Do You Really Want to Be a Writer?

by Jacqueline Vick

Lots of people dream about writing. And writing for yourself and your family is great. Recording memories. Journaling for fun and self-awareness. These are all wonderful, creative pastimes that I encourage. In fact, if you write, you are a writer.

I suspect what most people mean when they say they want to be writers is that they want to make a lot of money doing something they enjoy. And that’s an honorable goal. But there will be challenges.

One thing that stands out from my time with the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles Speakers Bureau is the number of people in the audience who asked published writers for tips and then rejected them.

Audience Member: How do you find time to write a book?

Writer: You need to write every chance to get. On the train or bus if you commute. During your lunch hour. Or get up early.

AM: I drive to work. My lunch hour is too short. I have enough trouble getting up for work. I have no time.

Audience Member 2: How do I sell my book?

Writer: You have to put yourself out there to meet other writers and readers. Meet with book clubs. Do library or bookstore events.

AM2: I’m too shy. And I don’t have a car.

Writer: If in-person events are a problem, there are many online opportunities available.

AM2: I don’t have internet access.

Writer: You could do paid advertising.

AM2: I have no money.

Based on those conversations, I thought I’d give aspiring writers a reality check in the most loving way possible.

If you want to write for a living, you will run into obstacles. You will either find a way over them or around them, but, if you’re serious, you will move forward.

There are many paths to publication.

Online zines publish short stories, and some of them pay. Competition is high.

Traditional publishers will most likely require you to have an agent submit your book, which means having a clean, edited copy of your manuscript along with a polished query letter. Check with each agent for their requirements. (Or the publishers, for those who accept direct submissions.)

Self-publishing. You will need to have a professionally edited book and a professionally designed cover. After that, everything falls under your responsibility: submission to the markets, marketing the book, and handling all business decisions and finances.

My point is not to scare you but to prepare you.

I spend my typical day writing AND marketing. At this point, probably 40% of my time is working on marketing, whether that is appearances on websites or blogs, testing creatives for ads, testing headlines for ads, testing primary text for ads, keeping up with trends, watching my ads and making adjustments, such as killing the ones that aren’t working and adding ones I hope will work better. And so on.

I also spend hours each week in marketing groups as well as writer’s groups.

Part of my budget is spent on tools that help make me a better writer and marketer. ProWritingAid for grammar. Fictionary for story development. Unbounce, Mouseflow, and Shopify for marketing and direct sales. And the plugins to make Shopify perform better. Not to mention the thousands of dollars I spend on ads each month.

Usually, I come out ahead, but there are no guarantees. Some months, especially when Facebook makes a change that affects the algorithms, I don’t. But it’s a growing and learning process. You need to hang in there.

If that sounds like something that interests you, I suggest you join a writer’s group that focuses on your genre. Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators are a few. They often have great resources.

Follow authors you like, especially those who write in the same genre, on social media. See what they’re doing. Study their Amazon book pages, author pages, or, more popular now, their direct sales shops.

And don’t expect overnight success.

If that sounds appealing to you—or at least it doesn’t scare you—good luck. May you have a long and fruitful career ahead of you.

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Jacqueline Vick
The Frankie Chandler Books
The Harlow Brothers Books
www.jacquelinevick.com

The Long and Short of Why I Write Short Stories in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series

by M. Louisa Locke

MPdandydetectsforweb In the spring of 2010, just six months after I published Maids of Misfortune, the first novel in my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, I published a short story in that series called Dandy Detects. Besides the fact that I wanted to give a character from the first book, a young Boston Terrier named Dandy, the chance to star, my primary reason for writing the story at that time was for marketing purposes.

It is hard to imagine, but in 2010, the indie author movement was in its infancy, there were only a few indie authors achieving much visible success, and selling books at 99 cents was the new—and very controversial— strategy that these authors recommended. Their logic, which has proven quite valid, was that a reader would be more likely to take a chance on an unknown author if the price of the book was low enough. Then, if the person enjoyed the book, they would be more likely to buy the author’s other books at full price.

However, with only one book out, which I didn’t want to discount, writing a short story seemed the most sensible alternative. Dandy Detects became my loss leader and did its job more successfully than I could have imagined. After it was featured in Kindle Nation Daily, one of the first ebook promotional sites, enough people went on to buy Maids of Misfortune at full price to place it on Amazon’s historical fiction best seller list, where it remained for the next year. Dandy Detects also continued to do well, selling over 30,000 copies since it was published.

In time, I no longer had to rely on a short story as my primary marketing tool. With more books in my series, I started to take advantage of promotional sites like BookBub where I could temporarily discount my full-length books to attract new readers to the series. Next, I made Maids of Misfortune, as the first in my series, free, and it now acts as my permanent loss leader.

That doesn’t mean I have stopped writing shorter-form stories. It just means I am writing these stories because it gives me a good deal of pleasure to have a medium where I can develop stories for the minor characters in the series. As of this date, I now have seven short stories and three novellas in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series (compared to seven full-length novels.)

As a reader, one of the reasons I have always enjoyed mystery series, for example Louise Penny’s series set in Three Pines, is the continuing cast of characters that are introduced along the way. Whether these characters are family members, neighbors, co-workers, or local officials, they make the stories richer as they introduce humor, conflict, and even romance into the basic mystery plot.

Yet, as an author, I discovered that minor characters can slow down the plot too much if I give them free reign. It’s difficult to balance writing a well-plotted mystery, with well-developed main characters, within a rich historical setting, and my historical mysteries are already fairly long for this sub-genre—coming in at between 100,000 and 140,000 words. This means I really can’t afford to develop my minor characters as much as I want to within these novels, particularly since there are so many of them! My main protagonists, Annie and her husband Nate, run the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse, which currently has three servants and nine boarders. And these twelve minor characters also have family and friends, who often appear as minor characters as well.

My solution has been to give some of these characters their own published stories.

MPMoffetsforweb For example, in Maids of Misfortune, I had created two elderly dressmakers who lived in the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse. One of these sisters talked all the time, the other never said a word. And that was about all a reader learned of them in that first book. But I had developed a whole history for them and I wanted my readers to learn that backstory. So, in my second short story, The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage, I gave them a minor mystery to solve that helped reveal a good deal about their past as well as their current occupation.

This desire to expand upon a minor character has also been behind my novellas—which in truth each started as a short story that just sort of grew. In Violet Vanquishes a Villain, I was curious about why Annie and Nate’s sister-in-law, Violet, was so hostile to the idea of women having a career. In my second novella, Kathleen Catches a Killer, it was the tension between Kathleen Hennessey, the young Irish boardinghouse maid, and her beau, the police officer, Patrick McGee, that I wanted to explore.

Thankfully, fans of the series seem to get as much enjoyment out of reading about these characters as I do in writing about them. In fact, a number of the reviews of the sixth book in my series, which was set mostly on the University of California Berkeley campus, complained that they had missed hearing about boardinghouse residents and what they were up to back across the Bay.

That’s why I wrote one of my latest short stories, Beatrice Bests the Burglar. Beatrice O’Rourke is the boardinghouse cook, and a great favorite of series fans. In this story, as she spends the day reminiscing, I was able to feature what I consider a major character in the series, the boardinghouse itself.

MPrsz_omalley_cover_1600x2560 Finally, I write these stories so I can explore historical themes in more detail. In Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, I addressed the anti-Chinese movement in the city, and in Dandy Delivers, I looked at the plight of the city’s newsboys. My most recent short story, Mrs. O’Malley’s Midnight Mystery, let me portray the difficulties a poor widowed woman in 1880s San Francisco would have faced, trying to raise children in a crowded two-room apartment––difficulties that seemed all too real as I wrote this story in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In each of these cases, if I had gone off in this kind of detail on these subjects in one of the full-length novels, I might very well have lost a reader’s attention or weakened the effectiveness of the mystery plot. Instead, I get to give readers something inexpensive to read while they patiently wait for my next full-length novel and to make a little money for myself in the process.

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mlouiselocke_crm_small Louisa Locke, a retired professor of U.S. and Women’s History, is the author of the USA Today best-selling cozy Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. This series features Annie, a young boardinghouse keeper, and Nate Dawson, a local San Francisco lawyer, as they investigate crimes with the help of their friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse. Not content with just exploring the past, Locke also helped create an open source, multi-author science fiction series called the Paradisi Chronicles. You can find out more about Locke’s books from both of these series at https://mlouisalocke.com.

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This article was posted for M. Louisa Locke by Jackie Houchin (Photojaq)

A Writer’s Resolutions on Social Media

by Jill Amadio

New Year resolutions?

I have known mine for many, many months, as had a writer friend. Bombarded and burned out by social media ‘noise’ last month, she left her computer and iPad at home and fled to the forest and her grandpa’s cabin in Oregon, Bigfoot be damned. Alas, Hazel was unable to escape her addiction to Facebook and Twitter and she drove miles into town each day to find an Internet café where she continued to pollute the airwaves.

Linked In, Pinterest, Tumblr, Fomo, Reddit, WikiHow, Instagram and others jam our lives with clamorous demands to log on, read posts, share photos, and comment. The more timid of us comply.

No Escape.

I know dozens of writers who complain about the time it takes to respond to cute comments yet day after day we find ourselves enslaved to the practice, afraid to miss something someone has written. Did they see my latest awards photo on my FB site? Have they followed my Tweet link to my new mystery web site? While grateful for congratulatory messages online, and helpful tips on feeding hippos, how about admirers sending a snail-mail card instead or a basket of premium wine?

One can barely escape social media even without going to the sites. I receive email messages daily that someone has commented on my status (whatever that means – single, poverty-stricken?) or wants me to Like them.

Procrastination.

We seem to be obsessed with spending hours online replying to friends’ remarks posted on social media sites, laughing at cartoons and jokes when we should be writing the next chapter or polishing an article. For some, it’s procrastination, an excuse not to tackle that elusive plot point, or figure out the murderer’s true motive; for others, perhaps, a means to make a mark upon the vast Internet audience.

Do the networking benefits outweigh the negatives? Many around the world have found long-lost school friends and relatives. Others bemoan the lack of privacy. I still haven’t figured out how to send a private FB message to my daughter.

Guest Blogging

Then there are the invitations to be a guest blogger. I was asked if I’d like to join a Blog Hop whereby ten mystery authors answered a series of questions about their books and their writing life. First, it had to be explained to me how the process worked, then I answered the host blogger’s eight questions, after which I was told to wait my turn for the right day. I was nudged the day before with three emails reminding me, and finally, I was asked to promote the entire Hop through social media for several days beforehand, and several days afterwards: “I am guest-blogging today on Santa’s site.”

It was fun but time-consuming. The new idea prompted other friends who were not included in the Hop to ask me if I’d invite them to be a guest blogger on my own site. After agreeing to two of them, I realized that probably no one checked out the blog page on my site anyway. More time lost.

An addiction?

How do we escape the trap and refuse to be manipulated? There are plenty of advice columns and seminars on how to overcome the addiction, even a 10-step program on how to recognize the symptoms and treat them. You can Google the subject and dozens of sites show up. Even the Times of India newspaper has an article on how to handle the problem.

Kim Fay, author of “the Map of Lost Memories,” was making a deliberate effort to stay “clean. She said that Facebook terrified her, and she wasn’t sure what to do with Linked In.

Longing for peace and quiet aside from social media noise and actual noise of traffic and sirens outside her home in Los Angeles, she accepted her parent’s offer to holiday in their house in the mountains of Arizona while they went out of town. Once there, she covered all the clocks, researched, napped, and wrote 50 pages of her next thriller without once logging on anywhere.

“Ideas had space to roll around in my head,” she said. “My thoughts were uninterrupted. It was divine. These days the life of a 21^st century writer are frantic, a pressure cooker requiring one to write reviews, connect with fans and friends, and try to stay in the game. ”

Well, I gotta go. Time to check my FB page, and wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Jill Amadio is from Cornwall, UK, but unlike her amateur sleuth, Tosca Trevant, she is far less grumpy. Jill began her career as a reporter in London (UK), then Madrid (Spain), Bogota (Colombia), Bangkok (Thailand), Hong Kong, and New York. She is the ghostwriter of 14 memoirs, and wrote the Rudy Valle biography, “My Vagabond Lover,” with his wife, Ellie. Jill writes a column for a British mystery magazine, and is an audio book narrator. She is the author of the award-winning mystery, “Digging Too Deep.” The second book in the series, “Digging Up the Dead,” was released this year. The books are based in Newport http://www.jillamadio.com

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This article was posted for Jill Amadio by Jackie Houchin (Photojaq)

Enjoyable Events

by Linda Johnston

Who knew?

When I started getting published, I still believed that writers just wrote. That was before I began joining fun organizations like Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Romance Writers of America.

I learned otherwise fairly fast. I joined MWA after I accepted my Robert L. Fish Award for Best First Short Story of the year in New York. When I then began writing time travel romances, I joined RWA and also went to meetings.

Even so, I had to learn that a good part of promotion is agreeing to be on panels and at special writing events.

So why am I talking about this now? Well, last weekend was a lot of fun.

First, on Saturday, I was invited to attend Cozy Con, sponsored by Kensington at the Redondo Beach Library. I’ve not written for Kensington, but I was one of the authors there nonetheless. And it was fun, with lots of opportunities for readers and fans to stop at tables where authors sat and chat for a while. Plus, there were giveaways to readers. And they were able to buy books which we could sign.

tri Color Spaniel dog-634031__340 Then, on Sunday, I was on a panel for Sisters in Crime at the Thousand Oaks Library, where several published authors were on Dying Laughing, a mystery authors panel, where we were asked questions about our writing–how it starts, how it continues, and a lot more, including humorous aspects. And I, unsurprisingly and fortunately, was asked a lot about the dogs in my stories.

And although those were new events which I definitely enjoyed, they were among lots of others I’ve participated in, and will continue to participate in, as an author. Local events, not just the many conferences I attend.

So who believes writing is a solitary sport? Oh, there are aspects of it that are… like the writing, at least most of the time. But getting out there is part of the career, a fun part of it, although I had to learn how not to be shy when out there giving answers or speeches to people.

Now? Just ask me, and if the timing and location work for me, I’ll see you there!

How about the rest of you authors out there?

lindaphoto Linda O. Johnston, a former lawyer who is now a full-time writer, currently writes two mystery series for Midnight Ink involving dogs: the Barkery and Biscuits Mysteries, and the Superstition Mysteries. She has also written the Pet Rescue Mystery Series, a spinoff from her Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime and also currently writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense as well as the Alpha Force paranormal romance miniseries about shapeshifters for Harlequin Nocturne. Her most recent release is her 44th published novel, with more to come.

This article was posted for Linda O. Johnston by Jackie Houchin

Deadlines–The Good, the Bad and… any Ugly?

By Linda O. Johnston

I’m a writer.

Writers have deadlines.

If we’re traditionally published, they’re set by the publisher, with our agreement. If we’re self published, they’re largely set by ourselves.

I’ve been doing this for a while and generally consider deadlines my friends. They certainly keep me moving.

Recently I’ve been under deadlines for four Harlequin Romantic Suspense novels. I met the first two with no problem, but I’d agreed to the third being shorter than usual thinking I could meet it anyway–but I had to ask for an extension.

I just turned in that manuscript.

DEADLINE1 Now I’m working on the fourth of those books. I’m first doing a synopsis and three chapters to turn in, then finishing the rest of the manuscript. I have a few months, so I should be fine. But right now I’m looking at all the weekend events, panels and more, that I’ve agreed to in the near future. Then there will be a visit from some dear family members that will probably use up a week. And an annual trip that has been extended to see those family members at their home. So… well, I’m worried about meeting that deadline.

After I do? Well, I’m not sure what I’m writing next. I’m hoping to do more mysteries, but I’m not under any contracts. And I’d enjoy writing more romantic suspense books as well.

But after that deadline is over, I have some trips planned, so I’ll have to be careful.

Okay, I’m not the only one with deadlines. And I had all kinds of other deadlines when I was also a practicing attorney. Nearly everyone has deadlines in their lives. Do you? Writing deadlines? Work deadlines? Family deadlines?

Yes, deadlines are a part of life.

What do you think of the ones in your life? Do you face them down and stare at them and meet them? Or do you cringe when you think of them?

Or do you want more of them, as I do?

This article was posted for Linda O. Johnston by Jackie Houchin

Web Site Ads, Anyone?

by Jill Amadio

How many of us buy site ads to promote our books?

Grinding my teeth at low sales in August I was able to ask a couple of successful authors how they manage to keep their titles before the public. Brenda Novak, who writes the Dr. Evelyn Talbot thrillers, said that one of the publicity tools she uses are book marketing sites. Although her wallet is somewhat fatter than those of many of us with four million copies of her books sold, Brenda still sends some of her personal advertising dollars to these sites.

Among her tactics: Organize your own book group on Facebook. It’s free. Offer inexpensive swag such as commemorative pins in exchange for downloading only your book titles from her web site – not the books themselves.

Add a shopping page to your own website to sell T-shirts, mini-totes, Christmas ornaments, etc. Brenda said that it cost her $2,000 initially to set up her online shop and now it is hugely successful.

Another tactic she uses is to create a Foodie Friday recipe which she cooks and posts on her Facebook and Instagram accounts, including a video.

Book trailers are one of her favorite ways to attract attention although she cautions that changing it regularly is key. To keep costs low (still expensive!!), the video company she contracts with uses stock video for much of the content.

Another tip: offer giveaways – one of her most popular was on Facebook Live in which she read from her books.

Find a company that sells “scrap” advertising which are spots in major magazines discounted at the last minute. But don’t let the “scrap” description fool you. Brenda says that even discounted, it can cost a bundle. Nevertheless, one she found available was in People magazine, and she is always on the lookout for deadline deals with women’s magazines.

“Not all marketing endeavors achieve the same goal. Some are more about brand building,” she told me. “I look at marketing my books like a farmer might his fields – it’s what I put into the soil before planting that makes the biggest difference in the end.”

Away from Brenda’s heady, enterprising and pricey ads are the less expensive and free methods used by some of us Writers in Residence and by our colleague, psychological thriller writer Sheila Lowe. Like Brenda, Sheila subscribes to www.BookBub.com, a web site that sends out daily emails advertising books to millions of readers, although costs can be high.

Here’s how it works: you set a maximum price you’ll pay for the exposure, say $100. When someone clicks on your book cover you get charged a certain amount of money for the impression. After your stated maximum budget, the $100, is reached, BookBub takes down your ad. You can choose which readers and audiences you want to target by genre, interests, retailers, and location, and you can monitor your campaign on the site’s dashboard. Extremely popular, the site has a waiting list of authors eager to sign up.

While Sheila takes advantage of the benefits Facebook offers including its Authors Page, she likes affordable subscription sites such as www.BargainBooksy.com and www.RobinReads.com. The latter is a free author promotion service affiliated with Amazon and you don’t have to be part of Amazon’s Prime/Kindle Unlimited yourself to use it. The site focuses on promoting eBooks which are now enjoying a massive surge. RobinReads buyers pay for discounted books if they choose to buy them only on Amazon. However, the deals are swift, lasting only 24 hours before they are retired for fresh offers.

At BargainBooksy with around 3,000 subscribers, advertising for eBooks is also king along with print books. After a buyer clicks on a link to a specific book they are taken to Amazon’s web site, where the book can cost 0.99 cents or less, while pricing is based on your genre. This, of course, affects your royalties, so unless you are only targeting publicity you might want to reconsider. However, the site also links to your books at Kobo, Apple, and Nook, and to your own web site.

To splurge, you can buy a $50 BargainBooksy Deal of the Day promotion on FreeBooksy, a specialized-genre readers’ site designed to boost your click-through rates and purchases with free books that are not available on the main site.

So, there you have it. A few costly as well as reasonably-priced ideas. Raid your piggy bank!

Books: Digging Too Deep, Digging Up the Dead

Non-Fiction: My Vagabond Lover: An Intimate Biography of Rudy Vallee; Gunther Rall: A Memoire, Luftwaffe Ace and NATO General

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This article was posted for Jill Amadio by Jackie Houchin

How To Earn $1 Million on Your First Book… or NOT!

Jackie Houchin

bag of money I was going to write this post on “how to make $1 million on your first book” and follow the story of paranormal-romance writer Amanda Hocking who actually sold 1.5 million eBooks in 2010 and made $2.5 million. “All by her lonesome self. Not a single book agent or publishing house or sales force or marketing manager or bookshop anywhere in sight.”

Following tips she’d gleaned from the blog of JA Konrath (an internet self-publishing pioneer, who boasted of making $100,000 in three weeks), she also uploaded to Smashwords to gain access to the Nook, Sony eReader and iBook markets. “It wasn’t that difficult. A couple of hours of formatting, and it was done.”

Then… she got a $2 million contract from St Martin’s Press and… yada, yada, yada. Here’sHerStory

Today the self-published book market is flooded with books, and unfortunately a lot of them are inferior in quality in one way or another. Authors in a rush to publish don’t take time to write a quality story, edit, format, proofread, and design a cover professionally. And less than half of them make even $500.

So what’s a newbie author like me to do?

I’m currently working on a middle grade children’s book manuscript. It is a collection of twelve stories from the POV of seven kids who are the children of Missionaries in Africa. The kids take turns writing emails to their friends back home, telling of adventures, mishaps, mysteries, and lessons learned. In the process they reveal amazing bits of African culture, as well as showing how kids anywhere can use the Bible to help them in life.

Because it is unabashedly a Christian book and might be difficult to market, I decided to self-publish. I’m also determined to make it the best possible book I can.

Okay. No problem.

I’m a journalist and a reviewer. I’ve written tons of stories for my granddaughters over the years. And these twelve stories have been “kid tested” to more than a dozen children at my church. (They loved them.)

So all I have to do is a minor rework so they fit together smoothly, check for typos and grammar errors, and ask a friend to help me upload it to Kindle and Createspace. Right?

WRONG!

As I began to read blogs about self-publishing and downloaded PDFs like “Checklist for Publishing Your Book” and “Which Format Should I Choose” and followed marketing blogs with tips on using social media, launching your book, advertising, newsletters, and websites, I discovered there’s a lot more to consider.

I bought and read “How to Self Publish Your Book” by Craig Gibb, which details about titles, pen names, and blurbs, as well as editing, cover designs, formatting, promoting and marketing options.

“Word by Word, An Editor Guides Writers in the Self-Editing Process” by Linda Taylor describes in detail the process of content and copy editing, proofreading, formatting, and all the front and back matter I would need to write for a complete “up-loadable manuscript package.”

My take away, if I am determined enough to do it:

Write/rewrite my stories so they are polished to a mirror shine and have a kid-compelling first chapter.
Get my manuscript professionally edited. (I sent in a sample 750 words to be edited free to one publisher, and was aghast at all the track changes suggested!) A proofreader is also high on my list.
Get professional help in formatting my manuscript for the various eBook and print options. (There are just too many things that can go wrong, and I know from a dear friend on this blog that the learning curve is steep.) This is especially important because I want to include photos or illustrations.
Get a cover designer/illustrator who can format for both eBook and Print, and who can portray the vision I have for the stories.

How much is this going to cost me? A lot.

Can a middle grade children’s book with a Bible slant recoup that in sales? Only God knows. I’m really NOT out to earn $millions. Any profit I make will be channeled back into the Africa ministries that I love.

But… I DO have a person who has promised to read the book and write a foreward for it. He’s worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators and travels the world as a Partnership Facilitator. He’s been to Malawi many times. Who knows where THAT contact might lead.

And YOU might even know a 7-12-year-old who thinks it would be fun to grow up in deepest, darkest Africa! And want to read my book.

Creating Seasonal Articles*

Christmas sugar plums by Jackie Houchin

Does reading all those December magazines with their holiday stories, recipes, tips, traditions, and inspirations make visions of sugar plums, er, I mean, ideas for articles to dance on your head?

“Oh dear! I so wanted to write an article about those fun games we play for identifying Grandma’s tag-less gifts under the tree!” (Family Circle Magazine?)

“And how I wished I’d shared my Mom’s Christmas fruitcake recipe from her recipe box (that I inherited this year when she died), and told all who read the article why they really should try fruitcake again.” (Reminiscence Magazine?)

But, I forgot to write them.

And now it’s too late – WAY too late.

At least for this year.

But not for next year, if I plan ahead. Many magazines need seasonal articles. But they need them long before the pub date. Articles with a “time-tag” are a good way for new writers to break into print (or seasoned writers to pick up some pocket money).

It’s all in the timing

Start by picking up Chase’s Calendar Of Events and look ahead to see what holidays will be celebrated in six months to a year. Or you can check the guidelines in the new The Writers Market Guide for specific publications you hope to write for.

Send a query letter with your idea ahead of the suggested time. If you get a go-ahead, be sure to deliver your article on time. And be patient. If it isn’t used in 2018, it may be held till 2019.

Low-profile holidays

Brain storm ideas for the less popular holidays, such as Arbor Day, Grandparents’ Day, Flag Day, Patriot Day, Friendship Day, Bastille Day, Poppy Day, or even…. Cookie Baking Day! (December 18) Also think about back-to-school and summer vacation themes.

Your special “slant”

If those “sugar plum” ideas aren’t already dancing away up there, then:

Leaf through old magazines (yours or at the library).
Think about experiences you’ve had during holidays.
Write a short biography of a person linked to a holiday.
Research a holiday custom.
Remember anniversaries. (What happened 5, 10, 500 years ago?)
Interview a teacher, a parent, a coach, a Macy’s clerk.
Write a holiday short story or poem. (Some magazines are still open to them.)

Christmas funny poem

Before and After Tips

Start an idea folder with clipped articles from magazines or newspapers. Jot notes about ideas on each. Not all will be usable, but many will work. When you’re looking for a certain seasonal theme, these may trigger an idea.

After the original-rights sale, look for reprint markets for next season. Make a list of potential ones and their lead times, and keep your original article with them.

Open a new bank account!

Christmas bank account Just kidding! You won’t get rich from these sales, but you will get “writing clips.” And when magazine editors discover your timely, well-written articles/stories etc., they will approach YOU with their needs.

Okay… do you need some ideas for NEXT Christmas? Check out these:

Favorite Christmas books, movies, musicals/plays (pastiche or true likes)
Christmas mishaps (humorous, or coping skills)
Christmas trees: cutting your own, uniquely decorating (we knew friends who lit live candles on their tree!), a special nostalgia ornament
Family traditions (oldies, or how to start your own)
How to make homemade gifts (food, ornaments, clothes, home decor)
Holiday baking (how-to, tastes & smells, shipping)
Holiday traditions from other countries (foods, decorations, activities)
Or…. interview someone with over 3,500 Santa Claus decorations (Hint: I can give you her name.)

Take away

After all the gifts are opened, the holiday meal is eaten (and cleaned up), the kids are playing with new toys (or the boxes), and the older “boys” are watching football, go grab a piece of crumpled wrapping paper, smooth it out, flick open that new expensive gold-plated pen, and start writing up your holiday impressions, experiences, and ideas while they are still “dancing in your head.”

Christmas garland

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year !

Inspiration for this post came from Jewell Johnson’s article, Writing Seasonal Articles in the Christian Communicator,* Nov-Dec, 2017.

Launching a New Adventure

Thunder.Bailey.Book Cover.2

Hi again! It’s me: Thunder, the PR Rep for some of the Writers in Residence. This job is taking up so much of my nap and play time that I hired an intern. That’s her, Bailey, behind me in the photo. She’s learning the ropes, but since she’s not even a year old, she’s easily distracted by squirrels and other moving objects.

But I digress.

I’m here today to tell you about a brand-new book by Bonnie Schroeder (that’s my mom.) We are beyond excited to share the news that Write My Name on the Sky has just been published by Champlain Avenue Books!

Here’s the official press release, written by Bonnie of course, since dogs don’t think this kind of stuff up themselves:

Write My Name on the Sky is the story of Kate Prescott, a 1960s college dropout who marries art student Jack Morrison and helps him become famous. Then things go off the rails, as they must in a novel. FrontCoverOnly300dpi (002)

The book’s title is a metaphor for ambition and its dark side. Many of the characters in the novel are wildly ambitious—and ambition often drives success, but at a cost, which comes out as the story progresses.

All names have been changed to protect both innocent and guilty, of course, and most of the story events are purely imaginary, but it’s grounded enough in reality to make it believable—and, I hope, entertaining to read. Based on the early reviews, readers seem to agree so far.

The book is available wherever good books are sold (online of course, and mostly by special order at physical bookstores, although Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse in La Canada will always have it in stock.)

All right, my work here is done. For now. It’s past my nap time. See you around the book universe.

Happy Summer Reading! Bonnie_Schroeder-McCarthy-Photo-Studio-Los-Angeles-7187

–Thunder and Bonnie

SPEAKING OUT

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Bonnie Schroeder started telling stories in the Fifth Grade and never stopped. After escaping from the business world, she began writing full-time and has authored novels, short stories and screenplays, as well as non-fiction articles and a newsletter for an American Red Cross chapter.

SPEAKING OUT

An interesting fact: most people fear public speaking more than they fear death.

Having recently gone from reclusive novelist to active book promoter, I believe it, and I think writers are especially vulnerable to the terror of getting up in front of an audience and talking about anything, especially our own work.

My first experience in public speaking left an indelible scar, and it wasn’t even about my writing. At the time, I was a supervisor in my employer’s benefits department, and I had to participate in a presentation about certain changes to our plans. I wasn’t particularly nervous until I reached the front of the room. Then my mouth went so dry that my tongue felt like paper; my hands trembled; and my previously well-organized thoughts scattered like dandelion fluff. I could tell from the pitying looks on my colleagues’ faces that my talk was a total disaster.

After that debacle, I enrolled in a public speaking class at the local community college, and eventually I got to the point where I could talk in front of a group without showing my nervousness. But I never enjoyed the experience.

In the years that followed, my hard-won public speaking ability eroded—like any skill, you either use it or you lose it.

Flash forward a couple of decades, and my novel Mending Dreams was published: a dream come true. That dream, however, came hand in hand with a nightmare: I had to once again venture into the spotlight, this time to promote my book. I had to resurrect skills that had never been all that strong in the first place and were now mighty rusty. I needed help.

I found that help in Toastmasters 4 Writers, a delightful group of people who immediately understood my predicament and helped me get back on the public speaking horse. More than that, they made it fun. Since I’d already committed to a launch party for Mending Dreams, I was able to jump right in and pitch my novel to the group, and their enthusiasm and encouragement carried me through the launch and on into a string of other appearances. Several of the club members even came to the book launch to show their support. The group has become a treasured part of my writing life.

I didn’t realize how far I’d come on my public speaking journey until recently, when I was asked to speak to a group of former co-workers at their monthly “alumni club” meeting. This talk needed to be longer than my usual 10-15 minutes, and the audience included not only people I had worked with during my career, but also some I had worked for. I was slightly intimidated.

However, I practiced the first part of the talk at my Toastmasters 4 Writers meeting and got some incisive feedback so useful that it pulled the speech structure into shape. Armed with that support, I felt ready to take on the (so far) biggest challenge in my book-promoter role.

From my point of view, the talk went really well. I kept the group awake after a carbo-loaded lunch, and they laughed at the parts where I hoped they would. But even more important, while I was talking nov-2016-alumni-1 , I realized I’m not scared anymore, and that awareness was the same kind of high I get when the solution to a thorny story problem suddenly comes clear.

This epiphany didn’t happen by magic. I’ve learned a few things since that disastrous speech many years ago:

First and foremost, preparation is crucial. Know your stuff and practice it every chance you get: if not in front of a group, at least to the mirror, the cat, or the dog. If you have the means to video it, do that.
Just as important—remember to breathe. Take a DEEP breath and exhale as you’re walking to the lectern, the podium, the front of the room—or simply standing up in place. You don’t want to be gasping for breath, and an oxygen-deprived brain won’t help you recall your talking points.
Bring water with you if possible. That dry mouth thing is a killer, and nobody notices if you pause to take an occasional sip of water in between sentences.
If your audience is larger than ten to 20, use a microphone. If you’re not straining to make your words heard, you can focus on more important issues. I used to be afraid of microphones, until I realized how much easier they made things. Take whatever’s available—and if you’re using a hand-held mike, clamp that arm to your side and keep it there; gestures are great, but you don’t want to be waving that mike all over the place.
Even if I know the speech cold, I always bring a few notes, usually typed in 20-point Verdana so I can see them easily. This removes the fear of a brain freeze—which happens to even the most accomplished speakers sometimes.
If making eye contact is a challenge for you, seek out one or two friendly faces in the audience and return to them again and again for confidence, but focus on others as well. I bet you’ll find that most of them are smiling and looking interested, too.
Above all, if you’re speaking to a group interested in you and your writing, remember this: they’re already on your side. They want to like you. Got it?

I don’t know that I will ever enjoy public speaking, but thanks to my Toastmasters 4 Writers club, and my loyal friends who show up to support me, an invitation to come out and talk about my work no longer fills me with terror.

Conquering fear is a very empowering act. Maybe next I’ll tackle the Dreaded Blank Page Syndrome. Wish me luck!