Book market trends and other things you have no control over

One of the most popular questions I heard people ask agents when I went to a conference back in May was about trends-- were the agents still looking for this trend or that trend, what trends were over, what trends were predicted to be next. Many writers want to write stories we love that will also fit into the marketplace, and knowing trends can help with that.

Unfortunately, the thing about trends is that they're not something we can control.

Trends are determined primarily by readers, and then by publishers trying to flood the market with what readers seem to want. It's possible to predict that because readers want dystopian, they may want science fiction next because they're related, but who knows. Maybe somebody will write an amazing book about a schizophrenic teenage elf, and readers will go nuts looking for more fantasy with mental health themes.

The advice professionals give out about trends and writing for them is usually the same: don't write for the trends, because by the time you hear about it, publisher's lists are most likely full of it. Just write the best book you can, one that you completely love, and if it's amazing, it'll find a home.

The thing about trends and hitting them or missing them is that it's almost purely based on luck. James Dashner mentioned at that same conference in May that when The Maze Runner was being published, it was around the time when The Hunger Games was getting popular. His publishers were excited to have another dystopian/post-apocalyptic story, because the market was primed for it. He was lucky, he said.

I've been thinking about trends a lot because I'm currently querying a dystopian novel. I wrote it before I knew much about the trend, but I'm not quite as lucky as James Dashner. While the trend is picking up in the reader's market, publishers have dystopians planned on their lists for the next few years. This doesn't mean I have no chance. I love this book, and I think it's pretty darn good-- otherwise I wouldn't have the courage to query it.

Here's the thing about trends though-- and about selling your writing in general. It's all about preference. It's about other people and what they like and what they're sick of and what tickles their fancy on a Wednesday at two p.m. when they read your query or pick up your book. And you really have no control over that.

What you do have control over is writing something that YOU love, which is why that's the standard advice from agents about trends. The other thing you have control over? Studying and applying writing craft and a hefty dollop of imagination to make your book amazing. Because everybody prefers amazing.

So, my friends, what are your thoughts on trends and writing?

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Effective Marketing Strategy for Writers-- Creating a Plan for Using your Tools

There's an attitude among some writers and authors about marketing that is best described by the groan you hear when they mention it. We are writers, not marketers! they declare. And this is true.

Here's the thing, though. Marketing your own work isn't something to be afraid of. In fact, it's flat out awesome! You, the person who knows your books inside and out, gets to be the one to put them out there. You get to represent your own career! Yes, it's a little work, and yes, it might not be something you're familiar with, but a little knowledge can change that.

No worries, some writers say. I'm on Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, Goodreads, Tumblr, and a million other places. Marketing is taken care of.

Well, sort of. Marketing is more than just tactics and tools. You need to have a marketing STRATEGY, and that means you need to know how to use those tools. Strategy is an individual thing, but the basics of marketing are always the same. Robison Wells, author of the upcoming dystopian novel Variant, gave a presentation on marketing at LDStorymakers. And he does this for a living, so he knows his stuff. (If you want his whole presentation, click here.) Let's dive in.

Strategy 1: Define your Brand

When trying to determine your marketing strategy, keep in mind that your direction is determined by your BRAND: a collection of all the impressions readers have of you. Are you sassy, witty, wise, intense, silly, helpful, or anything else? If you want to develop a brand associated with your name, all your marketing tactics (blogging, Twitter, etc.) need to point to the same (few!) impressions. That is your brand. And branding will affect and influence reader enjoyment and their willingness to buy your books. You can start defining this by thinking of the message you want to send your readers about you as an author-- not just about a single book.

Strategy 2: Understand the 4 P's of marketing

Marketing isn't just promotion and advertising. There are 4 basic parts to marketing, and the more you understand them, the more effective you will be.

1. Price - Unless you self-publish, you can't really control this. And if you do self-publish, do your research. There's a lot out there about setting a price high enough to ensure perceived value, and low enough that people will take a chance on you.

2. Place - This refers to where your product can be found: in stores, online, at conventions. It can also refer to self placement in a bookstore. You may also be able to sell your books in uncommon places, depending on what it's about. For authors, it's good to make connections at your local bookstores-- the more the workers there know you, the more they will promote your book to shoppers.

3. Product - What do readers get from you that they don't get somewhere else? This includes positioning, or your niche in the market. It can help to devise an internal statement that can help you determine your position: "For the reader who wants [genre], my book offers [similarity] and [difference]." This can help you promote the book to the right people.

4. Promotion - This focuses on your readers. Reader demographics can be broken into three groups: your fans (those who love you; family, friends, blog readers, etc.), those who will never be interested in what your write, and the swing group. The swing group are those in the middle who could go either direction.

When marketing to your fan group, it's fairly simple: keep them happy. Keep consistent with your brand message, and they'll keep coming. For the swing group, your goal is to pull them into your fan group. So do some market research: find out why the fans love you and use it to promote yourself to the swing group.

Strategy 3: Use your strategy to pick your tools

There are different categories of marketing tools, and some work better for writers than others. You can't use them all, so pick a few.

Advertising: This includes billboards, commercials, and anything that shouts at a customer. Not usually the best avenue for writers.

Public relations: Anything you do that's newsworthy. Getting interviewed on the radio or an online magazine might go here.

Personal selling: This is where social media falls, and it's very effective for writers.

Sales promotion: For writers, this includes things like contests and swag (bookmarks, etc.) This is also pretty effective.

Whatever tools you pick, keep in mind you can do things cheap, fast, or with quality. And you can only pick two of those. If you plan your strategy ahead of time, you have a choice in how you're going to do it.

Strategy 4: Find Friends

Here's the thing to remember about marketing: nobody cares what you say when you're the salesman. When you're "pushing product," people get annoyed and tune out. So what's the strategy here?

What people care about is what their friends say. This is where social networking really comes in handy: it's all about being social. Making friends. That's not to say you should have calculated friendships; that feels fake, and nothing turns people away faster than insincerity. Make friends for real! Talk about a fun way to market.

So, my friends, let's try a little experiment. Remember Strategy 1, defining your brand? Let's do a little market research! I'm curious what your impression of me as a writer (through my blog) is. If you leave a comment including two to three words you think of when you come to my blog, I'll come to your blog and return the favor! Let's help each other determine our direction.

P.S. Don't forget, if you want to achieve a writing goal through the month of June, join me for JuNoWriMo! You don't have to finish a 50,000 word novel unless you want to-- just make a writing goal and stick to it the whole month!

image source

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How to Write Three-dimensional Characters, with a little help from Doctor Who

Okay, folkses, in case you haven't noticed, I recently hit 300 followers! Thank you all! I'll be doing a giveaway of some kind soon. In the meantime, if you're giveaway-hungry, check out Afterglow Book Reviews for the beginning of summer giveaway!

Today, I want to talk about how to avoid flat characters. It's something we hear a lot, but after attending his master class at LDStorymakers, I recently read Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and he had a great take on it. As a sidenote, READ THIS DANG BOOK!! It is absolutely the most concrete, helpful, insightful craft book I've ever read. It kind of made me go like this:

Three-dimensional characters are complicated and conflicted. Whether we like them or not, we root for them to win. In order to have a three-dimensional character, we must look at three levels of characterization. And we're going to do it with a little help from the Doctor. As in Doctor Who.

And yes, I did include a picture of the previous (tenth) Doctor. Because David Tennant is the TV equivalent of smothering something in chocolate. Mmm.

In Doctor Who, for those who haven't seen this masterpiece of sci-fi television, the Doctor is a time-traveling alien. He is now on his 11th incarnation as a character-- you see, whenever the Doctor is close to death, his alien anatomy allows him to regenerate into a new body with a slightly different personality. When I first learned this, I thought the writers were crazy. That means we have to get used to a WHOLE NEW CHARACTER. Right?

Kind of. The Doctor is a multi-layered character, and we're going to explore how that works well for re-incarnating him. Let's take a look at those three levels I mentioned earlier.

Level 1: The mask- what you see

This is the basic level of characterization-- and for some people, it's the only level they get to. It's made up of all the surface traits, quirks, habits, and personality of a character. It's the level the world sees, and therefore it's very important. This is what we see of almost everybody in the real world, too.

This is the stuff most characterization sheets are made of. What they look like, what are their likes and dislikes, what are their quirks, what are their talents and flaws. In Doctor Who, this is the level of the Doctor that changes with each new incarnation. He has a new favorite outfit, new favorite foods, new quirks, and a new personality. There are some little things that carry over, but it's fun to see what a new Doctor will bring to the show.

Like I said, this level is only the first, but it IS tres importante. Without it, you have nothing to base the rest of your character on! But if you want to take it to the next level, you have to explore...

Level 2: The inner landscape- why you see it

All those first-dimensional characteristics are nothing until you assign MEANING to them. Why does a character portray those first dimension traits? What makes him love one thing and hate another? Why does he act a certain way? What is his backstory and agenda?

This level takes things deeper-- it's what allows readers to empathize with your character. If they just see a character turn away from helping someone who's gotten mugged, they will have no sympathy for the guy. But if they learn that he turned away because he himself was mugged and spent three weeks in the hospital because he fought back, and now he's terrified just to be out on the streets alone...well, now your reader gets it. They understand the why behind the surface reaction to run away.

In Doctor Who, this level doesn't change from Doctor to Doctor. He is the last of the Time Lords. He has lost everything, and in a lot of ways, it's his own fault. There is a reason why the ninth Doctor is so hateful and cruel toward an alien creature that's being held captive-- it's a member of the race that helped destroy his own people. Because this level never changes in each incarnation, we still have the same empathy and connection to the Doctor each time he regenerates.

Level 3: The true character-- who they really are behind the what and the why

A character shows his true self through his choices when there is something at stake. This is the level where your character will really take on life. In fact, it is usually the level where the character arc appears-- a character may take certain actions at the beginning of the book that are weak in some way, due to the demons in his backstory (level 2). But by the end, he must conquer those inner backstory demons to show a stronger self by the end of the story. Who that character is-- the actions he takes when all is at stake-- has changed (or perhaps not, depending on the arc), and that's the making of a truly deep character.

Again, in Doctor Who, this is something that stays consistent. Or at least, consistently changes. It was particularly strong in the growth from the ninth Doctor to the tenth Doctor. His true character-- who he is at the core of his being-- is always the same. Or rather, it stays at the same place as it was when we left off, allowing the next Doctor to grow and change from a familiar place as we watch him.

And that's why, despite the fact that there have been ELEVEN different Doctors, he is still just ONE Doctor to those who have watched. His outside may change, but inside, he is always the same person we love and relate to and empathize with.

So, my friends, are your characters three-dimensional? What are some of your tips for deepening characterization? Who are some of your favorite 3-D characters? Do you love Doctor Who as much as I do?

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4 Things You Get from a Writing Conference That You Can't Get Anywhere Else

So. The LDStorymakers Conference on Friday and Saturday was amazingness served in a bucket of awesomesauce. This was the second year I've gone, and it was even better than last year. Five hundred fellow writers. Three amazing agents-- all of whom I'm planning to query. Incredible authors and presenters.

This year I didn't think I'd be able to afford it. It's actually cheap, as conferences go, and it's less than an hour drive from my house. But things are tighter for us this year. However, I decided I wasn't going to miss out, and asked for extra hours at work. It. Was. So. Worth it.

There are a million amazing helps for writers on the internet. There are blogs, podcasts, chats, Twitter, and Facebook. But there are a few things that you can only get at a conference that make it absolutely worth the money to go.

Encouragement - Blogging is great for getting encouragement from fellow writers. But there's something about actually being there, meeting each other in person, that makes the encouragement stick. You get to meet those who've made it, and those who are where you are. You're all reaching for similar goals. You sit down at a table with complete strangers, and in five minutes you're all friends because you get each other. I met some incredible people at Storymakers, and got to catch up with friends from last year.

Networking - There is literally nothing better than a conference for networking. There are pitch sessions and panels with the agents, and other authors and writers to meet. People are there to help each other. What can I offer you, and what can you give back? It's also a great place to realize editors and agents are people. They're funny and friendly and get a little nervous before giving a class. They want to talk to you. I was lucky enough to get introduced to agent Sara Crowe by her client Dan Wells. (And I finally got a picture with this author and friend who has helped me in my own writing!) Whatever happens, you meet people and are in a position to help and be helped.

Education - The classes offered at Storymakers were amazing. After attending Larry Brooks' master class (taken from his book, Story Engineering, which I HIGHLY recommend), I have a whole different take on the writing process. Hearing him talk about it, even after I'd read parts of the book, is what really made the information sink in. He had us apply what he was saying to our own work-- literally write things down, sort of a mini workshop-- and things just clicked. If you go for nothing else, getting an education from the professionals is more than worth the money of the conference.

Entertainment - I don't know how it is at other conferences, but Storymakers is just flat-out fun. The MC, Sarah Eden, was hilarious beyond words. Her videos (matching authors to genres, her 7-year-old explaining book genres, and Love's Secret's Passion) kept the entire crowd wiping laughter tears from their eyes. The fellows at Writing Excuses recorded a live podcast including agent Sara Crowe. When they played a game cobbling together random bits of stories to make a new one, Sara got stuck (and really, how you could weave a high-stakes poker game into a Matrix-like world with a harlequin heroine and a jock is beyond me). So Sara just rejected the story! I couldn't stop laughing (and neither could Howard Tayler). There are few places in the world you can go where people get your writing jokes, and you get theirs. While not a vital component of a writer's education, it sure makes it a lot more fun.

You can get a lot of these things in other places. But getting them all bunched together in two days? There's no better place than a writing conference!

So, my friends, have you been to writing conferences before? Are you planning to someday? What are your thoughts and experiences?

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Things that Make Me Happy

Yesterday at the store, I found this.

That's right, my friends. Fanta in a glass bottle. I'm sure that doesn't thrill you nearly as much as it does me, but Fanta in glass bottles is practically a meal staple in Ghana. I've never seen it here in the States, but it tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the Fanta you get here. There's less sugar and less fizziness than in American soda. See that cheesy smile? Yeah, that's me on cloud nine, reminiscing about buying a warm Fanta out of a cooler for 3,000 cedis (30 cents) from a lady on the side of the road who calls me "obruni kakraba." That means small white girl.

Another thing that makes me happy is this.

For the first time since the Kiddo was born, Hubby and I are having a little getaway. Happy fourth anniversary to us!

And this also makes me happy.

I'll be at the LDStorymakers Writing Conference on Friday and Saturday, and I can't wait!

So, you won't see much of me around here the rest of the week. I will be (hopefully) tweeting from the conference, though, so keep an eye out for some awesome writing tweets! I hope you all have a happy week. :)

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Updates from the Sick House

NOTE: If you're here for the Show Me the Voice blogfest, you can find my entry here!

So the Kiddo got sick a few days ago, hence the sparse posting this week. It's always sad to see him lethargic and feverish, but luckily he's on the mend. Which is good for several reasons, not least of which is I can't bear to watch Ninja Turtles one more time.

Unfortunately, now I'm starting to feel under the weather, so I still have no real post for today. Just a few housekeeping things.

First, thanks to Karen and Gale for my most recent awards! You ladies are awesome. :)

Also, you can now find me on Goodreads! I had an old account with my maiden name I haven't touched in years, but last night I created a new one and spent WAY too much time on it. If you're there, find me and friend me!

And my crit mate and friend Chersti is holding a contest of awesomeness on her blog! Enter your first line and get a chance at some awesome agent critiques-- plus a discount on the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference in June!

With any luck, my voice will hold out for me to keep reading Devs out loud over the next few days. I may still have a few revisions as I go through this final read-through, but my goal is to finish and start querying by May 1-- just in time for the LDStorymakers Conference! Wish me luck. :)

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