly get behind, such as The Girl On The Train, it’s hard to argue the author would have been better off being able to discount.

  • Future Sales

This factor is where it gets interesting.

Jim Kukral is on a quest to get his rights to his book back, suggesting he’s not expecting a lot of future sales and believes he can do more with it than the publisher can or will.

As an indie, I keep all the rights and, as noted, I can try whatever marketing and advertising I like. Unlike traditionally-published books that publishers usually ignore after the initial sales push, I’ll keep promoting the series.

While there’s no guarantee The Conflagration will continue to earn as it has, there’s also a decent possibility it could or might earn more.

Why?

For each e-book I sell at $3.99, my royalty averages $2.60.

In contrast, traditional publishers typically focus on paperback, not e-book. Under the Wiley/Kukral contract, the trade paperback royalty for the first 10,000 copies is 10% of what the publisher receives.

So if the retail price is $9.99 and the publisher gets $6.99 from the bookstore, that’s $0.69 per book.

Not only are the earnings for the indie author nearly $2.00 more per sale, it’s easier for a relatively unknown author to sell an e-book at $3.99 than a paperback at $9.99.

  • Long-term v. Short-term

The clearest conclusion here is that, for most authors, publishing is a long-term effort.

Because of that, if you have one book on a topic about which you care deeply, if you can get a traditional deal, from a financial perspective it might be the better way to go.

You’d get money up front and be free to move on and focus on other things in life.

On the other hand, if you don’t absolutely need the money up front, you might rather retain control so you can keep promoting your book and getting it into other people’s hands from now through infinity.

A Career v. A Book

If you hope to make a career at writing, there are no easy answers.

When I looked at the numbers, realizing it would take 7.5 years for one of my books to earn what Jim was paid up front for Attention! was a little discouraging.

But I reminded myself that I never expected to earn a living with one book, which is why I’ve published a four-book supernatural thriller series, am launching a new mystery series this year, and also publish non-fiction.

Right now, I have many streams of income that range from minimal (my first $2.55 from a Kobo subscription service just this month) to smallish (about $9,000 from Amazon last year).

Also, last year my writing gross income was about double the previous year. If I could do that every year for the next five years, I’d be turning cartwheels. Even every other year would reach six figures in six years.

I hope this comparison was useful.

We all owe Jim Kukral a debt for sharing his contract. If you get a chance, check out Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue.

Until next Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Using Discovery To Make Your Novel More Layered (And To Write It Faster)

I’m a planner when it comes to novel writing — no surprise if you’ve read Super Simple Story Structure.

Once I have my overall plot in mind, I first draft pretty quickly. But finishing a novel always takes longer than I expect.

I think I finally know why.

I tend to forget about the time and effort needed to go from the initial idea for a novel to figuring out the plot.

There’s a name for this phase of writing a novel (or other type of story).

It’s called discovery. Until recently, I was mostly unaware I was doing it, so I failed to set aside enough time for it.

What Is Discovery?

I first heard the term “the discovery phase of writing” a year or two ago. I had a bad reaction to it because in law, discovery is a process that can be drawn out, frustrating, and stressful.

In litigation, discovery means asking the other side to give you information about its case and evidence. Attorneys argue a lot about what needs to be handed over to the other side.

That type of conflict is only fun for people who like to argue and make life difficult for everyone. (Not all attorneys like that! Seriously.)

In fiction, the discovery process is much more fun because you’re finding out about and expanding your characters, settings, themes, and story.

When I was practicing law full-time, I didn’t realize I was engaging in discovery for my fiction because it happened in odd moments.

At court while waiting for my case to be called I’d scribble notes about my character on a legal pad. Later, standing in line at a Corner Bakery, I might look at the people around me and imagine what they were thinking.

I thought of what I was doing as “daydreaming.” It didn’t seem like part of the writing process. It was a way to entertain myself when I was bored.

It also was a way to feel I was making progress on my novel despite having little time to put words on the page.

What I didn’t realize was it wasn’t just an illusion to make myself feel better. I really was making progress on my novel.

How To Do Discovery

Now that I’m devoting most of my time to writing, the discovery process is more purposeful and I’m more aware of it.

Some things you might do in discovery:

  • Read Non-Fiction

This reading is different from research on specific topics. It’s about big picture topics and themes that might or might not help generate more ideas or prompt turns and twists in your story.

For my second mystery in my new series, I’ve been reading websites aimed at immigrants to the U.S. from various countries and paying attention to newspaper articles about immigration. A missing woman in the book is an immigrant who overstayed her student visa.

(For more on the creative pluses of reading rather than watching the news, check out Reading The Newspaper Can Spark Ideas For Your Novel.)

I’m also reading books about causes of death (the photo at the top of this article is from a recent trip to the library).

  • Images

Before so many images were available on the Internet I used to page through magazines and tear out photos of people who either looked like my characters or whom I found striking for one reason or another.

On the right is a photo of a magazine page that inspired the character of Erik Holmes, a wealthy CEO with an obsession about the end of the world and obscure religious cults in my Awakening series.

I also saved photos of outdoor and indoor scenes that evoked strong feelings.

Now I do the same thing but online through sites like Instagram and Pinterest. These sites also allow me to post and organize photos I take that relate somehow to my novels.

  • Documentaries

Watching documentaries is also great for prompting ideas and scenes.

Though I had no plan of including snake handling in my Awakening series, I happened to see a documentary on it. It solved an issue I had, which was how to put my protagonist in great danger without it being clear who was behind it. I chose a setting where snake handling was still practiced and plunged her into an underground cavern filled with rattlesnakes.

  • Music

Many writers create collections of songs that fit their stories or characters.

It doesn’t mean that these songs would need to be played as a soundtrack if your book were a movie, though you can create a soundtrack if you like. But they are songs that suit a particular mood or character.

Choosing them helps figure out how the characters feel and what’s happening in their lives.

Free Writing/Talking

I like to scribble in a notebook or on scratch paper, or type quickly into a document, random thoughts about my story and characters. Often I never look at these notes again.

The thoughts might or might not be directly related to the story. It’s a way to hang out with my characters or explore how possible twists and turns might affect them.

Sometimes rather than writing, I pace and talk.

Attending Events

Concerts, art exhibits, garden or city walks, sporting events, and just about anything you attend that stimulates your mind and helps you relax can also be part of the discovery process. All trigger emotions and set your mind free to wander.

It doesn’t matter if you love the event of not. Some of my best ideas for characters and plot developments came to me while sitting through a concert that bored me nearly to tears.

Why Do It

Embracing the discovery process can save you a lot of time later.

With my first mystery I had what I thought was a pretty solid first third of the book finished and a rough draft of the rest.

To my surprise, when I sent it to my story editor, her main response was that the mechanics of the plot seemed fine but, basically, who cares? Why does your main character do what she does and why does it matter to the reader?

Had I allowed myself more time for discovery, I likely would have developed more layered and engaging characters before plotting the book and writing the draft. But I didn’t, so my rewriting process took three or four times as long as I’d expected.

Taking time to read and daydream and look at photos (or anything else from the above list) pushes me to really get to know my characters and consider different plot turns and twists I might have otherwise overlooked.

Though “push” is really the wrong word.

When I let myself spend time in discovery I don’t feel pushed at all. Instead, I feel relaxed and happy to be spending time with my characters in a place that isn’t about hitting word counts.

It reminds me of how I feel when I’m reading a novel I really love. It’s as if I am living in another world that’s amazing, fascinating, and heart wrenching.

If that’s the experience I want my readers to have, and it is, I need to be able to go there myself first.

I started this purposeful discovery process about two weeks ago for my second mystery novel (working title The Charming Man).

I’ve been shifting between creating a rough outline and doing more reading, meandering, and discovering. We’ll see if overall this results in less rewriting than I did for the first one.

That’s all for now.

Until next Friday —

L. M. Lilly

P.S. For help on developing your characters, you can download my Free Character Creation Tip Sheet.

3 Ways To Create And Distribute Your Audiobook

One of my goals this year is to release my non-fiction books on writing in audiobook editions.

I created and released my Awakening Series through ACX, an Amazon-related company. I used the royalty-share option, which means all four books are exclusive to ACX for 7 years, and I split a 40% royalty for each book with the narrator/producer.

Now I feel less sure about committing to 7 years with my audiobooks distributed only through ACX.

Audiobooks are growing in popularity due in part to how many people now have devices like the Amazon Echo that will play audiobooks at home. Also, more vehicles now incorporate technology that will play books and other content.

These changes mean more potential income from audiobooks, so I see a greater possible downside to an exclusive deal.

Below is what I learned based on reviewing the websites of three companies:

A few things to keep in mind (a/k/a disclaimers):

  • I’ve only worked through ACX before, and I have no direct experience with the other two.
  • You should read the sites and information yourself, as I’m not perfect (though I wish I were!). Also, I’ve focused on what’s most relevant to me. You may have other interests or concerns.
  • The narrator typically produces the audiobook. When I refer to “narrator” below, I mean a narrator/producer.
  • When I refer to “author” below, I’m assuming you as the author hold the rights to your own book. Most of the information below technically refers to the “rights holder,” not the author.
Producing/Creating The Audiobook

Author’s Republic is a distributor, so it helps you distribute an audiobook that’s already produced.

But if you don’t already have a finished audiobook, and most of us don’t, its website offers a lot of information on how to produce an audiobook, as well as resources to find producers and narrators.

Author’s Republic’s website indicates it accepts audiobook submissions from authors and publishers in all countries.

Findaway Voices will help you produce your audiobook.

You can work with a narrator you suggest, if the narrator is willing, or Findaway Voices will help you find a narrator. Findaway Voices is also available to authors and publishers in all countries.

ACX provides an exchange through which you can find a narrator. The narrator produces and uploads the audio.

Note, however, that on one of its help pages, ACX indicates it is only “currently open to residents of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Ireland who have a mailing address, valid local Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and banking details for” one of those countries.

Paying For Your Audiobook Production

There are three ways to pay a producer/narrator to create your audiobook:

  1. Paying the narrator up front
  2. Sharing royalties when the book sells, or
  3. A hybrid deal of the first two options

Because Author’s Republic is a distributor, the cost will depend upon what deal you work out with your narrator or producer. 

If you pay up front rather than by sharing royalties, you typically pay a narrator per finished hour of the audiobook. 9,000 words of text usually comes out to one hour of finished audio. (For more on costs generally see The Cost To Create An Audiobook Edition Of Your Book.)

If you produce and narrate yourself, you obviously won’t need to pay a narrator, but you will need to pay for recording time and expertise if you don’t have your own studio and lack production skills.

When working through Findaway Voices, the author pays the narrator/producer up front per finished hour.

Findaway Voices says the range is typically $150-$400 per finished hour of audio.

Further, according to the site, “Findaway Voices charges a $49.00 fee to cover project management and ongoing administration.”

On ACX, you can pay your narrator through a royalty share, by paying up front per finished hour, or through a hybrid of the two.

ACX also offers narrators (not authors) a stipend–an additional payment above the royalty share–to produce certain books. Presumably these audiobooks are ones that ACX believes will sell well enough to earn back the stipend and then some.

How You Earn Money

The Author’s Republic website says the author receives 70% of what the “audiobook earns across over 30 channels, including all major distributors such as Audible, Audiobooks.com, and iTunes.”

My understanding of this term as to Audible, for instance, is you as the author would get 70% of whatever Audible would pay the author. So if on an Audible book created through ACX you’d get 25% of the retail price for a non-exclusive deal,  you’d be getting 70% of that 25%.

Through Findaway Voices, the author keeps “80% of all royalties Findaway Voices receives, which varies by distribution partner, channel, and business model.”

Findaway Voices indicates royalties from its partners vary, but are usually within the range of 25% to 50% of the list prices.

Through ACX, if you (1) do a royalty-share deal with your narrator and (2) your audiobook is exclusively distributed through ACX, you’ll be paid 20% of the retail price (another 20% goes to the narrator).

If you (1) paid the  producer up front and (2) your audiobook is exclusively distributed through ACX, you earn 40% of the retail sales price.

If you (1) paid the  producer up front and (2) your deal is non-exclusive, meaning other companies can distribute your audiobook, you earn 25% of the retail sales price.

ACX also offers a $50 bounty (to be split with the narrator if you have a royalty-share deal) if yours is first audiobook an Audible Listener purchases.

Who Sets The Retail Price

For Author’s Republic and Findaway Voices the author sets the retail price (though there’s no guarantee all distributors will agree to sell the book if you set the price too low or too high).

Being able to set your own price can be an advantage because if you have control, you can run and promote sales or adjust your regular price based on the length of the book or how well it’s selling (or not).

On ACX, ACX sets the price, and that price may vary over time depending upon several factors, including whether the buyer already owns your ebook and whether the book is bought with an Audible credit.

Exclusivity

If your audiobook is exclusive, it means you can only distribute it through that company.

Author’s Republic: No exclusivity requirement.

Findaway Voices: No exclusivity requirement.

ACX: Your choice.

If you do an exclusive deal with ACX, right now you’ll earn 40% (split with the narrator if you do a royalty share deal).

If you choose a non-exclusive deal, you’ll earn 25% (but will need to pay your narrator up front).

If you have an exclusive deal, you agree that for 7 years your audiobook will only be distributed through Audible. (If non-exclusive, you still need to keep the book on Audible for 7 years, but you can distribute it through other companies.)

Distribution

Author’s Republic states it allows you to sell “your audiobook through over 30 major retailers, library providers and distributors, with new channels added monthly.”

According to its website, Findaway Voices has “the world’s largest distribution network — reaching customers in more than 170 countries.” 

ACX distributes through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.

It’ll be fascinating to see how the audiobook world changes over the next few years. At the moment, I’m leaning toward using ACX again but choosing a non-exclusive deal. While that means paying a narrator up front and potentially earning less, I like the flexibility to try distributing through additional channels.

If you have experience with any of the audiobook companies, please share in the comments.

Until next Friday, when I’ll write about Using Discovery To Make Your Novel More Layered (And To Write It Faster)

L.M. Lilly

P.S. Producer/narrator Shiromi Arserio (who narrated Books 2-4 in my Awakening Series) tells me Spoken Realms is another audiobook production option. I have not yet had a chance to research that company, but it’s another one you can check out, particularly if you live in a country where ACX is not an option.

Create Your Own BookBub

It’s hard to find an image of e-newsletters.

As I noted in The Worst Ways To Spend Money On Book Promotion and Experimenting With First In Series Free the best e-newsletter I’ve found for generating sales of ebooks is a featured deal on BookBub (which often boosts audiobook sales as well).

It has a huge subscriber list and is very selective about the books it lists as featured deals.

BookBub, though, rejects most applications for featured deals, so that’s not always an option.

If you can’t get a BookBub deal when you want one (or at all) I found the next most effective technique is to schedule a series of ads in similar e-newsletters around the same time.

Cost vs. Benefit Comparison

For Supernatural Suspense, the genre in which I usually advertise Book 1 in my Awakening Series, BookBub charges $224 to advertise the book as a featured deal if the book is free.

My other ebooks in the series are priced at $3.99, and I make an average royalty of $2.65 for each sale. That means I need to sell at least 84 ebooks to break even.

The last time I had a BookBub deal like that, on the first day I sold 140 ebooks (of later books in the series) and 231 audiobooks.

That means on the first day I earned money on the BookBub even if you assume 20% or 30% of the sales would have happened without it. (That’s why BookBub is able to charge so much.)

Most other e-newsletters haven’t made back the money the first day and some don’t earn back the dollars spent at all. The best ones usually generate enough sales, though, that over the following 1-3 weeks I come out ahead.

This February I’m running a series of 5 e-newsletter ads. The total cost is $170.

At that price, I need to sell 65 ebooks to break even. I’m hopeful that will happen within the first couple days and that I will see increased sales for at least a month or two afterwards. (I’ll do results post a few weeks after the last listing runs.)

Making The Submission Process Easier

Scheduling multiple e-newsletter ads means filling out multiple forms, which is time-consuming.

To make this process simpler, I keep a list of product links and product ID numbers (such as the Amazon ASIN) that I can easily copy and paste into the forms. The ID numbers matter because some forms ask for those numbers rather than product links.

Here’s how my list for The Awakening looks:

I also keep a variety of descriptions saved.

That’s because some e-newsletters ask for longer descriptions, others limit you to 50 words or a certain number of characters. In addition, you may want to appeal to slightly different audiences, as not all e-newsletters will offer the same genres.

Below are a few of my descriptions for The Awakening, which are all a lot shorter than what appears on its product pages on sites like Kobo:

Though you’ll use them over and over, be sure to review the descriptions before you submit them each time.

You’ll catch typos you may have missed before. Also, once in a while I have come up with much improved ways to describe my story or my characters.

Tracking Your Schedule And Results

It’s important to track which e-newsletters you scheduled, how much each one cost, when each listing will run, and what genre you chose. You may think you’ll remember all of this, but when the dates roll around you probably won’t.

I use an Excel spreadsheet.

Once the ads run, I also keep track of how many free downloads and sales I have of each book each day by platform. That’s how I’m able to determine later which e-newsletters are most effective for my books and for particular sites. (For example, some are more apt to generate Kobo or Nook sales than others.)

While you can research the results that other authors get, what works best for your books will not necessarily be the same.

There are e-newsletters that other authors rave about that generate few sales for my Awakening Series. Similarly, I’ve had great results with e-newsletters that others find to be a waste of money.

Paying For The Ads

I personally like to pay with PayPal. That way I’m not giving my card number to an online vendor.

Even if I trust an e-newsletter, I find PayPal quicker and easier. I don’t need to reenter my credit card information and I can easily sign on and look at my payment history. (You can also input your credit card into PayPal if you prefer that to having money withdrawn from your checking account.)

As always, though, you should do your own due diligence regarding which sites you trust or don’t, including Paypal.

Before You Start

Before you spend anything on advertising, though, you should make sure you have a strong cover that fits your genre, a solid sales blurb, and good opening pages, as readers often check those before buying.

If you’re missing any of those things, you will probably be throwing advertising dollars away.

If you think you have all those elements but haven’t tried advertising in e-newsletters yet, try one or two of the less expensive ones. If the results are pretty good, then try scheduling a batch of ads.

It’s also important to try e-newsletters one at a time first so you can get a better sense of which ones work best for your books.

Keep in mind also that e-newsletter advertising is most cost-effective when you have at least three books to sell.

If you only have one or two, you may still want to advertise, but it’s less likely to pay for itself even in the long run. (What it can do is help you get some initial sales so that people start reviewing your book. You also may want to include incentives for readers to sign up to your email list within your book.)

If you try scheduling a batch of ads, good luck, and please let me know how it goes!

Until next Friday, when I’ll write about 3 Ways To Create And Distribute Your Audiobook

L.M. Lilly
 P.S. If you want to increase your chances of getting a BookBub featured deal, check out this Kobo Writing Life Podcast episode interviewing Carlyn Robertson of BookBub about exactly that.