Motivation and Thrilling Places

By Charlie Walters

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Self help books abound. They teach us to have the discipline and energy to write. Our energy may come from coffee or exercise, or like Stephen King, a long walk. While all such books and podcasts and whatever are useful, they don’t really help us writers to motivate ourselves. We may have the discipline to sit in the chair, but then what?

Passion in writing and the desire to write are elusive. Like the muse, they can mean all sorts of things. They can come in the guise of a person or a time in history.  For me, thrilling places have always helped me get into the mood to write.  How do you lose yourself in your writing, the pages being written by the minute?  The answer, find a great place, get inspired by beauty or danger, and get writing.  

Let’s start with a place known to many writers; New York City.  Like my hometown of Washington, DC, the big apple has a romance to it.  The colors and forms of the Museum of Modern Art, or the history and culture of almost every restaurant or building come to mind.  You can probably name a few other ways the city, any major city really, inspires the imagination. Great structures have been built and lives, infamous and famous, are in the fabric of the city.

The city is flavored by a sense of being alive, but also killing. Plenty and deprivation live together on New York streets.  There is no better oasis from the pain and ambition of NYC then the Rose Reading Room. Located in the Schwarzman Building, third floor, one can be transported to a writer’s and a researcher’s paradise. This elegant room was used by authors and journalists like Norman Mailer.  

Look up and see lightly pink clouds hiding cherubs.  The sun beams in daylight to excite the soul.  It’s two blocks long.  Chandeliers hang far above the rectangle tables of beautifully stained wood.  They are on marble floors.  Request a book at the desk.  Stop and read the one you brought as you wait.  A trolly brings your book on a twenty minute journey.  Your individual lamp lights your space.  It’s almost heaven.  The only place like it, in my experience, is the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina.  You’ll find yourself wondering why tourists are resting on unstable café chairs in Bryant Park.

Like the Rose Reading Room, Georgetown’s cobbled streets in Washington, DC get me in the mood to write. I start out at Bridge Street Books, finding something like Truman Copote, In Cold Blood. I cozy into the alcoves of this small two story shop.  DC bookshops are great for finding that unusual history or international book. Next, I proceed up the stone path to a restaurant like Clyde’s, where you can get decent food and a stiff drink, if that’s your thing. I advise going to the back bar, at Clyde’s, or anywhere in Georgetown. 

Adam’s Morgan is another great neighborhood in DC, but Georgetown has the vibe of power and play, both great for writing.  Sit in the back. Take it all in with a slow sipping Pinot Noir. Think about the filming of The Exorcist or the Kennedy’s home a few blocks up. JFK moved to Georgetown as a freshman congressman in 1947.  He proposed to Jackie at Martin’s Tavern on Wisconsin Avenue. These are a couple of the places that thrill me and drive me to write. For you it might be a New York diner or a DC rooftop bar, but I encourage you to find your own thrilling place of motivation.  Experience helps us write about our character’s lives.  Thrill yourself first by finding that special place.  If you’re at a loss, try one of mine.

Pricing

By Dale T Phillips

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As an Indie, you get to set your own prices for your books. Do some further research on this, as there are articles and book chapters you’ll want to refer to. There’s a lot of info on sweet spots for pricing. Just look online, for example, and see what prices are for book similar to yours. Ebooks sell the most at $3-5, printed novels between $10-16. I don’t price higher than that, because fewer people will pay more for an untried product, but at that level, they’ll give it a try. Some charts show that ebooks sell the most if they’re not over 4.99, so I’m running a sale on the pricier ones to see if there’s any movement. We Indies always get to experiment! 

Traditional publishers jack up the prices on their books, both in print and ebook, because they have to pay larger staffs. For print, I’m certainly not going to shell out $30 or more for a hardcover, and for an ebook, many readers don’t want to pay $15 for one ebook (myself included), when they can get three or more quality ones for that price. For myself, I prefer to keep prices low, so I can sell more, but still make a profit. At a live show, I can even cut a deal if they buy more than one book. The series novels are all priced the same, and at a level so I can give a bookstore their 40% or more and still make a profit. If I hand-sell one at full price, I make about $10 net, so if anyone starts to balk on purchasing, I can give them a discount. People love a bargain, especially if you drop the price right then. 

Print costs you money, but ebooks cost you little to nothing. If someone buys a print copy from me, I’ll often offer the ebook for free as an extra bonus that’s usually appreciated. 

I aim for a price appropriate to what I’m selling, as follows:

• A short story collection (five tales): print, 4.99 (net about a dollar), ebook 2.99 (net almost $2). For perspective, I tell them they can have a book for the price of a coffee. 

• Longer collections: ten tales- print 7.99, ebook 3.99, 30 tales- print 11.99, ebook 7.99

• Standalone short novels: print 9.99, ebook 3.99 

• Series novels: print 15.99, ebook 4.99. Except the first series book, at 2.99. I want to get them hooked on the series, so I offer the first at a low bargain price.

Using a 500-Word Diet to Complete Your First Draft

By Terri Bowen

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There are a lot of fun aspects to being a writer: creating imaginary worlds, bringing fascinating characters to life, feeling like a rockstar when someone says they dig your work, and conducting weird research that would look downright creepy under normal circumstances, to name a few. On the other end of that are the not-so-fun parts: writer’s block, wrestling with self-doubt, carving out time to write, or discovering a major plot hole halfway through. Still, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been daydreaming about seeing your book in print since you were a kid. With the gusto of a caffeinated jackrabbit, you decide it’s time to crank out that first novel. You’ve done all the meticulous outlining of a plotter, complete with storyboards and music playlists. Or maybe you’re a rebel, a pantser, prepared to fly by the seat of your, well, pants, occasionally utilizing barely legible notes scribbled on grocery receipts. Either way, you’re ready to dive in. Splash!

Things go along swimmingly at first. Then one day, your regular job gets a little too hectic, leaving you too tired to write. The next day, you have too many errands to run, leaving you with no time to crank out a few pages. Another day, you’ve managed to catch the latest bug circulating in your house, and you can barely breathe through one nostril, let alone work on your book. And so on. Suddenly, two weeks have gone by, and your characters are left feeling abandoned while you berate your lack of discipline and time management. When you finally pick back up where you left off, your momentum is gone, and everything you write sounds more mind numbing than tax return instructions. Then you end up marinating in a vat of imposter syndrome while glumly scrolling through social media to watch the latest viral cat videos.

Sound familiar? If so, you’re probably beyond frustrated and wondering how to get back on track. (And if not, then carry on, you shining star!) I’ve had a lot of writing ups and downs in my day, and the biggest reason for the latter is this: life happens. As Scottish poet Robert Burns once said, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” And since I can function—more or less—without writing, my goal of authoring a book amidst the chaos ends up at the bottom of my to-do list. It starts to feel like a distant, arduous task at best, and a frivolous, ridiculous pipedream at worst. 

As I pondered this predicament a few months ago, I wondered, what if I treat writing as a necessity, as something I require in my life to be the best, most authentic version of me? What realistic, sustainable steps could I take to make that a reality? Would a drastic change in my perspective set things back in motion and keep them there? Bearing in mind my desire to finish my first draft by December 31st, I did the math to see how much I need to write daily to achieve that goal. This led to the creation of the 500-Word Diet. Allow me to explain.

As I recently wrote in an Instagram post, I’m now treating my writing journey like a health regimen. For me, 500 literary calories a day will keep me on a solid path to a finished draft by year’s end. It has become a reasonable daily word count that feels manageable and satisfactory. Instead of adhering to a specific amount of time, I’ve found that I can crank out 500 words even on my busiest, most exhausting days. It frequently ends up being more than that, but even when it’s the minimum, I feel good about my progress.

Like any dietary wellness plan worth its salt, there needs to be some flexibility, cheat days included. If I know I have a day coming up when it will be nearly impossible to accomplish my minimum daily word count, I make a point to cover it in the days beforehand. If I truly need a break, I take one knowing that I need to double my word count the next day. So far, the most I’ve accumulated is 1500 words due to missing two days. In those scenarios, I reminded myself how discouraged and depleted I would feel if I let it snowball any further. To keep myself happy and mentally nourished, I fed my brain—er, worked on my book—and caught back up. And if I’m feeling stuck, I throw in a placeholder note and push forward like I’m plowing my way through a plate of kale. I might not enjoy that particular “meal,” but I know it’s good for me, and I’m not sabotaging my regimen. Put in the work, get it down, and edit later. 

I’m happy to say that this approach has truly changed things for me, not just in terms of productivity, but also my mindset. Each word-count milestone I meet gives me a boost of confidence. I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of, and it feels pretty good. 

I should also acknowledge that writing a first draft in bite-size pieces isn't particularly new or revolutionary. However, adjusting your perspective and categorizing your writing project as a need—especially if you have a full-time day job, are a parent, or have regular obligations that take up large portions of your schedule—gives you permission to make writing a priority, instead of something to be continuously shuffled until it gets lost in a creative black hole. We have all heard the importance of self-care, and how it enables us to be our best selves, and it's important to remember that dreams and goals are part of that self-care.

Now go tackle that first draft with the attention it deserves—even if it's 500 words at a time.

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Terri Bowen is a writer in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has authored countless poems, short stories, essays, press releases, human interest & financial articles, personal blogs, and screenplays and has nearly completed the first draft of her first novel, a suspense thriller. She is chronicling her writing journey on Instagram (@terribowenauthor).

This Crazy Writing Life: On Defining a Book By Its Cover—Part Two

By Steven Womack

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Hard to believe this is already the ninth installment of This Crazy Writing Life. Thanks for hanging with me on this, and I hope you’re getting something out of my <sometimes> seemingly random observations on the world of writing and publishing.

Last month, we talked about book covers—what a book cover is supposed to accomplish, how it works, and the challenges to getting the kind of cover that will serve the book the best. This month, I’m going to briefly discuss the different types of book covers. This won’t take long, so let’s dive in.

EBook covers are the simplest and quickest covers to create. They’re only one panel (no back cover or flaps), and you’ve got a little wiggle room. No need to sweat hitting the dimensions exactly (but don’t ignore them either). For Kindle eBook covers, you should shoot for a 1.6:1 aspect ratio, which is a complicated way of saying the height of your cover should be 1.6 times the width.

Kindle also specifies that the ideal dimensions for an eBook cover are 2560 pixels in height and a width of 1600 pixels. That gives you the best quality, especially if you’re reading on a high-resolution device. The cover image has to be less than 50 megabytes, and it should be either in a .tiff or .jpeg format. When you upload the image, don’t compress it.

Now if that sounds a little complicated, let’s compare this with a print book cover. Print book covers have a minimum of three different components: a front cover, a back cover, and a spine. This is it for a mass market or trade paperback edition. So how to you create this?

First, you have to know the trim size of your print book. And with modern, print-on-demand technology, you’ve got more choices than ever before. Just noodle around on the IngramSpark or KDP websites (start with the FAQ pages) and you’ll see some of your options. Or visit your local bookstore and marvel at the array of sizes books come in today.

After you get the trim size, then you have to decide on what kind of paper you want your book printed on. As I observed in an earlier installment of This Crazy Writing Life, my personal opinion for a simple novel is to stay away from white paper, which comes in 50- and 70- pound weights. But if you’re printing a book with illustrations, especially color, then you pretty much have to go with white.

Why is this critical? Different papers have different weights and take up different amounts of space. A 300-page book printed on 50-pound Crème is going to be thicker than the same number of pages printed on 38-pound Groundwood.

Oh, and did I mention you have to actually have the book typeset before you start work on the cover? Why is that?

Because the thickness of the book will determine the dimensions of the spine. And that depends on the number of pages in the book and the type of paper you choose.

There are a couple of other considerations that don’t directly affect the size of your cover. A paperback print-on-demand book from Ingram can have either a matte cover or a high gloss cover. Some specialty printers that have come into existence to serve the indie pub community (Book Vault, for instance, which I’ll talk about in a later column) can do even higher-end options like embossed covers, gold leaf lettering, and spray-on marbling. Pretty heady, exotic stuff…

If you’re going for a hardcover, the process gets even more complicated because you now have flap copy.

If this sounds a little overwhelming, just remember: once you have all this data (trim sizes, page count, etc.), then the book manufacturers can feed this into their program and spit out a template. A good cover designer is going to be able to walk you through this without too much agony.

So there’s enough to get you started. Both IngramSpark and KDP have lots and lots of information that’s easily accessible. And like every other task in modern life, you can always search YouTube...

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I wrote last month about how essential a good, inspired, effective cover was to marketing your book. Lots of really good books get passed over because their covers aren’t eye-catching enough, or don’t accomplish what a cover is supposed to do.

Sometimes, though, it works the other way around. As I mentioned in previous columns, my inbox gets inundated several times a day with email pushes marketing books, primarily indie-pubbed books. BookBub, FreeBooksy, BargainBooksy, EReader News, Robin Reads, Hello Books… I get daily visits from them all. And I actually read the emails and scrub down through the book offerings, not because I have time to read all this stuff (who would?) but because I like to just keep an eye on what’s out there. As I’ve also mentioned, even though your crazy Aunt Agnes’s Chihuahua has more graphic design talent in his back paw then I have in my whole brain, I can still tell when a cover works and when it doesn’t.

So imagine my delight when one of these push emails landed in my inbox last week and there’s a cover that quite literally left me speechless. It was gorgeous, beautifully rendered, the colors jumping off the page. It was an homage to those great classic hardboiled paperbacks of the Fifties and Sixties. Square-jawed handsome men in the background, a teary-eyed woman in the foreground, and the front end of a Sixties-era Cadillac off to the side, against a fire-engine red color scheme with brilliant yellow type.

The cover just worked…

Needless to say, though I’m saying it anyway, I downloaded the book immediately. It was an indie-pubbed book, the author’s debut novel. I Googled him and found his website, then wrote him a nice note and told him how much I loved the cover—the blurb on the cover was equally effective—and how much I was looking forward to reading his book.

And by the way, would you be willing to share the name of your cover designer?

The author wrote me back, was happy to share his designer’s name with me. He found him on Fivrr.com and his rates start at twenty bucks for an eBook cover!

As Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters, Holy Mother Pus Bucket…

Then I sat down to read the book. Now you may have already noticed I haven’t mentioned the title of the novel or the author’s name or even the broad brushstroke plot. There’s a reason for that. I’m too nice a guy to slam another writer’s work, except under the cloak of anonymity (for the unfortunate author, not me). 

But this novel was one of the worst things I’ve ever read in my life. Literally, by the second page I’m shaking my head and asking myself Did I just read that? If KDP offered a purple-ink option, this guy should’ve taken it. Purple prose so overwritten that it dripped off the page. Clearly, this writer never met an adjective or an adverb he didn’t fall in love with. Clichés that were literally on par with heaving bosoms and throbbing…

Whatevers.

I went into the kitchen and read an excerpt to my wife, who broke out laughing. This literally could have been a winning submission for the Bulwer-Lytton contest, except it was a whole damn book.

Which just goes to show, you can have the best cover in the world, the best marketing plans, the best intentions. But if your book sucks, it ain’t gonna work. Rule #1: Write—At The Very Least—A Passably Good Book.

What the hell, I found a good cover designer, though.

See you next month.

Men Writing Women

By Meredith Lyons

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You’ve seen it before. 

You may even be familiar with the Twitter hashtag or the Subreddit. But before you go too far down those hilarious rabbit holes, let’s chat with some women writers about the main pitfalls they’ve seen when men (sometimes honestly trying their best) write women characters and what they can try to do better.

While it would be easy (and hilarious) to pull screenshots or quotes from the multitude of examples where this has gone laughingly wrong—women “holding in” their periods for greater effect, for instance—in this piece, we’re going to attempt to give some honest advice to the men trying to be better. (Although I can’t promise not to include screenshots as illustrations.)

A few general thoughts to remember:

• Women are not usually fascinated or even preoccupied with their own breasts.

• Women are not as visually motivated as men when it comes to sex.

• Although society has deemed it more acceptable for a woman to express her emotions, most of us do not cry all the time.

• Women have no control over the flow of their periods.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s address the nuances of the typical #menwritingwomen pitfalls. “Put [your women characters] in heels and makeup if you choose,” says Audrey Lee, author of The Mechanics of Memory. “But don’t lead with their stunning beauty or, conversely, with their wish to be stunningly beautiful while comparing themselves to other women.” A major complaint that many of the women I talked to voiced was that often women are boiled down to their looks when written by men. And yes, we do want a mental picture of the character, but one tip is to check how you’ve described the other characters in your manuscript. Are the women the only ones getting their body parts in print?

“Limit physical description. Let your readers fill in the blanks,” advises J. L. Delozier, award-winning author of The Photo Thief, Con Me Once and the Persephone Smith thriller series. “It’s more fun that way for the reader and you avoid landmines that way. Never describe a woman’s breasts. Ever.” Once again for the people in the back. EVER.

“Tame the body parts references!” Agrees Melissa R. Collings, author of The False Flat (Coming in 2024). “Women don’t think about their breasts during a conversation. To women, our body parts are not novel wonders, they’re just body parts.”

Now let’s address the emotional elephant in the room. Women are often perceived as more emotional than men, which can lead to one of two undesirable outcomes: 

1. The woman who cries at the drop of a hat. 

2. The woman who’s “not like all the other girls” because she doesn’t cry at the drop of a hat.

It’s okay to have your characters cry, but almost every human who feels the urge to cry will try to repress it at first, sometimes successfully! Even in Ghost Tamer, which is a very emotional book about grief and loss, I pulled back on Raely’s actual tears, consciously limiting her crying scenes, and she fought against the emotion the whole way. (She is also pretty funny, in my opinion.)

“Make your female characters dimensional and complex,” says Lee. “Give them a depth and drive that comes from a universal human experience. Make their emotions, insecurities, and high EQ an asset and not a personality flaw that needs fixing.” Women are, first of all, humans. And every human has experienced every emotion by the age of ten. We may not have had the same experiences, but we’ve all experienced some kind of loss, grief, love, happiness, et cetera. My personal advice is to write the human first, and then see what additional information is needed. 

“Run it by a woman if need be and check yo’self!” advises Collings. 

“Avoid tropes – the voluptuous femme fatale. The perky—God, how I hate that word—best friend. When in doubt, ask a female friend/beta reader if your female character rings true,” adds Delozier. This is sound advice. Would you want to be condensed down to a stereotypical, football loving, beer guzzling, insensitive, inattentive Homer Simpson caricature? Get a woman friend or colleague to fact check you. And not a romantic partner or your mother. They’re too close to you and have a higher probability of empathetically reading the ‘intent’ behind your words. Get someone who can be objective. 

Jackie Johnson, author of Bladestay also advises against adding women characters who “exist only to move the plot of the male character forward.” She suggests checking the Bechdel and Mako Mori tests to see how you’re doing there.  

Writer MT Cozzola has some practical advice. “What I really think about is how we can all write better characters whose identity markers are different from our own. I’d advise the same thing to myself when writing male characters: start with a bias dump—and make it specific.” Cozzola advises just listing out everything that comes to mind when you think of the character, on your own, never to be viewed by anyone else, and then just check it over for stereotypes or think objectively about how it might hit. “Once I have that awareness, I can make more specific choices about this character’s situation, which drives the way they speak and think on the page.”

Overall, you’re striving to make your characters well-rounded human beings that your female readers can identify with and root for. Not another caricature that takes them out of the story, has them rolling their eyes, and taking a screenshot to share on Twitter. 

And if you’re curious about how our periods work, just ask us. (In a respectful manner and not while you’re drinking and hopefully we haven’t just met at a bar. Jesus.)

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Meredith grew up in New Orleans, collecting two degrees from Louisiana State University before running away to Chicago to be an actor. In between plays, she got her black belt and made martial arts and yoga her full-time day job. She fought in the Chicago Golden Gloves, ran the Chicago Marathon, and competed for team USA in the Savate World Championships in Paris. In spite of doing each of these things twice, she couldn’t stay warm and relocated to Nashville. She owns several swords, but lives a non-violent life, saving all swashbuckling for the page, knitting scarves, gardening, visiting coffee shops, and cuddling with her husband and two panther-sized cats. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, and the Women’s National Book Association. Her first novel Ghost Tamer is an Amazon Editor's Pick for Best SciFi Fantasy, an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Winner for Best SciFi Fantasy, an IPPY Award Winner for Best First Book, and a Silver Falchion Winner for Best Book of 2023 and Best Supernatural. A Dagger of Lighting releases April 1, 2025, both with CamCat Books.

Audiobooks

By Dale T. Phillips

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Since audiobooks are currently in the fastest growing book format right now, getting your novel out for sale as an audiobook is vital for success. If your book isn’t, you’re losing a lot, and leaving money on the table, as the expression goes. My audiobooks have sold hundreds and hundreds, and I love the continual income stream. Sadly, many writers from traditional publishers don’t have their backlists up as audios, so they’re missing out.

Reasons why you should have audio as part of your overall writing business strategy:

• Discoverability: Get a bigger audience and make it easier to find your work. Many potential fans like audio for a number of reasons. Some just enjoying a good listen while walking, driving, running, or biking. You want all the fans you can get! These days, people have less time for reading print books, so audiobooks can be a saving grace. While To Be Read (TBR) piles are so big, chances are many readers won’t get to your print book for a long, long time, if ever, but if you’re on audio, they have a better chance of finding your work. If they like that one, they’ll come back for more. Having your book listed in audio format also gets more hits in Internet searches, and is listed in more places, increasing your Internet presence, and the chances of someone finding your work. With over 10 million books in print and electronic format, your book is a drop in the ocean. There are far fewer audiobooks: smaller ocean, bigger chance to make a splash! And it’ll get you into some extra markets. I was speaking with a person from a State Library about my books, and the first question was “Any of your books out on audio? Because we’re investing in those right now.” 

• Sales: As well as finding new fans and watching your sales numbers increase, you can make money. Once the book is produced, all you have to do is promote it whenever you want. But each title is another product in your writer store, and even little trickles of money add up to an income stream. It’s nice to have hundreds of sales in another venue.

• Reviews: While many print book reviewers are overwhelmed, there are many sites doing audio that can still accommodate a review. So you have more chances of getting good notice for your work. It all adds up. And listeners can also post reviews and ratings, which help.

• It’ll make you a better writer: When someone else reads your words, it makes the clunky ones stand out, and the good ones sound better. Your ear will develop, especially for dialog.

• Freebies: With some audiobook production, you get free giveaway codes. You can gift these to reviewers, as contest prizes, or simply as rewards to readers. When someone buys a print book in person from me, I’ll offer them the free audiobook as a nice extra.

Audiobook Options

Historically, audiobooks were done by professional companies and were expensive to produce, costing thousands of dollars. So only better-selling books made it. Now there are options.

• Someone ELSE does all the work- (and takes most of the money). While it’s nice to have someone do all the work for you, as with traditional publishing, there’s a danger. They might stick you with a hideous cover, a bad version, or a product priced wrong for the market, or take a long time to get it out- or never, while they hold the rights captive. In any case, it may not sell, and you’re stuck. And when someone does the work, they also take most of the profit. 

While you assume that a big publisher would do a professional version, there may be other factors. I got one from a BIG audiobook producer, but the narrator couldn’t pronounce ANY place name in Maine correctly- even easy ones like Bangor and Augusta! So letting someone else do it all means the quality control may not be there, and there’s little you can do about it. And you might tick off some fans. (I know I was!)

And that’s assuming you can get a publisher to produce it. Professional narrators run upwards of $100 an hour, and it takes hours to produce a book. Plus other production costs, and packaging, and distributing, they’re investing a few thousand dollars, at least. Since they expect a good return, they have to estimate the sales will exceed the output. So if you’re a typical mid-lister, with less than ten thousand print/ebook sales per book, they may not even do your book for audio. But they’ll likely still retain the rights, in case you hit it big. Then they can always do one later. But what happens is that you can go for years (or forever) without an audio version. 

So- check your contract to see what provisions there are for audio. Even if you signed them away, and they’re not doing anything with them, maybe you can re-negotiate. They may not give the rights back for free, but maybe you can offer them something for it that will make it worthwhile. 

• Do it all yourself, keep all the money. 

Two factors- Production and Distribution

It’s true you don’t need a studio anymore, so it’s become cost-effective. You can produce high-quality audio files in different formats with free software and inexpensive equipment. I recommend Audacity software for recording, because it’s free and simple to learn and use. 

Are you a professional narrator? If you’re charging money for the book, you want quality. Unless you’re famous, the listeners may not be forgiving of less-than-awesome narrating. Before you start this path, do some voice work (maybe some podcasts), and get comfortable with a microphone and sound editing.

Drawbacks- while this can be done, the main cost is time to record and edit. Most of us don’t have enough hours in a day now. And it may take hours of editing to get the sound to a professional level.

Distribution. Even if you do it yourself, how are you going to package, list, and sell the finished product? Tough to arrange this on your own. 

• Work with a Service, and split the money

While there are other services, my current favorite production option right now is ACX.com, which feeds into Audible.com, an Amazon company. They make it easy and profitable for independents to get their books produced, listed, and sold. Better yet, the finished product is on the Audible site, AND on your Amazon book listing, right beside the print and kindle versions. Huge showcase! And they can tie it into Whispersync, which lets you switch between devices and formats.

How to Produce Audiobooks

For ACX, you’ll need an account on the site (includes telling them where to send the money!). 

1. Check your publishing contract first, and beware of issues with anthologies, or other writers listed on your book as authors. 

2. READ YOUR CONTRACT TERMS! Audible gets an exclusive right for years, so make sure you’re comfortable with the terms.

3. Log in to ACX and search for your book, then claim it as yours, with the right to produce an audio.

Various ways to produce your book:

• Do all the narration yourself. ACX distributes the book for you, and you make 40% of the list price. 

• Pay a narrator up front for doing your book. Narrators are expensive. While you can still retain your 40%, consider the cost, and how long it might take to recoup that. You post your project with the offer to pay, and get bids. Decide on who you want. 

• Offer a royalty split, for no up-front money- This is my favorite way. You are hoping that narrators will do all the work on spec, in hopes of making money when the audio sells. You each get 20% of the sale price in this part. They’re putting in time, which to them equals hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, and you have no risk! But of course, you wrote the book, so your time is already invested. 

When you’ve claimed your book, and decided if you want a narrator, you post it up as a project, with a description and notes on what the ideal narrator should sound like- male or female, age, accents, humorous, serious, scary, etc. You post an audition piece, a short segment that will give a good indication if the narrator is right for the work (dialogue with different voices is a good indicator). Add any helpful hints on what the passage should sound like.

This posts the project up for people to audition for, and you wait for replies. You can also search on available narrators, and sample their voices to see if any fit, then send them a message to see if they’re interested in your project.

When auditions come in, listen if they’re right for your work. When you’ve found someone who has the right voice for the job, you then set a schedule and make an official Offer. There’s a date for a 15-minute milestone, which is a guide to see if they’re on the right track, and a date for the project completion. You may need some back-and-forth on pronunciation and tone, and you send messages via ACX. When they’re ready, they send ACX the files, and you give a listen. You can request changes if there’s something amiss, so you have complete quality control. 

When it’s done properly, you Approve the work, which then goes through ACX for their approval, and then gets posted to Audible for sale. You’ll need a cover image modified to their specs, a squared-off version of your book cover. Then it goes up on Amazon as well, linked with your print and Kindle versions. They will set the price of the finished book, based on length.

But there’s more! ACX sends you codes for free downloads of the work. You can use these for reviewers, friends, giveaways, and rewards for your fans- it’s an awesome way of promoting your work- for free! You send instructions and a download code, and someone gets the audio for free.

And the bonus program- if your work is the first someone selects when signing up for Audible, you get a bonus payment- it’s split with your narrator, but is a nice addition.

If They'd Mentioned This in The Beginning…

By Chris Berg and Paul James Smith

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Wayyyy back in the day and often around four or five in the morning, Paul and I would 69 our patrol cars and talk. Yak, prattle, blabber, and natter. . .gab, gossip, banter, and jabber. After all, it was the middle of the night, and if the city wasn't behaving badly, we had the time.

Often, we'd take up behind a Shell station on our beat, and drink thermoses of coffee and share our experiences during the shift, hopes of things to come and dreams yet unrealized, but usually well into development. 

Very often, we'd talk about writing. The little tidbits we'd authored for our friends or—more often—just for ourselves. We didn't know it then, but we were on our way.

If someone had told us that writing a book wasn't more than just tippy-tap-typing away in our favorite club chair, mid-shelf scotch on the armrest, and a cozy, flickering flame gently warming a walnut-paneled study, well, we wouldn't have believed it. Hell, we just assumed we had Wambaugh skills, or when we got really up in ourselves, Hemingway was in our sights. After more than a few years seriously devoted to this exercise, apparently 'learning the craft' turns out to be a real thing.

We've come a long way, since those days on Beat 1 and are more dedicated than ever to getting it right. Still...it would've been sobering to know the following:

Embarking on the path from learning the craft of writing to publishing with a traditional publisher is no simple feat. It's a winding road filled with twists and turns, but for most of us, the promise of seeing your work in print and sharing it with a wider audience makes the journey worth the effort.

Let's dive into the experience step by step:

Learning the Craft

Every author's adventure kicks off with taking a crack at mastering the art of storytelling. This phase is like the foundation of a grand building, essential and ever evolving.

• Reading Extensively: Most writers start by devouring books in their genre and beyond. It's like a crash course in different writing styles and narrative techniques.

• Formal Education: Some authors opt for formal education in creative writing, but it's not a must. MFA programs and writing workshops are just one way to sharpen those skills.

• Practice and Experimentation: Writers hone their craft through years of practice. That's right, years of practice. From short stories to novel drafts, it's all about flexing those creative muscles.

• Studying Writing Techniques: Many authors dive into books on writing craft, attend workshops, and join writing groups to level up their skills.

Writing the Manuscript

Once confidence blooms, or some version of that, authors often find themselves diving headfirst into crafting their manuscript. For most, it becomes a labor of love in the making.

• Drafting: Writing that first draft can be a marathon. Months or years may pass, depending on the complexity of the tale.

• Revising: Countless rounds of revisions follow the initial draft. Plot tweaks, character arcs, and prose polishing are all part of the process.

• Self-Editing: Before seeking outside help, authors need to fine-tune their work through self-editing.

• Taking a Break: Stepping away from the manuscript for a breather allows for fresh eyes during the editing phase. We've found this little step really helpful in many ways.

• Multiple Passes: Self-editing involves various rounds focusing on different aspects like plot, sentence structure, and proofreading. Some get caught in an endless loop, finding it difficult to ever find their manuscript worthy of the next steps. Just another hurdle to conquer.

Professional Editing 

Many authors choose to work with professional editors to further refine their manuscript. Not cheap, but in our view, absolutely necessary. And, for what it's worth, defining the editing steps below is not an absolute. Authors will find a wide range of definitions, but in the grand scheme, this is close.

• Developmental Editing: This focuses on the big-picture elements of the story, such as plot, character development, and pacing.

• Line Editing: This involves a detailed examination of the manuscript's language, focusing on style, clarity, and flow.

• Copyediting: This stage addresses grammar, spelling, punctuation, and consistency issues.

• Proofreading: The final stage of editing, which catches any remaining errors.

Querying Agents

With a polished manuscript in hand, authors venture into the world of querying literary agents, a nerve-wracking, usually lengthy, but necessary series of steps.

• Research: Finding agents who champion their genre is key. A well-crafted query letter showcasing the book and the author's prowess is essential. Sounds simple—it is not. Paul and I recall an agent, apparently giddy with himself, telling us, he likes to "see how many queries I can reject while waiting for the light to change." Luckily, in our experience, that's not routinely the case.

• Submission: Following agent guidelines, authors send out query letters (sounds simple—it is not) and requested materials, bracing for the waiting game.

• Waiting and Responding: Rejections may, no wait...will come, but authors can often use feedback to fine-tune their pitch and manuscript for the next round.

Acquiring an Agent

If an agent shows interest, the manuscript gets a closer look. If representation is offered, a new chapter in the author's journey begins.

• Negotiation: Terms are discussed, and agreements are signed, marking the start of a professional partnership.

• Manuscript Revisions: Further tweaks may be suggested to make the manuscript shine even brighter.

Submission to Publishers

The agent then takes the helm, submitting the manuscript to potential publishers, hoping to find the perfect match.

• Preparing Submission Package: Crafting a compelling pitch, synopsis, and author bio is crucial for catching the eye of publishers.

• Submission: The agent sends out the package to targeted editors, aiming for that coveted book deal.

• Auctions: In some cases, multiple publishers vying for the manuscript can lead to an auction, ensuring the best outcome for the author. Never been an author that wasn't praying for this situation!

Publishing Process

Once a publisher bites, the publishing journey truly begins, from contract negotiations to the book's grand release.

• Contract Negotiation: The nitty-gritty details of the publishing contract are ironed out by the agent.

• Editorial Process: Collaborating with the publisher's editors, the author refines the manuscript further. Yep, that's right. More edits.

• Production: From cover design to proofreading, the book undergoes various production stages.

• Marketing and Publicity: The publisher crafts marketing strategies, if you're lucky, with the author's input, to promote the book.

• Release: Finally, the book sees the light of day, typically a year or more after the contract signing. Did, someone mention this is a journey?

This is a marathon, not a sprint, demanding grit, patience, and a hunger for growth. While every author's tale is unique, these steps paint a broad picture of the traditional publishing process. So, here's to all the aspiring authors out there—may your journey be filled with words, wonder, and a touch of magic!

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Chris Berg and Paul James Smith began their careers as beat partners in California's Bay Area, quickly advancing to detective roles. Chris excelled in vice and intelligence, finding his niche as an undercover narcotics detective. He thrived in the world of hand-to-hand drug ‘buys,’ clandestine lab investigations, and the requisite counterfeit personas. Later, he became a narco field training officer and a court-certified expert witness in narcotics investigations.

Paul brings 31 years of law enforcement experience, serving as a field training officer, federal agent, Special Response Team member, sniper/instructor, National Tactical Team leader, and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program manager.

Lifelong friends and writing partners for nearly a decade, Chris and Paul craft thrillers inspired by true events. Their diverse backgrounds enrich both their writing and storytelling. They are Claymore Award winners and Pageturner Award finalists. Together, they write The Night Police novels and currently have three manuscripts in development: Blood Brothers, Twilight at Wolfie's, and Blood in the Water.

This Crazy Writing Life: On Defining a Book By Its Cover

By Steven Womack

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We left off last month’s column with an exploration of the technical aspects (and challenges) of formatting the interior of print books. This month, let’s talk about the exterior of the book—the cover.

Before we get started, though, one quick sidebar. In late September, I drove back from St. Petersburg Beach, Florida (just about 48 hours ahead of Hurricane Helene) after attending the annual conference of Novelists, Inc. Novelists, Inc. may not be as well known as some of the other major writers professional associations like the Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, or SFWA—Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America—but since it was started in late 1980s by a group of disgruntled romance writers, it’s emerged as one of the most powerful trade associations out there. It’s the only writers’ organization I know of outside of the Writers Guild of America that requires you to actually be a professional writer to join. To gain admittance to NINC, you have to have published at least two novels in popular genres like romance or mystery, and you have to have earned a minimum amount of money from those two books (the exact requirements are outlined on the website at www.ninc.com).

Readers and fans, editors and agents are not eligible to join NINC. The founders of the organization decided that NINC would never offer prizes or awards (like the MWA and RWA) because this fostered a sense of competition that was contrary to the organization’s purpose of encouraging and lifting up all writers in the struggle to survive in this crazy business. And business is the focus of the conference as well as the organization; you’ll rarely see a NINC panel on how to write sparkling dialogue. But you will see panels on understanding the intricacies of subrights licenses and contracts or the technical aspects of independent audiobook production.

Sponsors pay big bucks to have a presence at the NINC conference (in the spirit of complete transparency, I’m a former president of the organization and a current Board member). The reason I bring this up is that as a result, some of the most cutting-edge aspects of indie publishing show up at this conference. Every time I go, I learn something new. Last year, the big topic of discussion was the use of A.I. generated voices in audiobook narration. This year, there seems to be a big movement toward indie authors selling books directly from their websites. The One Big Thing I learned is that taking a simple, static author website and turning it into a true e-commerce platform is something I’m just not quite ready for.

In future columns, I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned from these conferences. As independent publishing continues to grow from an isolated few stubborn writers trying to survive into a cultural and business movement that has totally remade publishing, dozens of other companies have sprouted up as well to serve this market.

As I’ve said more than once lately, it’s a whole new world out there.

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I was curious as to where the phrase/cliché Don’t judge a book by its cover came from, so I Googled it. Turns out George Eliot first coined that turn-of-phrase in her 1860 novel, The Mill on the Floss.

Gotta confess, I missed that one.

But I’ve heard the adage all my life, which is a metaphorical phrase telling us that outward appearances can be deceiving, that we should never judge anyone or anything by its external looks.

Sounds good on the surface; only problem is it’s hogwash. 

We judge everything by its external appearance. A car may be the most dependable, rugged, efficient vehicle ever made, but if it makes you look like a complete yutz driving it, you’re not going to buy one (are you listening, Walter White, cruising along in your Pontiac Aztec?)

You may meet someone at a party who would be the kindest, most loving, passionate and dependable life partner you could ever wish for, but if their hair is greasy and dirty, they smell bad, snot’s running out of their nose, and they have huge pit stains, you’re probably gonna take a pass.

It’s the same with book covers. The indie pubbing world is full of stories of books that didn’t sell for squat, so the authors yanked the books down, changed the cover, put the book back up without changing a word and now it sells like crazy. You may have written a classic, a prize-winner, a book that will last through the ages, but if your cover turns everyone off, then the book’s going to be a loser.

I’m speaking for myself now, but I’ll bet a lot of you are in the same boat. I’m not a graphic artist, and when it comes to good cover design, I wouldn’t know it if it ran up behind me and bit me on the butt. Truth is, I’m not even qualified to write about book covers from an artist’s point-of-view. I have absolutely no talent as a graphic designer. So, I’m writing this from the perspective of an indie-pubber who has to deal with the fact that he’s not even capable of telling good design from bad.

Maybe I’m being a little hard on myself here. Truth is, I’ve been around book covers my whole life, and while I have no talent as a designer, I am a sophisticated and experienced consumer of books. I know when a book cover design doesn’t work for me. And when I run across a brilliant book cover, it moves me on a visceral level.

I’m not overstating here: your book cover is the first and one of the most important marketing tools you have.

So how do you deploy this tool to make your book as marketable as possible?

First, it’s got to convey a certain amount of information. The title of the book—and subtitle, if it’s got one—and the author’s name should be prominent, along with any other information that will help sell the book (as in “New York Times Bestselling Author”). I have actually seen book covers where the author’s name was hard to read. When that happens, someone needs an intervention.

Second, the design/artwork should stand out visually. Whether on a jam-packed bookstore shelf or a crowded Amazon web page, there should be something that grabs your eye as you scan from Point A to Point B. I realize that’s a nebulous, unfocused notion. If I could actually define in solid terms what “stand out visually” means, then I’d be a famous well-paid cover artist and not the word-shoveling literary coal miner that I am. The best I can do is echo Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who—in attempting to define obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio—famously wrote I know it when I see it.

Third, your cover design must reflect and communicate the book’s genre and tone. If you’ve written a light-hearted cozy mystery where the protagonist’s cute but feisty cat solves the murder based on a plot point that’s a recipe for cream cheese blintzes, then a dark, brooding, heavily shadowed cover with a pair of threatening, glowing eyes coming out of the mist is not going to help you. Conversely, you’re not going to sell a graphic, disturbing serial killer suspense novel with a bright, cheery cover of pinks and blues, cartoon characters and fonts with extra curlicues and other cutesy elements.

This requires you to learn and study the conventions of your genre, to research what works and what doesn’t work, and to learn the expectations of your audience.

Stuff you should already be doing anyway…

One of the best examples of dynamite book covers out there today are the books published by Hard Case Crime. Hard Case Crime publishes crime fiction that echoes back to the paperback pulp fiction era of the 1940s through the late 1060s, when writers like Mickey Spillane, Cornell Woolrich, and Robert Bloch were flourishing. They’re bringing back and revitalizing the old hard-boiled school with contemporary writers like Stephen King, Lawrence Block, and Max Allan Collins, as well as republishing long-dead writers like Donald Westlake and Woolrich. And their books all feature covers that are homages to those great mass-market paperback pulp fiction covers.

While I admittedly am not a designer myself, I do find that there are certain things I react positively to and others that turn me off. I subscribe to a lot of book promotions websites: BookBub, Free Booksy, Robinreads, etc. So I get way too many push emails every day, and most of them are for indie-pubbed books. I’ve noticed in the last couple of years that more and more book covers depend on stock photos for their visuals, especially in genres like romance. I get that original art costs a fortune, but there’s something about a generic stock photo on a book cover that screams self-published, and I find that a turn-off. You can start with stock photography if you want, but with programs like Canva and Book Brush out there, in my view one should at least put a little effort into manipulating and adapting the image to make it more unique.

The bottom line for most writers—myself included—is that the best way to land that beautiful book cover is to find a cover artist you trust and whose work you admire. Only problem is, they can be hard to find and kind of expensive. It’s a challenge to find that sweet spot between “I love your stuff” and “oh, I can afford that.” I worked with a designer for several years when I repubbed the out-of-print novels in my Music City Murders series. Dawn Charles did a fabulous job for me, was great to work with, with very reasonable fees. Unfortunately, she passed away a few years ago. But go to my Amazon page and you’ll see what I’m talking about; it’s an object lesson in how to create a brand.

And I mentioned earlier, companies are popping up everywhere to help indie pubbers get the help they need. One that’s been around over a decade is Reedsy, which is a company that’s an online employment agency for publishing freelancers of all types; editors, designers, formatters, etc. They’re great to work with and a good place to start.

We’ll continue this discussion next month. Thanks again for hanging with This Crazy Writing Life.

Never Make Your Critique Partner Cry!

By Lois Winston

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We writers are not the best judges of our own work. Neither are most of our family and friends. They’ll either love everything we write because they don’t know any better, or they don’t want to hurt our feelings. Conversely, some will sic the green-eyed monster on us, telling us not to quit our day job. 

That’s why critique groups and/or partners are an invaluable tool in every author’s toolkit. They’re the writer friends we rely on when we’ve developed writer’s block or written ourselves into a corner. They brainstorm with us when the ideas don’t come, and they offer us honest criticism chapter after chapter, helping us hone our work until it’s ready for submission. Then, they either commiserate with us when the rejection letters arrive or whoop it up when we get that offer of representation or a book contract.

And because this is a partnership, we do the same for them.

However, none of us wants to hear that the 400-page baby we birthed through our fingertips onto the printed page is butt ugly. And neither do our critique partners. Just as we hope to find critiquers who will offer us constructive criticism, we also need to be able to give constructive criticism to others in return. The key is always to encourage, never discourage. Luckily, there are ways to do this.

Always remember to point out positives as well as negatives. It’s just as important for a writer to know what she’s doing well and correctly as what she’s doing poorly and incorrectly. As you read a work-in-progress, point out those parts you especially like, but don’t be afraid to point out areas that need work. Most importantly, in both cases, don’t forget to explain why. 

Our critique partners often become good friends, and it’s hard to criticize friends for fear of hurting their feelings. But if we can’t be objective and honest with our critiques, we’re not helping each other. We all need to know where our manuscripts are not working as well as where they are working.

It’s important to find a group or partner who either writes in the same genre or has a good deal of knowledge about each other’s genre. However, interests change. Writers often decide to explore different genres. What happens if Helen Historical is suddenly bitten by the vampire bug? You curl your nose up. You shudder. Vampires give you the creeps. You want to be a good critique partner, but try as you might, you can’t read those chapters with an open mind. If that’s the case, it’s time to step aside—at least until Helen returns to her historicals or you fall in love with bloodsuckers. 

Some writers have a hang-up about red ink. They feel like someone has taken a knife to their manuscript and slashed it to death. Bold type in all caps will make some writers feel as though they’re being yelled at. Be sensitive to how your partners feel about how you deliver comments. Avoid red type and all caps when making notes on digital pages. When working from printed pages, avoid red ink and thick black sharpies. Never write comments in script. Print them. We can all read our own handwriting, but others may struggle to decipher our scrawls.

If you’re one of those writers with a great handle on punctuation or grammar, your partners might ask you to do line edits. Rather than correcting their work, point out problem areas. This way, the writer will learn from the experience and not make the same mistake in future works. 

Keep in mind that just because you would write a scene or a character differently, it doesn’t make the author’s way wrong. If your partner is having problems with a sentence or scene and asks for assistance, offer suggestions, but never rewrite her manuscript in your style.

Often, writers gravitate toward other writers of the same experience level. This usually makes for a group or partnership that can work together more comfortably. If the various members are at different levels in their writing journeys, the more novice writers may begin to depend too much on the more advanced writers, and the more advanced writers may begin to feel that they aren’t getting much out of the group. Since we all progress at a different pace, you may discover over time that you’ve outgrown your present group and need to move on to another.

Manuscripts should be free of typos and spelling errors, but we all occasionally suffer from a short circuit between our brains, fingers, and eyes. No matter how many times we read and reread something, we often miss a “there” for a “their” or a “that” for a “than.” If your partner is getting ready to send her work out to an editor or agent, offer to read through her work with an eye toward the technical, but keep in mind that punctuation and sentence structure is often a matter of style. Point out grammatical errors such as misplaced modifiers and subject-verb disagreements, but keep in mind that characters often dictate grammar. A street urchin in Victorian England won’t speak like the Earl of Sussex.

Pay attention to structure as you read a work-in-progress. Every scene should have a purpose. Make sure the pacing is appropriate for the scene/event taking place. In the middle of a chase scene, the heroine shouldn’t be noticing the intricately detailed pattern of the hero’s tie. 

Sentences should be clear and understandable. Point out if the writer has gone off on a tangent about something superfluous to the scene, such as extraneous background information or too much detail. By the same token, note if the author doesn’t supply enough details and description for the characters and settings to come alive. 

Highlight non-descript words such as “it” or “thing” or bland words such as “pretty” or “nice.” Suggest substituting more specific or descriptive words. If the author uses clichés, suggest she find another phrase. Clichés bore readers. Also note repetitive word usage and sentence structure. 

Understand basic rules of writing before you offer to critique someone else. For many writers, passive voice is a difficult concept to grasp. Not every sentence using the various forms of the verb “to be” is passive. Passive voice is when the subject is acted upon. Active voice is when the subject is acting. 

Point of view is another difficult concept. Make certain you understand it before you criticize others for misusing it. Check for bouncing points of view within a scene, but keep in mind, point of view can change from scene to scene. However, if you feel like you’re at a ping-pong match, make the author aware of that.

Finally, know your facts before criticizing someone else. If you suspect the writer’s information is inaccurate, ask if she’s done any research on the subject. If she tells you she saw a similar event on a television show or in a movie, suggest she check the library or ask an expert. The media is notorious for taking liberties with facts and events. 

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. A Crafty Collage of Crime, the twelfth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, won the 2024 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Her most recent release, Sorry, Knot Sorry, is the thirteenth book in the series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

Keywords, Descriptions, Jacket Copy

By Dale T Phillips

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This topic is critical to success, and there are whole books on these particular subjects with different schools of thought about the best ways to include everything. Browse the Resources Appendix for further information. 

You’re going to have to be very aware of where your book fits in the publishing world (category), because you’ll need to add keywords (descriptive book tags) when you publish it. Each distributor allows you a certain number of keywords to include for your book, and of course you’ll want the best ones. These keywords are critical for helping readers find your books, because that’s what the big search engines use to locate the type of book you’re selling. The more your book comes up in a search on certain keywords, the more chances you have of someone checking it out. To sell more copies, learn what you need to keep your book search-term relevant. Search engines work on optimization, or SEO, which is why it’s so important your book show up under a search on that keyword. One great tool that you’ll want to look into for finding these in depth is (KDP) Publisher Rocket. Some say you should use all the characters allowed, and fill every category. 

Descriptions and Jacket Copy are important as well, and they’re used to quickly tell a browser if it’s the type of book they’ll be interested in. More detail than the tagline, they are included as part of the book listing online, and for a print book, on the back cover (jacket) at the top. Some distributors use two descriptions: a short one, about three sentences long, and a slightly longer one.

Here’s the elements you should include:

• Hook the readers right away with a compelling first two lines. 

• Make it easy and exciting to read. Readers won’t spend much time; they’ll skim quickly to see if it’s what they want.

• Establish what’s at stake and make it important.

• Only a character or two, no more. 

• Don’t reveal everything. Leave them wanting to know what happens.

To determine whether your descriptions are good, look for book descriptions of successful books that make you want to check out the book. What picture do they paint in just a few words that make it sound compelling? You’ll want descriptions for your books that sound similar. Get help from your team, Beta readers, writing friends, etc. on what does well.

A disadvantage of Smashwords as a distributor is that the keywords and descriptions are the same for all distribution channels. Not a deal breaker, but important to realize.  And in Amazon, the title, subtitle, and description are all searchable.

The Writer’s Playbook: Interview Your Characters

By Steven Harms

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To start, calculators down.

Now answer the following:
What is three times three?
Ten times seven?
Nine times two?
And, to finish this little exercise, what is eighty-five times forty-six? Take your time.

Hopefully you nailed the final answer. You may be asking what this has to do with being an author? Read on.

In the spring of 1985, I was two years into my first job at the Detroit Pistons. Around that same time, in my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin something occurred that got my attention. The Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA had recently been purchased by Herb Kohl – I’ll get to him in a moment – and I felt the opportunity to return home was worth an inquiry. New ownership of a pro team generally comes with a slate of changes on the business side to align with a new owner’s vision and desire for how they want the place to operate. I wasn’t wrong. I sent a letter of inquiry to the president of business operations of the Milwaukee Bucks, not expecting a reply.

Two weeks later I received a call from John Steinmiller, introducing himself and asking that I come to Milwaukee for an interview. The role was a new position, and the person they were seeking would be responsible for building the sales team and crafting the external sales strategy.

I was flown in the following week and met with John. Our discussion went well, and I was excited to put it mildly. The opportunity would advance my career to the next level. As John wrapped our interview, he informed me that the new owner, Herb Kohl, would also like to meet with me one-on-one.

Who’s Herb Kohl? Perhaps you’ve shopped at Kohl’s. That was Herb’s family business, begun by his father in 1924. Kohl’s began as a grocery chain in the Milwaukee area before adding department stores beginning in 1962, eventually selling it all off in 1979. Herb Kohl purchased the Bucks in 1985 to prevent the team from exiting Milwaukee, in line with his community mindedness, which eventually led to him becoming a U.S. Senator, representing Wisconsin for twenty-four years. That’s the man I now sat across from in his spacious office at a top floor of Milwaukee’s tallest building.

The interview with him was straightforward – my background, schooling, sales experience with the Detroit Pistons, family, goals, and a few other traditional interview topics. Herb was a soft-spoken person, palpably gracious, and he made me comfortable as we chatted. Somewhere amid that interview, completely out of the blue, he asked me that final math question at the top of this article. Stone cold. No pivot. I can’t recall the exact digits, but you get the idea. To this day, I remember Herb said, “Take your time.” It was a jolt. I recall thinking that I was about to blow the interview and wouldn’t get the job. But I figured out quickly how to process the problem and answered it correctly. He then tossed me two more of similar nature. I passed all three. In the end, I landed the job.

My length of service with the Bucks lasted four years before I moved to New York City for my next opportunity. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a moment during my time with the Bucks to ask Herb why he threw those math problems at me. I’m convinced he did so to see how I process information and how I manage myself in a stressful situation. I just never asked. I think I know the answer, at least in part, which aligns with the task we have in creating our characters and developing them.  

Every good author understands that characters tell the author what to write, not the other way around. We’re responsible for bringing the people in our stories to life, intently listening to each, being thoughtful of their backstory, and abiding by who they are as a character. Their dialogue and actions drive the plot. How those are handled by an author is critical to maintaining a compelling, authentic story.

But what happens when a scene or chapter or subplot just won’t materialize, better known as writer’s block? All authors experience that moment, some less than others, but it’s unavoidable. It will happen, probably multiple times in the process of producing a manuscript. Successfully dealing with the problem opens the door to kickstart the interrupted creative process. There are many methods, but taking a cue from Herb Kohl, consider copying his technique.

Have a conversation with the characters on what they’re thinking. Throw them a wildly incongruent question of fact or importance that is unconnected to the story and see how they respond. If their answer misses the mark, that’s alright. Now you know. If they arrive at a plausible, reasonable answer, now you know that as well. If they hem and haw and sweat, tell them to take their time and only move on after they’ve answered. That’s also informative. You now perceive facets of them you hadn’t known, which may be a key ingredient in unblocking yourself and taking your story to a higher level.

Next time you’re at a Kohl’s, or drive by one, or see one of their advertisements, think back to this article and consider the “Kohl method” of interviewing a character(s) to handle current or future writing blocks. He or she may be able to figure out the “math question” you pose. Or maybe not. Either way their strengths, weaknesses, make-up, countenance, and other previously unrevealed attributes will come to the fore.

Just one rule, though. No calculators allowed.

This Crazy Writing Life: Defining Irony In The Time Of Covid

By Steven Womack

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In this month’s installment of This Crazy Writing Life, my original intent was to start where I left off with last month’s column on eBook distribution and explore the options and possibilities of print.

That was the plan, but as someone once told me, we make plans; God laughs.

So before we move onto more serious stuff, a little sidebar.

The last half of August saw something we’ve never seen before—two major mystery conferences were taking place in Nashville in back-to-back weeks. Killer Nashville, of course, is now a major regional conference that draws writers and readers from all over the country, if not the world. The week after KN, Nashville hosted Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, the largest gathering of mystery writers and fans in the world.

This was, to paraphrase a conversation Joe Biden had with Barack Obama after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, a big effin’ deal… This has literally never happened before. For two weeks or so, Music City became the center of the mystery world.

I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about something. I’ve been pretty transparent about my struggles in the writing career arena. When I left academia in 2020—after the college where I’d been teaching for twenty-five years quite literally closed its doors and went out of business—I’ve been trying to resurrect a writing career that was once almost promising.

So I signed up for both, with great relish.

I was thrilled when I was assigned four panels at Killer Nashville. At Bouchercon—where the competition for panels is somewhat stiffer—I was assigned one. This felt great. It was like the old days, back in the Nineties, when I was a full-time mystery writer and making a living at it.

Then, ten days before Killer Nashville opened, I woke up with a fever about five o’clock in the morning. I tried to slough it off, but after a few hours, I decided to take a Covid test.

Positive…

Everything went downhill from there. I’m an old guy, an immuno-compromised cancer survivor. When I still tested positive and still sick after a week, I cancelled Killer Nashville. A week later, same results.

So long, Bouchercon.

And want to know the irony of this? One of the panels I was scheduled to be on at Killer Nashville was “Handling Successes and Setbacks As A Writer.”

The universe has a weird sense of humor. I had to cancel my appearance on a panel about handling setbacks because I had one of the biggest setbacks in quite awhile.

Define irony…

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So let’s talk about print books and how you indie pub them. We’ll start with a few basic assumptions.

First, most indie pub authors I’ve ever met make most of their sales (and, therefore, most of their money) from eBooks. So if you want to delve into the print arena, just be aware that it’s an awful lot of effort and cost for the least return. For many writers these days, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. On the other hand, there’s nothing like the feel, smell and heft of a real book.

Second, the technical aspects of producing print books are way more complicated and demanding than eBooks. Why? Because eBooks are marked by flowability, which means you don’t have to typeset them. The text just flows out of the ether and into the e-reader. There’s no set trim size. The user actually determines the font, point size, leading, and measure. Actually, in real life whatever device the user is reading them on determines these factors by default and the user can change them if they’re savvy enough.

(As an aside, don’t know what point size, font, leading, and measure mean? Then you’ve got an even higher technical hill to climb…)

Third, be aware that the print landscape is a little more complicated if you hope to sell print books in both brick-and-mortar bookstores and Amazon. No brick-and-mortar bookstore will order a print copy of your book from Amazon and set it on their shelves. For one thing, most bookstores hate Amazon with a fiery, searing, scorching passion. More than that, bookstores depend on wholesale discounts and returnability for survival and Amazon’s not about to help them on that front. So what this means is you’ve got to upload one set of files to Amazon and one to a wholesale book distributor. And then you hope to high heaven the same files will work for both outlets.

Fourth, unless you have a garage the size of a warehouse and deep pockets, you’re not going to go the old school route of finding a book printer to print up a few thousand of your books and then ship them to your home address. Chances are they’ll sit in your garage until the mice find them, at which point you’ll have a bunch of fat, happy mice on your hands. And if you do get lucky enough to sell a few of them, you’ll be buying cardboard shipping boxes, packing tape, and bubble wrap, then loading up the old SUV for a trip to the Post Office or UPS. If you’re not up for that, then you’re going print-on-demand, or as it’s commonly called “POD.” And that, as they say, is a whole nother ball of wax itself.

When I decided to tackle indie pubbing print books, I had a built-in advantage. Early in my career, I spent about a decade working in publishing in New York City and Nashville. I worked mainly in art departments, where I typeset books, ads, catalogues, brochures, and a ton of other stuff. But what I mostly did was interior book formatting/typesetting. I’ve probably either typeset or supervised the typesetting of a few hundred books over the years.

So those terms I threw at you earlier? What do they mean?

A font is the particular typeface you’re using. There are hundreds of typefaces and families of type, but all fonts can be broken down into basically two types: serif and sans serif. Serif typefaces have a small stroke or curlicue attached to the larger, main body of the letter. Sans serif typefaces don’t have these add-ons and the letters are just lines. If you bring up your word processor and type a few words in Arial, then type the same few words in Times Roman, you’ll see the difference. Most books are typeset in serif typefaces, except for certain types like manuals, guidebooks, nonfiction, etc. Most fiction is set in the more traditional serif typefaces, which tend to have, for lack of a better term, a classier look to them.

Point size is literally the physical size of the type. There are 72 points in an inch. Most books are typeset in around 12-point type, with some variations. Really long, thick doorstopper books might be set in point sizes less than 12. Down around 10-point type, though, they get mighty hard to read.

Leading is the distance between the lines, called that because years ago when books were typeset by hand, the typesetter inserted thin strips of lead between the lines to separate them. Most books are typeset with an extra few points on top of the point size. The point size/leading is usually expressed as a fraction, i.e. 12/15. When there’s no extra space between the lines, as in a book set in 12/12 Times Roman, that’s said to be set solid. And for anyone beyond the age of twelve, they’re really hard to read. Almost no one does it.

Measure is the width of the line, which is directly related to your trim size and margins. You want to have some kind of margin on each page; you don’t want the type to run from one edge to the next. You’ve got to design it just right to hit that visually appealing sweet spot. You don’t want too much white space or too little around your page of text. This also affects your page count, which is critical.

So there in just over 300 words is a summary of my decades in typesetting. But there’s a lot more to learn. Know the difference between a widow and an orphan and why you want to avoid both? There’s not room here to get into that, but Google it. It’s fascinating stuff. Trust me.

Once you’re ready to get into actually formatting a print book, where do you start? The easiest way is to get a dedicated app for typesetting, but truth is you can typeset a book on Microsoft Word. I’ve done it. It’s a PITA and I won’t do it again, but when I started six or seven years ago, there wasn’t much else out there. Vellum typesets books, but as I mentioned in an earlier column, Vellum only works on a Mac platform.

And for many years, the go-to software package for interior book design (and many other forms of graphic design) was Adobe InDesign. It does everything and does it well. But like all things Adobe, it’s expensive to start with and requires decades of study on a lonely mountaintop in Tibet to master it (okay, decades? Maybe I’m overstating a bit…).

Kindle Create is free, as is Reedsy’s Book Editor app. I don’t know much about them, though. There are a few other paid packages. Just Google them and get reviews.

I wrote last month about Atticus, which is produced by a company here in Franklin, Tennessee called Kindlepreneur. In the past year or so, they’ve added a print typesetting function to what has emerged as the best eBook formatting software in the business. Every review I’ve read of it is spectacular, but since I haven’t indie pubbed a book since their print functionality went online, I’ve got no personal experience. But if it’s like everything else Kindlepreneur does, it kicks butt and takes names.

We’ve barely scratched the surface on the technical challenges and considerations of print book formatting and design and I’m already out of space for this month’s edition. So I’ll stop here and next month we’ll move on to the differences between an eBook cover and a print book cover, how you make a cover work, and then onto the challenge of making book distribution outlets work for you.

As you’ve seen, This Crazy Writing Life is a grand adventure. Thanks again for playing along.

Set to Sell: How to Effectively Market Your Finished Manuscript to Agents and Publishers

By Aimee Hardy

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So, you’ve written your story. You’ve gotten feedback and edited draft after draft. Finally, your manuscript shines. You’ve been sending it out to agents and publishers (and may have gotten a few requests), but you still haven’t found success. You start to wonder if your story is any good or if your writing isn’t good enough, but all of your feedback has told you that your story works. What could be happening? 

As an editor, the majority of manuscripts I receive are well-written and interesting, but their pitches often don’t do their stories justice. To move your work from the slush pile to the must-read pile, there are a few small things you can do in your pitch that will pay off exponentially. 

Important Details

When you pitch your work to agents, be sure to give them important details about your novel, including genre, word count, and comp titles. Acceptable word counts vary by genre, but a common sweet spot is between 80,000 and 100,000 words for general fiction. Look up specifics for your genre to make sure your manuscript fits with the standard conventions. 

Comp titles are also helpful for the publisher or agent to clearly understand the concept of your work. You can use popular books, movies, or even TV series, just make sure your comps are current and reflect today’s reader. For example, if you’ve written a dark coming of age thriller set after the apocalypse, you could describe your work as the Gillian Flynn version of The Last of Us meets Stranger Things. The agent or publisher will understand common themes (such as coming of age, power, friendship, and courage) but can expect a darker twist. 

Give or take a little more 

Once you’ve finished your manuscript, you’ll want to create a 1–2 sentence logline for your pitch. Your logline gives all the information needed for your book so the agent or publisher can identify the main character, the conflict, and the stakes. Who is your character, what is their big problem or conflict, and what happens if they don’t succeed? 

Some writers fear that they will give away too much plot or that the agent or publisher won’t read it if they know all the details at once, but the reality is, you need to have a clear understanding of your work to be able to sell it later (more on that in the next point). Here are some quick examples of short but effective taglines: 

• A young FBI cadet must confide in a manipulative convicted killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. (Silence of the Lambs)

• A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future. (The Shining)

Try writing a few for your work and see which one works the best. 

Place it on the shelf

Along with knowing comp titles, understanding the market for your genre is often one of the best ways to sell your work. Agents and publishers want to know that you understand the market, the conventions of your specific genre, and the clear vision you have for your work. 

Not only does it show that you’ve done your homework, it shows that you can sell your work within the current market, which is a much-needed skill when it comes to publication. Although writing a novel is hard, a lot more work goes into book promotion. Once a book is accepted for publication, it will typically have a release date that’s 1–2 years away. Publishers need time to plan marketing, distribution, awards, etc. that might work best for your book, so comp titles and market knowledge are essential for planning a successful launch. If you already have a vision for your work, publishers are often able to use similar campaigns or networking strategies to your comp titles. 

Pinpoint your readers 

Another effective way to sell your story is to have a good understanding of your readers. You should know why your story is important and why readers would buy your book. Look at the demographics of your comp titles, including age, sex, occupation, interests/hobbies, etc. If you have a strong selling point with an eager audience, it helps agents and publishers see the incentive of releasing your book. 

Identifying your audience also helps publishers see how they can effectively market your book. They might consider partnerships or nonprofit campaigns that will connect you with your ideal reader. The more concise you are about your audience and how to reach them, the more likely a publisher will be to release your work. 

Leverage your communities

We’ve all heard that it takes a village, but networking is essential to your book’s success. You might need to include the organizations and networks that you’re a part of so you can leverage existing relationships. This also gives your publisher to see any connections that you may have missed when it comes to marketing your book. 

Although writers often don’t want to consider social media as important to their work, it can be an important part of getting your work to a wider audience. Focus on genuine connections with friends and followers and don’t be afraid to partner up with other writers and creatives to make meaningful relationships in the larger community. 

Do your research

You may also consider doing a bit of research. Watch interviews and read wish lists for agents and publishers. Reference their preferences to let them know that they are really important to you and aren’t just on an endless list of contacts you’re mindlessly submitting to. Personal connections let the agent or publisher know that you’re a real person who truly cares about your work and the place you're submitting it. 

You may also research market trends, including current events, changes in genre trends, and new reader data. Understanding the market shows that you’re invested in the success of your novel and that you can see an opportunity for your work in the future. This creates a sense of urgency for the agent or publisher and increases the likelihood of getting new eyes on your work. 

Invest in YOU! 

The most important part of pitching your book is the time and effort you give to the success of your book. You’ve worked so hard on your novel that you don’t want to sell yourself short or waste your time with strategies that don’t work. Remember, you are the only one who can write your story, but you are also the only one who can have the vision and the drive to make it a success. 

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Aimee Hardy is a writer in Birmingham, Alabama. Aimee is the author of Pocket Full of Teeth (2024) and has various short stories published with Running Wild Press, Stonecoast Review, and other literary collections. She received a Pushcart nomination in 2019 for her short story "Paper" and is dedicated to telling stories in unique ways. Aimee is married with two kids and loves to get lost in nature or disappear into a good book with a warm cup of tea.

Gotta Go Through It

By Chrissy Hicks

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Have you ever heard the children’s song, “Going on a Bear Hunt?” My toddler requests this often—either for me to sing the tune for her or play it during car rides.

The main plotline involves a group of people (or a couple, depending on the version) going on a bear hunt, claiming they’re “not scared.” However, after overcoming several roadblocks and approaching the bear in a cave, they realize the terrifying result of their actions and run away. As they face each obstacle, they sing the same chorus, “We can’t go over it, can’t go under it, gotta go through it,” before proceeding through the barrier. 

It had me thinking—partly because this song is frequently stuck in my head—that this idea of going through obstacles is a lot like the writing journey. The initial blocks you might face when starting out might be: finding ideas, getting the first draft fully written, carving out time to write, determining whether you’re a plotter or pantser (or somewhere in between), finding a supportive writing community. Once you get past this, your next hurdle is to polish your manuscript so shiny you’re not sure you want to look at it anymore; this often involves the recruitment of beta readers and editors. Once you’ve leaped over all that, you have yet another hill to climb: how will you share this book with the world? Self-publish? Hybrid? Approach small publishers directly? Find an agent? Each of these options presents an entire list of risks and rewards each, but let’s take finding an agent as an option, for the sake of example. You decide to query your novel—this book you’ve spent countless hours writing, revising, rewriting, revising again—and you spend an incredible chunk of time researching agents, perfecting your query, and emailing these agents, hoping you get a “yes.” When you do finally get your acceptance and you sign with an agent, it feels like Christmas. You’ve found your “bear.” The hunt is over.

Except it’s not. It’s only just begun.

Agents get rejected by editors and publishing houses too. They deal with their own set of setbacks. And what happens when a publisher accepts the manuscript? And it’s published? There’s yet another slew of expectations for the writer when it comes to marketing their book (or at least assisting with the process). Plus, the publisher will likely want more material (not just a single book), so you find yourself back to the beginning, with a fresh page and a whole new set of challenges. When you find yourself in this place, so close to your goals, terrifying as it all may seem, will this scare you away? Or will you stay the course?

The point of this brief exposition isn’t to deter you from writing. The point is simply this: there’s not much you can control outside of your writing and your dedication to the craft. You can’t control whether agents will sign with you, whether readers will like your work, whether you hit the New York Times Bestseller list or barely earn out your advance. So, what will you do when you face these obstacles? If you can’t go over it, can’t go under it, will you move through it?

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Chrissy’s work has appeared in three consecutive issues of Bridgewater State University’s “Embracing Writing” book for first-year freshmen. Her writing portfolio also includes publications in The Broadkill Review, SUSIE Mag, The Storyteller, and informative pieces for a local online newspaper. One of her unpublished novels, Foul Play, was a Suspense Finalist for the 2022 Claymore Award, and an excerpt from her unpublished novel Overshadow won Top Three Finalist of the 2024 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award. Though her background is in counseling, having earned a master’s degree in this field, when it comes to the art of writing, she’s an autodidact. She studies books she loves and enjoys completing various creative writing classes online, and attending writer’s conferences whenever she can; Killer Nashville is one of her favorites. Additionally, she’s volunteered since 2023 as a general editor for the Killer Nashville Magazine. She resides in Tennessee with her family, their talkative Husky, and a frenetic cat. You can find her online here: https://chrissyhicks.wordpress.com/ where she occasionally blogs about the writing life and reviews craft books.

When the Words Won’t Come

By Lois Winston

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This is not an article about writer’s block. That’s a topic for another day. Today, I’d like to discuss Brain Block, that deer-in-the-headlights moment when you suddenly find yourself at a loss for words, no matter how well-prepared you thought you were. Or how unprepared because you never thought you’d need to prepare.

There are those people who always seem to pull a snappy rejoinder from their gray matter whenever the situation presents itself. Not me. I’m the person who thinks of the perfect response hours or days later. Sentences may flow from my fingertips onto my computer screen, but rarely do they trip off my tongue in the same pithy manner.

Back in my school days, no matter how well-prepared I was, I morphed into a complete failure during oral book reports, once even forgetting the name of the main characters, even though one was the title of the book! Then there were the dreaded oral exams. I could easily fill several blue books with my knowledge on a topic, but stand me up in a one-on-one with the teacher who held my GPA in his hand, and Brain Block took hold of me.

As writers, we’re told to craft an elevator pitch, that concise short paragraph that will catch the attention of an agent or editor who might turn to you while waiting for the elevator at a conference and say, “Tell me about your book.” Memorization has never been my strong suit. If I couldn’t whip out my index card and read my pitch, Brain Block would take over. 

I’m also the person who never remembers the punchline to any joke. Heck, I never even remember any part of the joke! Which makes it quite ironic that for nearly two decades, I’ve spent my days writing humorous amateur sleuth novels.

I started my writing career penning emotional, angst-driven romance and romantic suspense, but my heroines always relied on a sense of humor to help them cope with their problems. Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone. It’s good advice when crafting characters. No one wants to read about a woe-is-me heroine for 400 pages. 

I suppose that’s why my agent called one day to suggest I write a chick lit novel. However, coming up with a little humorous dialogue now and then is quite different from writing a humorous novel. Since none of my romances or romantic suspense novels had yet sold, I agreed to try my hand at chick lit. That’s when I discovered somewhere in the deep recesses of my DNA lurked an untapped humor gene.

I may not be able to tell a joke in real life, but on the page I’m the Dutchess of Double-Entendres, the Baroness of Bon Mots, the Princess of Puns. My characters routinely engage in witty dialogue. And they always come up with that perfect rejoinder, no matter the situation. My foray into chick lit eventually resulted in Talk Gertie to Me, my first published novel.

Harnessing my latent humor gene changed the trajectory of my writing career. After one of my romance novels finally sold, my agent called one day to tell me I should write a humorous amateur sleuth mystery series with a crafting theme. She knew an editor looking for one, and she thought I’d be the perfect person to write it. 

It’s one thing to write chick lit or to employ a bit of humor to break up the tension in a romance or a romantic suspense, but humorous murder mysteries? Most people find nothing humorous about murder. Or if they do, you might want to steer clear of them. However, an amateur sleuth mystery by its very definition is a fish-out-of-water story, and the fish-out-of-water trope lends itself to situational humor. So I gave it a try. The result was Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series.

I have not been kind to Anastasia. I’ve saddled her with debt greater than the GNP of a Third World nation. I not only saddled her with a nasty diehard communist mother-in-law, but her mother claims descent from Russian nobility and is also a member of the DAR. I then forced the two women to share a bedroom in Anastasia’s home. I’ve also added two teenage sons, a Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and a possible government operative. 

And of course, there are the dead bodies, a pre-requisite of murder mysteries. Every time Anastasia makes some headway whittling down her debt, I throw another corpse in her path. Although she sometimes feels tempted to climb into bed and pull the quilt over her head, she copes with all the mayhem I’ve heaped on her by harnessing her quirky self-deprecating and observational Jersey Girl sense of humor.

However, humor is very subjective. I always hold my breath, fingers crossed, that my readers will get the humor in my books. Some do; some don’t. That’s the nature of humor. All I can do is hope more readers laugh than don’t. Besides, one of the first lessons you learn as a published author is that no author is ever going to please every reader, so don’t even try.

This brings me back to the title of this article and the recent Killer Nashville conference. This year A Crafty Collage of Crime, the 12th book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series, won the Silver Falchion Award for Best Comedy. Here was a golden opportunity to tell a captive audience of several hundred people about Anastasia and the thirteen books and three novellas I’ve so far written about her, especially since this book features her on a trip to Middle Tennessee.

I should have jotted down an acceptance speech to read, but I didn’t because I never expected to win. With a few rare exceptions from back in my romance writing days, I have a long track record of always being the bridesmaid, never the bride. But hey, it’s still an honor to be nominated.

So when my name was called, Brain Block accompanied me to the front of the room, and I wound up giving what can only be described as the shortest acceptance speech in the history of awards ceremonies. I doubt if it even qualified as a “speech.” As I walked away from the mic, Clay Stafford commented that I was “a woman of few words.”

Well, at least I didn’t bore anyone with a too-long, rambling monologue where I thanked everyone in my life, going all the way back to my kindergarten teacher and my pet goldfish!

Later that night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I came up with a perfect acceptance speech—pithy, witty, and including a few bon mots. Too bad no one was around to hear it.

Moral of the story: Even if you think you have no chance of winning, always, always prepare an acceptance speech. AND WRITE IT DOWN!

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston has taken part on many writing panels, taught dozens of writing workshops, and given quite a few solo talks over the years, but she always relies on her notes, never her memory. She writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her humorous Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Indie Pubbing Journey Continues—Part Four: Navigating The Distribution Maze

By Steven Womack

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So you’ve written your book, rewritten your book (any number of times), and like the good little professional you aspire to be, you’ve paid an outside copyeditor to get the book in the best shape it can possibly be. You’ve studied the market, maybe queried a few agents (most of whom never even responded), done your due diligence, and decided that in today’s publishing environment, your best bet is to go the indie route.

You’ve done a deep dive into the freelance market that’s sprung up in the last decade to serve the needs of indie pubbers, and you’ve found a cover designer you absolutely love. You’ve either chosen an app to format your book or you’ve decided to spend the bucks to outsource the technical stuff.

Little by little, piece by piece, your dream is coming together. You can see the finish line—pub date—and you get a shaky, excited feeling deep in our gut that this is finally becoming…

Real.

Hundreds of hours of work, planning, following months or even years of writing your book. You’re excited, but at the same time, exhausted emotionally and maybe even physically. But you’re nearing the end, right? The finish line’s in sight.

Hold your horses, cowpokes. The reality is, you’re just getting started.

You think writing that book was hard? Try getting the book out there, grasshoppah…

This month’s installment of This Crazy Writing Life is going to—as the head of IT at the film school where I used to teach often said—start to start the process of getting your book out there. There are two main avenues by which you’re going to get your book into the hands of readers: eBooks and print books.

We’re going to start by tackling the question of eBooks, since as we established in an earlier edition of this column, that’s how you’re going to reach the largest number of readers and bring in the largest number of bucks. And in the world of eBook distribution, there is only one question to answer which will determine your eBook distribution strategy.

Are you going to go wide or are you not going to go wide?

What does that even mean, in English?

Okay, time for another [brief] history lesson. As the eBook revolution ramped up in earnest in the first decade of the 21st Century, there was a certain wild west feel to it. There was the Kindle e-reader from Amazon, then Sony came out with the Sony Reader in 2006, and Barnes & Noble came out with the Nook in 2009. So there were three different mainstream e-readers out there, each with different specs and technical requirements.

Then a whole slew of eBook distributors came online. There was Amazon (of course), and then Apple got in the game, followed by Rokuten Kobo, which is a Canadian eBook retailer owned by a Japanese company, known primarily as Kobo. Over the years, scads of other companies emerged as eBook retailers, distributors, or publishers—Tolino, Barnes & Noble, Overdrive, Books-A-Million, Hoopla, etc. etc. etc.

It was a complicated landscape. The administrative load alone to distribute through all these channels was overwhelming.

So in 2008, a book marketing guru, publicist and novelist by the name of Mark Coker rolled out a company called Smashwords, which was the first eBook aggregator. Coker’s groundbreaking and innovative approach brought all these varied distribution outlets into one place. Now indie pubbers could sign up with Smashwords, pick the outlets they wanted to distribute to, and then upload one file to one place, rather than one file to fifteen places. Coker also wrote a number of reference guides on formatting eBooks to meet all the technical needs of the various distributors and did all the accounting and setup. They created tools and guides to help indie publishers navigate this complicated landscape. Smashwords uploaded to the outlets you picked, tracked incoming payments, even did tax reporting and bookkeeping, and distributed payments out to the individual authors and independent publishing companies, all for what was actually a reasonable and fair cut of the earnings.

Coker’s idea—and Smashwords—was wildly successful. Within a few years, they were distributing hundreds of thousands of eBooks.

In 2012, three young entrepreneurs—Kris Austin, Aaron Pogue, and Toby Nance—decided it was time for Smashwords to have a little competition. So they opened Draft2Digital (often shortened to D2D), headquartered in Oklahoma City. D2D took a similar approach as Smashwords, but streamlined some of the processes and offered up a competitive set of user-friendly tools to help indie author publish their books with enough time and energy left over to write more of them.

Ten years later, in 2022, Draft2Digital acquired Smashwords in a friendly deal that kept Coker on board as part of the team. Today, D2D is the 800-pound aggregating gorilla in the indie pub space.

So that, in a nutshell, is going wide. Get your book out there in as many different channels as possible and just wait for the tsunami of bucks headed your way.

What’s the alternative? And why would anyone want to consider it?

Enter Amazon, the exciting, attractive, funny, smart, creative person you’ve always wanted to date but found incredibly high-maintenance. In July 2014, Amazon rolled out Kindle Unlimited, a subscription service that for $9.99 a month gave you unlimited access (with a few restrictions) to Amazon’s entire library of books and audiobooks—as long as those books were enrolled in Kindle Select (in typical Amazon fashion, nothing’s ever easy or simple; if you’re an author you have to enroll your books in Kindle Select in order to get them into Kindle Unlimited). Think of it as Netflix or Spotify, only for books.

There isn’t time or space here to go into the convoluted history of the Kindle Unlimited program. If you’d like to do a deeper dive into that, here’s a link to an excellent article:

https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/history-kindle-unlimited/

The important thing to remember is that the way KU paid authors has evolved over time. The first payment method was rife for scamming and bad behavior. Amazon tackled that and went into a second generation of KU and now they’re in the third. But basically, in laymen’s terms, when you check out a book in KU, there’s a little widget or something inside the file that enables Amazon to count the number of pages you’ve read (well, hello there Big Brother) and authors are paid a fraction of a fraction of a cent for each page.

Five or so years ago, when I decided to dip my toes into indie pubbing, I chose what I thought was the obvious best route. I created a D2D account and listed all my books on every channel possible. Then, not knowing any better, I started buying Amazon ads and BookBub ads (more on that in future installments) and promoting them on social media and my meager newsletter subscriber lists and doing everything I thought would move books.

The result? Bupkis…

Oh, occasionally I’d sell a book here and a book there, but it’s the understatement of the day to say I was disappointed.

A couple of years or this and I was really burning out. So I reached out to an acquaintance, a fellow Edgar winner who, like me, wrote books set in New Orleans. Julie Smith and I both came into print about the same time, were publishing at about the same level, and encountering the same career struggles. Where our paths diverged was when Julie fully embraced the indie publishing movement in the early days of the eBook revolution and turned her career around.

She began publishing under her own imprint—booksBnimble—and brought back her backlist and later new work. Then she branched out and started publishing other writers. A few years later, she opened up a book marketing division to help indie pubbed authors. I reached out to Julie and after careful thought, signed on with her company.

Julie’s got a marketing plan that won’t work for everyone. Standalone books are a tough sell, as are literary books, nonfiction, and memoirs. But if you’re writing genre novels—romances, mysteries—and you have a series with at least three books, then they’ve got a plan for you.

When she takes you on as a client, you’ve got to get with their program. And the first step is to pull your books down from every distribution channel and enroll them in Kindle Select. This sounds counterintuitive, but truthfully, within a couple of months, I was grossing four figures a month.

I’m running out of space here, but the moral of the story is, don’t discount Kindle Select/Unlimited just because you don’t like Amazon or think you’ll get better results with a shotgun approach. In next month’s issue of This Crazy Writing Life, we’ll take a deeper look into how you make all this work. Thanks again for playing along.

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Decades ago, when I lived in New Orleans and was a newspaper reporter during the first term of the wonderful Edwin Edwards, I learned a great local term: lagniappe. Lagniappe means “just a little something extra; a bonus.”

So here’s your lagniappe for this month’s column. I just read a fantastic book called Love In The Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed The Rules of Writing & Success by Christine M. Larson. It’s simultaneously a history and analysis of how publishing has changed since the 1980s and how romance writers were the first ones to understand these changes, adopt them, and beat the big publishers at their own game. Dr. Larsen is a professor of Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information, but don’t hold that against her. The book’s a bit academic at times, but it reads like a well-written story, one we’re all still right in the middle of. It’s well worth the time to read.

The Myth of the Five Senses

By Lois Winston

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The other day, I read a statement that blew my mind—and not in a good way. Someone had written, “Some writing coaches advise that each page should include a reference to the five senses: see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.”

No! No! No! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

The Internet is filled with bogus information and/or people who claim to be experts in fields where they have no expertise. I don’t know where this person got her information, but it’s certainly not from a credible source.

Writing Rule Number One 

All dialogue and narrative in a novel must do one of two things: either advance the plot or tell the reader something she needs to know at that moment about the point of view character. If it does neither, it’s filler and doesn’t belong in your novel.

Writing Rule Number Two

Only describe that which is pertinent to the scene and/or character. If it’s not pertinent, it’s filler.

Writing Rule Number Three

Filler is bad! Always. No exceptions. It kills your pacing and bores the reader.

The five senses can either be a writer’s best friend or worst enemy. When used judicially, they can grab readers and pluck them down in the middle of the book’s action. When overdone, they make readers’ eyes glaze over. And any writer who makes a point of cramming the five senses onto each page, will not only have her readers’ eyes glazing over, but she’ll have them tossing the book across the room. 

5 senses x 300-400 pages = 1500-2000 reasons to stop reading (and probably never pick up another book by that author.)

So, when should you insert the five senses? Refer to Writing Rule Number Two. Need some examples? Keep reading.

Your character is a New York City commuter, standing on the platform of the #7 subway during a hazy, hot, and humid typical August in the city. She doesn’t notice the trash spilling from the garbage cans or the graffiti-covered walls. She’s become inured to the heat and the stench. Not that they don’t bother her, but she’s too used to them to take note. 

As a former commuter, I can tell you the best way to cope with the subway in summer is not set foot in it, but if you must, you learn to close your mind (and your nose) to your surroundings. Which is what our fictional character would do. 

Instead of focusing on the heat and stench and how uncomfortable she is, our stalwart protagonist is most likely scrolling through her Instagram or TikTok feed as she awaits the train. She’d only take note of the sights, sounds, and smells if there’s a good reason for her to do so. I could offer examples, but I’ll spare you the gory details because some of you may be reading this while eating lunch.

Now imagine your character is a twelfth century Scottish nobleman. He wakes up one morning to find himself magically transported to that same subway platform, he’s bombarded with all those sensory images and more. Everything he sees and hears is foreign and frightening to him. The one exception? The stench. Since twelfth century Scots bathed as infrequently as once a year or at most, once a month, most of the offensive odors are normal smells to him. Anything unusual would likely be masked by the smells he’d ignore. In such a scenario, have fun describing every detail of the assault to this very confused poor guy’s senses.

In Stitch, Bake, Die!, the tenth book in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, Anastasia enters the victim’s kitchen to find the following:

Someone had ransacked the kitchen. Cabinets lay bare, their contents scattered across the floor in a haphazard array of pots, pans, and broken glassware and dishes. Drawers had been yanked out and tossed aside, appliances swept from the counters. Not a single package of food remained on the pantry shelves or in the refrigerator. Whoever had trashed Marlene’s kitchen had taken the time to open boxes, bags, and canisters and dump all the food. Everything from raisin bran to frozen broccoli florets to dried pasta peppered the room. A dusting of flour and sugar lay over everything like newly fallen snow.

Note, I wrote a short paragraph describing only what Anastasia sees. I don’t mention any lingering food smells or the sound of rain beating on the windowpanes. I don’t have her biting down on the inside of her cheek and tasting the coppery tang of blood or feeling her heart pounding in her chest. I don’t have her going weak in the knees and grabbing the door jamb to steady herself. All that is important to this scene is what she sees when she arrives in the kitchen. Given the plot and what happens next, further description would be filler.

The takeaway here? Describe what needs describing, then get on with your story.

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Her most recent release is Sorry, Knot Sorry, the thirteenth book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery Series. Learn more about Lois and her books at www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.

The Indie Pubbing Journey Continues—Part Three: The Learning Curve

By Steven Womack

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When I was young, I wasn’t afraid to tackle anything technical. Someone sold me an ancient Alfa Romeo sedan back in the 1970s for a few hundred dollars. The engine ran rough and coughed out blue smoke, so I decided to rebuild it. Had I ever rebuilt an engine before?

Absolutely not.

Did I have any idea what I was doing?

Nope.

I had a manual and that was it. No YouTube videos, no old Italian mechanic to mentor me… Just a box of parts, a paperback book with pictures, and a toolbox. So I went out into the driveway and went to work. Several weekends later, I added new oil to the engine and cranked it up. It actually ran a little bit better, once I got it running. Then I did the first really smart thing I’d done since I bought the old Alfa.

I sold it to someone else.

In the early days of computers—I’m talking Windows 3.1 here—if my computer had some kind of weird hiccup or wasn’t doing something I needed it to do, I opened up the Windows registry and tinkered with individual lines of code.

Would I open the hood on my computer or my car in this day and age and start digging around inside it?

Hell, no.

I don’t even change my own oil anymore. I don’t know whether cars and computers have gotten exponentially more complicated or I’ve become a technological wuss. Probably a little bit of both…

So when I decided to indie pub my Harry James Denton Music City Murders out-of-print series backlist from Ballantine Books, I confess to a little fear and trepidation about the technical challenges of making that happen. But I also knew I didn’t have the resources to pay somebody else to do everything for me, so I had to swap out my lack of cash for hours of sweat equity. Facing fears trumped lack of resources, so I started with the eBook editions and did a pretty deep dive into options for creating them.

I quickly discovered that one of the most popular apps for eBook formatters is Vellum. Every writer I surveyed who used Vellum loved it, although many folks offered it had a bit of a steep learning curve. It’s powerful, flexible, and very widely used in the indie pubbing space. At a couple hundred bucks, I thought it was a little pricey but not so much as to be a deal breaker. What was a deal breaker for me, though, was it’s only available for Macs. I’m a longtime Windows kinda guy, so that eliminated Vellum for me.

I found another software package from a British company called Jutoh. When I bought it seven or eight years ago, I think I paid like thirty-five bucks for it, so the price was right. It’s a quick and easy download and there’s lots of support for it. I ran into a few technical problems and challenges, and I found Jutoh’s support team was quick to respond, despite the seven-hour time difference. When I first started my indie pubbing adventure, there were a number of different formats out there. Most of the eBook distributors—Apple, Google, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.—used the .epub format, while Amazon, of course, had to make thing complicated by developing its own proprietary eBook format, the infamous .mobi file (thankfully, Amazon has let the .mobi format sunset and now uses .epub like everyone else). Jutoh was able to handle them all as well as other formats like ODT (OpenDocument) files and .pdf.

For a few years, Jutoh was it for me. Then I began to get hints of another option out there, an app called Atticus. Curious, I started digging around and the more I dug, the more intrigued I became.

Before I go any further, let me state for the record this is not an ad for any one app or the other. I’m not getting paid for any of this (God forbid, writers should get paid…) and the folks at Atticus don’t even know I’m writing this. This is all based solely on my own experience.

So after a pretty deep dive into Atticus, I decided to go for it. I haven’t looked back since.

Atticus is the eBook (and in its latest revs, print book) formatting app that’s become the gold standard for indie pubbers. It was created by a company called Kindlepreneur, which curiously is located just down the road from me in Franklin, Tennessee (also the home of Killer Nashville). The founder of Kindlepreneur is Dave Chesson, who brings many years of experience in publishing and as a book marketer to the company.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Chesson at the annual Novelists, Inc. conference in St. Petersburg Beach a couple years ago. Not only is he a genuinely nice guy, he’s also obsessed with creating tools designed to help indie publishers succeed. He has a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel, has created a ton of courses—some free and some at minimal cost—and with Atticus has given writers a way to easily and quickly format both eBooks and print. I won’t go into the technical aspects of Atticus because I’m already over my word count, but there are a ton of tutorials out there that will make the Atticus learning curve manageable and even enjoyable.

And once you get your books formatted, you can get—as I did—at very modest cost Kindlepreneur’s Publisher Rocket app, which will help you optimize your keyword and category listings on Amazon (and trust me, that is much harder than formatting).

Next month, we’ll take up the subject of where to sell your indie-pubbed books. The choices there are as varied and as complicated as any other decisions you’ll make. Are you starting to get a sense of what it means to independently publish your own books? You aren’t just self-publishing (again, a term I hate). You’re creating a business.

Which is one grand adventure…

That’s it for episode #5 of This Crazy Writing Life. Thanks for playing along.

Covers

By Dale T. Phillips

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“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” 

—Old saying that’s misleading, because many readers do

Your cover is vital to the success of your book, because readers scan quickly, and take more time to check out books with covers they like. Your tiny thumbnail image will be up on the Internet against thousands of others, so make it eye-catching. A lousy cover usually indicates inferior inside material, and many readers won’t bother. A great cover is a promise of better content inside. Many, many authors fail in this category, and their sales suffer as a result. The cover is the first indication of whether you’re a professional or not, and may be the only chance you get of someone taking a look. To understand what good covers look like, check out the top best-sellers in a genre, and see what they have in common. Some websites show examples of bad covers, so check those out and  you’ll know what to avoid.

Traditional publishers boast of their packaging superiority because Indie books have lousy covers, and for many, that’s true— as it is with many of the traditional publishing covers. Or they’ll just use stock images over and over. One traditional writer asked a fellow writer if she liked his latest cover— and it was almost exactly the one that had been on her previous book- from the same publisher! Barry Eisler, a best-selling top-notch writer, was stuck with the most unexciting, dumb-looking, green garage door for his thriller (an absolute sales-killer), and when he protested, the publisher would do nothing to remedy the situation. He soon left that publisher, costing them millions for a bad decision. 

Trade-copy paperbacks are inexpensive to publish, but hardcovers may not be worth it for most Indie writers. They’re expensive to produce, so unless you want a special edition, have legions of fans, or have a lot of extra money to burn, you may not want to bother. Few people will pay a lot for a pricey book by someone who’s not famous or pushed by a big traditional publisher. Full color print books are also expensive, and harder to create, but if you’ve got a pet project that requires it, you’ll want to spend some time planning it out.

If you cannot learn do the cover yourself (most writers cannot, as we work with words, not images) you may have to hire someone. This can get expensive, so you’ll need to carefully spend time researching costs and quality. Yes, you can get the cheap designers, but you’ll want to make sure to get something that works. Many writers who spent far too much on their covers (some thousands of dollars), got bad covers that still could have been done at a tenth of the cost. Now there are cover templates which can be had for bargain rates, and there are sites to inexpensively pay for cover art you can license to use commercially.

Some authors run A/B testing on prospective covers to see what people prefer, via their blog, website, or social media. If a number of people are strongly in favor one cover over another, the more popular is usually the one chosen by the author as a final. 

First and foremost, the cover should reflect the genre and match your target audience, so that at a glance, people can guess what the book represents: horror book covers show darkness and spooky things, romance often shows two embracing people (usually with rumpled clothes), high fantasy shows someone in armor with a bladed weapon (and often a monster), Westerns show someone in a cowboy hat on a horse. You get the idea. So know the conventions of your genre, and do something that represents your content. If you don’t know, look at several dozen top-selling books in the genre you wrote in.  

Second, the title and the author name should be in easily readable fonts, with the proper size and color. Many get this wrong. If you look at a thumbnail (or a full-size cover from ten feet away) and cannot discern the title or author name clearly, it doesn’t work. It may be the spacing, placement, size, background color, or font that are off, or a combination of those. Some use fonts that are just wrong, either unreadable as is or wrong for the genre. Again, examine other covers that work to see how they do it, and do something similar. 

For full print covers, the spine and back cover need to be done properly. The title and author name should again be easy to read on the spine, and placed and spaced well. For the back, it takes some time to figure out the design and where things should go. You’ll want some of the following:

• Description/Tagline: a few exciting lines about the story inside that make a reader want to check it out.

• Blurb (optional): a recommendation from some other writer (or reader) that praises your work.

• Another work (optional): Sometimes you’ll have an image and short description of another one of your other books here (especially for another volume in the series).

• Short Bio (optional): Some writers put these on the cover, though I prefer them in the book interior, at the back of the book. Unless you’ve got something so spectacular, like you were a spy or astronaut, that will help sell the work on that information alone.

• Price, ISBN, and barcode: Whoever prints your book will likely request you to set aside an area to include a barcode, unless you have it set it up already. Again, compare your design with that of other successful book cover backs, and do what they do. Do you want to print your price on the cover? What about the ISBN, or will you have that just in the interior?

Once you’ve set your book up for print, you’ll want a proof copy to look over before authorizing it to be published. If you publish through a site such as Amazon, you can request a single physical copy that you should carefully go through. Verify that the cover is eye-catching and professional, and the interior is done properly. Then have another careful set of eyes look it over. 

The key is that your book should at a glance look like other quality books, because readers don’t prefer ugly or amateur. At one book signing, my friend was launching his latest novel. Another writer asked about Indie versus Traditional. I said “let’s compare,” and put one of mine next to the one that was launching via a publisher. Same size, good covers, all was as it should be (and similar), the price was identical, and the interiors looked properly done. He said he couldn’t see a difference, and that’s the secret— except my friend would make a dollar for each one he sold, and my similar book would make ten dollars profit for each one I’d sold. 

Advantage, Indie!

For a series, the branding should match on the covers. Go with a theme that makes them look like they belong together, for quick identification. Check out other author series to see what they have done.

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Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 80 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime. He's traveled to all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, and through Europe.

Prepping for Killer Nashville: Top Tips for Attendees

By Chrissy Hicks

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This is your year! You’ve taken a tremendous leap to make writing a priority and take your author career seriously. You’re ready to step up your game and attend Killer Nashville—or any writer’s conference, for that matter. Whether this is your first or fifteenth conference, you may find some of the following tips a useful review of “do’s” and “dont’s” as you prepare for conference attendance. 

3+ Months BEFORE

1․ Set Attainable Goals

A simple yet not-so-simple task. What are your goals for the conference? (Hopefully, you have at least a couple in mind. If not, please don’t skip this section!) 

Does your list of goals look something like this? 

• Get a book deal! 

• Perfect my writing skills this weekend

• Get personal feedback on my manuscript from an attending author

• Pitch every agent and publisher

• Build a large following

You’ve got some great ideas, but they are more suited for long-term goals rather than something that can be achieved during a weekend conference. Think of those things within your control (you can’t control whether an agent will request your manuscript, but you can ask for feedback or attend a pitch session), and consider what you most want to learn, improve, or accomplish to build success. Just as a house is constructed one board and brick at a time, so is a writing career. 

A new writer might set goals such as these:

• Connect with peers to share support and advice

• Seek seasoned authors for possible mentoring

• Attend workshops designed to hone writing skills (character development, plot structure, building tension, etc.)

• Gain inspiration and motivation from keynote speakers

• Explore different genres and writing styles, and participate in discussions that might spark new ideas for your work

• Learn about writing contests, anthologies, and other opportunities to get your work published and recognized (consider submitting to the Killer Nashville Magazine, for example)

• Consider signing up as a volunteer and learn more about what it takes to make a large-scale event successful 

A writer who has written a book or two and is seeking publication might set goals such as these:

• Meet industry professionals to gain insights into the publishing world and establish professional contacts

• Gain industry knowledge through workshops and panel discussions to learn about current trends, marketing strategies, and the business side of writing

• Receive critiques and get feedback on your writing from experienced authors and peers, who can provide valuable perspectives and suggestions for improvement

• Take advantage of opportunities to pitch your manuscript or book ideas to agents and publishers

• Explore publishing options: Learn about traditional and self-publishing routes, including the pros and cons of each

• Meet with other writers and those in the business to build your professional network

A seasoned author may set goals such as these:

• Learn about effective ways to build your author brand, use social media, and market your books

• Develop or refine your elevator pitch, author bio, and other materials that present you as a professional writer

• Find collaboration opportunities: Look for potential co-authors, writing groups, or other collaborative projects

• Be present by offering to moderate a panel or present at the conference, actively take part in book signings, engage audience members and fellow writers

• Volunteer to judge contest entries, contribute to scholarships, or advertise your books or services on conference materials

By setting achievable goals, you can maximize the benefits of attending a writers’ conference, ensuring that you leave with valuable knowledge, connections, and inspiration to advance your writing career.

2․ Design and print your business card

Business cards, you say? Yes. Whether you’re published doesn’t matter. You are attending a conference because you are a serious writer. You are a professional. Professionals carry business cards. You need them to exchange with other writers. You need them to hand out to industry professionals. You need them. Grab yourself a nice business card holder (these cost little, you can find a decent one for under $20), then study sample business cards. If you’re new to marketing yourself, keep it simple. Often simpler is better anyway, whether you’re a new writer or seasoned author. 

Here’s a quick list of the essentials to include: your name, email, phone number, website, and social media. Optionally, you can add your face (I prefer this because I often forget names, but I don’t forget a face). You can also add a QR code that links to your email, website, or social media platform (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter X, Instagram). And if your name is the same across all platforms, you could simply put the icons for each platform on which you have a profile. There are many sites where you can create and order business cards for low cost—consider starting with 50. Think that’s too much? Probably not; you’d be surprised. You could print them up through your local print shop or UPS store, or use an online service such as Vistaprint, Canva, Shutterfly…there are many options, and often they have basic templates you can customize to make the job even easier. Compare reviews, costs (for both cards + shipping), and see what works best for you. It doesn’t need to cost you hundreds of dollars. As a personal example: my order of 100 cards on premium paper, plus a card holder (both with economy, free shipping) cost $35. Not bad for post-inflation. 

3․ Research

Do your homework before you go! Learn what agents are attending (agents and special guests like keynote speakers are often listed on a dedicated webpage such as the “Who’s Who”). See which agents might be appropriate for your book and check their websites, wish lists, and social media for any updates. Often, even agents that are closed will request manuscripts at a conference! If you find an agent or two (or five) that would be a perfect match for your project, add them to your notes, along with their website and wish list, and consider adding a manuscript critique and/or agent roundtable with them. They don’t bite—promise!

Don’t forget to look at the keynote speakers as well—are they authors you recognize? Have you read their books? If not, grab a book or two they’ve written. The reason for this is twofold: they’re a keynote speaker for a reason, and reading their works may inspire you and teach you something about the craft. Two, it will give you a chance to meet them “up close” during their book signing. Remember, you’re there to learn and they’re there to offer wisdom. This is a great time to ask that burning question about how did they do it! Other poignant questions you might ask are:

• What character did they relate to the most?

• Do they outline or pants it?

• What was the most challenging part of writing the book?

• How do you handle writers’ block or creative burnout?

• How do your personal experiences inspire your writing?

• What advice would you give an aspiring author?

You could ask a question like one of these at the book signing or at a panel the author might present at. Be sure to ask questions that will help everyone, not just something very specific to your own situation (which also may be difficult to answer). And don’t ask all six items in the bulleted list above! Keep it simple, be polite. Pick your top one (maybe two) burning questions, and move on. There are hundreds of other people in attendance, and often many will cram into panels with popular authors, thus, taking up loads of time and not giving others a chance to ask their questions is like cutting in line: it ain’t cool y’all. 

1 to 3 Months BEFORE

4․ Create Your Schedule

Most conferences will have a plethora of workshops and panels to choose from, with topics ranging from improving your skill set to the business side of writing. Killer Nashville is no different. Which means there are often multiple panels running concurrently. How do you choose when there are so many options—often hundreds of lectures—and you can only pick a handful? Here’s a handy guide to do just that:

A․ Set your goals (see #2). If your goals are to learn more about the craft, plan to focus most of your attention on that area. If it’s the business-side of writing, or a mix of both, then you’ll want to split your time accordingly.

B․ Print out the schedule (yes, even in the tech-fancy world we live in, I still print things because it’s easier to work with a printed version than a screen) OR copy/paste it into a Word document for editing digitally. 

C․ Go through each hour of each day and carefully review the panels and workshops. Highlight the ones that instantly resonate with you. Don’t worry about highlighting more than one that run at the same time. For now, just mark the ones you want to attend.

D․ Take a break, then go through the list again, this time remaining objective and keeping your goals in mind. If you’ve got three panels highlighted at the 9:00AM-9:45AM slot on Saturday morning, you know you can’t do all three (unless you’ve cloned yourself). Prioritize by selecting the top panel based on your writing goals, and what you think would benefit you most this year. Label your selections as #1, #2, #3, for first/second/third choice.

E․ A couple days before the conference, recheck the schedule online and see what, if anything, has shifted. There’s always a potential for speakers to cancel, panels to get switched, or topics to be deleted or added. Compare it to what you have (especially your top choices—ensure those still exist) and change your current selections if needed.

If possible, get a map of the hotel meeting rooms ahead of time so you know what’s where. By following the steps above, you can confidently walk into the conference on Day 1, prepared with a plan to attend the sessions that will help you grow in your career. Remember to be flexible: things can change in real time too! Sometimes, due to unforeseeable events, your top choice panel could wind up canceled. Hence why choosing more than one panel to attend is helpful. If the primary one disappeared, you’ve got an alternate ready. 

At the Conference

5․ Show Up

This seems like a no brainer. But “showing up” means more than simply being physically present. You need to show up with the right attitude to be both physically and mentally present. If your attitude is “I better get an agent at this conference or else…”, or “If I don’t win something, this was all a waste,” then you may need to step back and consider why you’re attending in the first place. Where do your thoughts settle? Do you find yourself focused on the past and what you could’ve/should’ve/didn’t do? Or are you constantly in the future—what needs to be done, what you will do, what your hopes are? A focus on the past or future isn’t inherently wrong or unhealthy. We all need time to reflect on the past for self-discovery and learning, and we need to consider the future to visualize our goals. But when attending a big event like Killer Nashville, focusing on the present is going to keep you grounded and be the most helpful as you navigate panels, listen to speakers, meet with authors, speak with agents, and network with fellow writers. 

There will be a lot going on at once, and a mind that remains in the past or the future will miss the moment and recall it only as a blur. It may still feel like a blur, no matter how “in the present” you keep yourself, but you’ll recall much more and experience it better if you keep yourself in the moment. 

Finally, don’t forget to breathe. Remember why you’re here. Take a minute to catch your breath now and then, between panels, take a walk or sit in a quiet place if you need to. This is an exhilarating time, so if you’re not enjoying yourself, take a “time out” to reassess, and get back into it.

6․ R.E.S.P.E.C.T

You made it, and so did your favorite author. They’re signing books and there’s a line out the door. Now it’s your turn! Don’t be “that” guy. You know, the one that holds up the line because they want to ask several questions about the characters and plot choices and how the author started and who’s their agent and…. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to ask questions, but remember to be considerate of others’ time (both the authors/speakers and other conference attendees). Always be respectful to industry professionals too—do not corner an agent in the bathroom or stalk them to their room or car. It’s one thing to ask an agent if they don’t mind hearing your 30-second pitch (assuming you’ve researched them and ensured they’re an appropriate fit for your project), it’s another to shove a paper copy of your full manuscript in their direction, or attempt to hold them ‘hostage’ in a conversation.

7․ Dress professionally comfortable

Typical attire for a conference will vary, but it’s always safe to assume business casual. Other tidbits of advice: check the weather ahead of time, and even if it doesn’t look like rain, it can’t hurt to pack a raincoat! Bring a light jacket, blazer, or cardigan: sometimes meeting rooms can be chilly. And have deodorant and breath mints at the ready (in your purse or the canvas bags often provided during registration). You never know when you might need a touch up or a breath refresher—especially before a pitch session! Now is not the time for crocs and beach shorts, nor do you need to dress in a tux.

For men: polos, button-downs, sweaters, or even a conference-related t-shirt, khakis, chinos, dress slacks or dark jeans. Shoes could be loafers or stylish sneakers.

For women: blouses, sweaters, or other nice tops, including a conference-related t-shirt, slacks, skirts, dress pants or dark jeans. Unless you’re comfortable in high-heels for long periods of time, flats, low heels or stylish boots are a good go-to.

Remember: there will often be frequent walking, standing, and sitting, so comfortable shoes and clothes are a must! Dressing in layers can help with fluctuating temperatures inside and out. Accessories should be simple and functional—though at Killer Nashville, you’ll likely get a stylish tote bag at registration to keep your notebook, pens, pencils, and business cards.

Though the atmosphere at Killer Nashville, and any writers’ conference, is relaxed and welcoming, having a professional and polished look can make a good impression on peers and industry professionals. 

About 2 Weeks Post-Conference 

8․ Follow-ups and Thank yous

The conference is such an exciting event, and you’ll likely meet countless people—agents, editors, new writers, seasoned authors, career professionals with unique expertise (retired FBI agents, doctors, forensics experts, etc.) When you have friendly conversations and make connections, you want to keep those folks in your network. You do that by following-up. About two weeks after the conference, email the people who’ve provided you business cards. If you need to, write something memorable in your notebook or on the card itself so you can remember why you exchanged business cards or to spark your memory about your conversation and questions you may have had for them. You won’t have time (and neither will most attendees) to ask all the questions or plan a writers’ meet up. Save that for later, and do so in the follow-up.

If an agent requested materials (woohoo!), take a second look at your manuscript. Do not send anything that’s not 100% ready. I wish I could tell you they’re dying to read what you’ve got and are sitting by their empty inbox waiting for it to come through. Sadly, this isn’t the case. There’s nothing wrong with waiting a couple more months to get your materials in order and as close to perfect as possible, then send it to them with a reminder that you met at the conference (following their guidelines, of course).

Send thank yous to agents you’ve met who took time to chat with you. Send the authors and keynote speakers a “thank you.” There are probably a hundred people you could thank, but sending it to the people who you connected with or did something meaningful should be adequate. Be sure to be as specific as possible (what is it they said or did that made you grateful enough to reach out?). 

Often, the lifelong connections are formed in these follow-ups. (Maybe not always with agents, but certainly possible with other writers!). Connections don’t happen overnight, and relationships don’t forge over a weekend, but they can certainly start there.

Whatever your goals, whatever your stage in the writing journey, I hope you make it out to Killer Nashville this year! If you’re attending the conference, I’d love to meet you! 

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Chrissy’s work has appeared in three consecutive issues of Bridgewater State University’s “Embracing Writing” book for first-year freshmen. Her writing portfolio also includes publications in The Broadkill Review, SUSIE Mag, The Storyteller, and informative pieces for a local online newspaper. One of her unpublished novels, Foul Play, was a Suspense Finalist for the 2022 Claymore Award, and an excerpt from her unpublished novel Overshadow won Top Three Finalist of the 2024 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award. Though her background is in counseling, having earned a master’s degree in this field, when it comes to the art of writing, she’s an autodidact. She studies books she loves and enjoys completing various creative writing classes online, and attending writer’s conferences whenever she can; Killer Nashville is one of her favorites. Additionally, she’s volunteered since 2023 as a general editor for the Killer Nashville Magazine. She resides in Tennessee with her family, their talkative Husky, and a frenetic cat. You can find her online here: https://chrissyhicks.wordpress.com/ where she occasionally blogs about the writing life and reviews craft books.