Archive for August, 2009

How to PRODUCE

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

This weekend, I had a chance to sit in on an informal writing program with Carla Cassidy, the author of more than 70 romances and thrillers.  (Find out more about her here).  She’s been writing since 1991, so you do the math – yep, she writes even more than I do.  Which means that she is even more productive than I am. 

 

I asked her if I could recap her recommendations on my blog, and she agreed (because she is a nice person, not because I scare her.)

 

She uses the acronym “PRODUCE” to describe the actions she takes to be productive.  Write that on a piece of paper and tape it to the wall above your computer.  Or tattoo it on your forearm, either way.

 

P is for permission – giving yourself permission to write, even if you’re not published, even if all you get from editors and agents are rejections. 

 

R is for routine – getting into a habit of writing at certain times of day, certain days of the week, helps you stay on track.

 

O is for organize – your writing area must be organized for you to work effectively.  If you have to move your work off the dining room table every time you serve a meal, you’re making it harder on yourself than it has to be.  Find a nook, a closet, a corner, make it your own – and keep it organized.

 

D is for delegate/demand/deadlines – if you have trouble getting much writing done because of all the other work you “have” to do or because your family/friends don’t want to give you time, you have to set boundaries.  You also need to set yourself deadlines for getting various stages of a project done.

 

U is for understand – figure out what’s getting in the way of your productivity.  Is it poor tools, do you have trouble saying no to your family, are you afraid you’re not good enough?  Figure out what’s stopping you and address it.

 

C is for create – do the work.  Make no apologies or excuses.  Put your butt in the chair and work, even if you don’t feel like it, even if the muse hasn’t come calling for a while.  Just do it.

 

E is for educate – learn about the craft, learn about the business.  The more you learn, the less time you spend spinning your wheels and the more productively you spend your time.

 

Although I’ve practiced some of these productivity tips for years, I have to admit that I quizzed Carla on some of them because they’re hard for me (setting boundaries with your child, anyone?)  She said, “Think about the worst case scenario.”  And I was like, “Well, I am the queen of worst case scenarios so I can think of some pretty bad ones.”  And she said, “The worst case scenario is that your kid dies, right?” (That Carla, she doesn’t pull punches.)  “Setting a boundary right now, is that going to result in your kid dying?”  Um, no. Okay, point taken.

 

She also recommended rewarding people you’re setting boundaries with for adhering to them.  This one worked for me this summer when day camp ended a few weeks before the school year started and I still had to be at my desk for hours everyday, even though my daughter would rather have been at the pool.  We compromised by taking Wednesday afternoons off to do whatever she wanted, and doing a special treat on the weekends, if she let me do my work.  She did, and we did, and it was actually quite a fun way to end the summer.

 

What are your favorite productivity tips?  

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Introducing my newest client!

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

I love cookbooks – I read them like they’re novels, and sometimes I actually make a recipe from one of them.  Chef Carole Cancler, my newest client, is the kind of writer who makes me think I should make those recipes more often.

Although I’m not going to divulge the details of her project, suffice it to say that it will make you want to cook more often, too.  

Carole has been a cooking student (including at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris), a cooking teacher (including French, Chinese/Thai and Hawaiian), a caterer and restaurant manager. She is the creator and owner of Private Chef, Inc., which manufactures a line of rustic, ethnic frozen gourmet dinners throughout the Seattle metropolitan area (I just wish they delivered here.)

In her own words:

“Carole inherits her mother’s Slovenian farm legacy, but confesses that Hawaii is the homeland of her heart—she has a second home there and has visited often since 1972. Still on her list of places to see (but not limited to!) are India, Greece, Peru, Argentina, and Tahiti. She loves studying about the anthropology of food—particularly how indigenous foods have traveled and been integrated throughout the world.”

I’m delighted to be representing Carole and her fantastic new book.  

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Reaching your audience — non-fiction

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

In which we use the dreaded word “platform.”

 

As a book author, you have to market to several audiences.  First, you have to sell your work (and yourself as the right person to write the book) to an agent, who will then help you sell your work (and yourself as the right person to write the book) to an editor.  But beyond that, you need to appeal to readers.  It’s not enough to get an editor to buy your book – you have to get readers to pick it up, too.  Otherwise your career will end before it even gets off the ground.

 

Successful book authors often position themselves as experts; others as journalists who can go to the experts, get information and present it in an appealing way.  (Think Malcolm Gladwell).  Some writers co-author or ghost-write books for experts; for these writers, writing credentials matter but platform building and promotion doesn’t.  The expert will be expected to promote the book.

 

If you’re positioning yourself as the subject matter expert or as the journalist ferreting out the information, you need to be sure to establish your credentials and maintain them by continuing your education, keeping your day job (if it’s related to your area of expertise) and acting as a consultant/coach, if that’s appropriate. 

 

You don’t have to have the same credentials everyone else has, though.  For example, many reporters talk to psychologists about work-life balance issues.  Does that mean you have to have a Ph.D to be quoted on the subject?  No.  I’ve been quoted on this topic because I pitched myself as someone who can show how to follow the principles of martial arts to lead a balanced life.  So, use your imagination and creativity.  Take a step back and look at how you can most favorably present yourself and your life experience.

 

Having the appropriate credentials to write a book is related to but distinct from the platform you need to establish to promote your book.

 

For example, my having a black belt is a credential that allows me to claim subject matter expertise.  But it doesn’t help me promote my books.  However, if I teach martial arts classes, that is a platform I can use to promote my books to my students (who will, one hope, tell all their friends about both the book and the class).

 

Once you have a publishing contract, you can work with your publisher’s publicist to develop a plan, but even before you reach that stage, you need to be able to show agents and editors that you have a certain amount of visibility in your field and a way to reach potential readers.

 

When people in publishing talk about platform building and promotion, they’re talking about strategies that result in getting your name in front of people who will buy your books.

 

Examples of building your platform before you get your publishing contract:

 

·        Being interviewed in print, online and broadcast media as the expert in your subject matter.

·        Giving talks, workshops and seminars on your subject.

·        Practicing your subject – as a coach or consultant, or own your own organization related to your subject.  For example, if you’re writing a book about mutual funds, it helps if you’re a working financial advisor.  Some writers earn these credentials as they establish themselves in a niche.

·        Joining organizations related to your subject matter and related to writing/book publishing itself.  You can stay on top of developments this way.

·        Starting and maintaining relationships with a lot of people, especially those in your subject area and in publishing.  Get out there and network!  You don’t have to be a smarmy salesperson to do this.  You just have to be genuine.  It gets easier with experience.

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Who will read your book?

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

One of the most difficult things for writers to figure out and describe is who will read their books.  The immediate answer always seems to be something like, “People just like me!”

  

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, it’s worth spending some time on figuring this out before you get too far along in your process.  If you don’t know who your audience is, you’re going to have a hard time convincing editors and agents that there is an audience for your book.  More than that, different kinds of audiences have different needs and expectations, which will shape how you write your book.  They are also reached in different ways. 

 

Many times when I ask a writer to specifically describe the audience for their book to me, I get something like, “everyone in the known world will be interested in this book” or “this is a kids’ book.” 

 

What I hear when someone says that is, “I have no idea who my audience is.”

 

Which is okay, because it’s a problem that can be cured.  Think of your favorite magazine.  Smithsonian?  Inc.? Woman’s Day?  While it’s true that a reader of Smithsonian may have some similarities to a reader of Woman’s Day, you have to agree that those magazines target very different readerships.  If you were an advertiser and you asked for the readership demographics, they would tell you very different stories: Woman’s Day has mostly female readers of a certain age, income, geographic distribution and worldview.  Smithsonian readers would have different attributes.  Woman’s Day editors know the details of their audience intimately, and if they want to appeal to their audience, they take those attributes into consideration when assigning articles. 

 

So what are the demographics (the specific characteristics) of your readers?  Besides the obvious – are they men or women (or both), are they adults or children? – dig deeper.  What are their ages?  Are they married, single, divorced?  Do they have children?  What are their children’s ages?  What are their interests and hobbies? 

 

Where will you find them?

 

Those are the questions agents and editors will have for you when you pitch your book to them. 

 

In some cases, an audience is already “out there.”  For example, if you’re writing a romance, then your audience will be romance readers and you don’t need to give yourself a stress headache trying to figure that out.  Of course, you need to be aware of all the subtleties and nuances of your audience.  In romance, there are a number of sub-genres – people who like to read historical romances may not be interested in paranormal romances.  That matters because promoting your vampire story to historical readers may be met with a huge yawn.  If you write series romance and then move to single title, the readers of your series may not follow you – they read the series, not the specific author.  You need to know that.

 

It also matters because romance readers expect a happily ever after.  You may have a beautiful, compelling love story, but if it doesn’t have a happily ever after, it’s not even considered a romance by romance readers.  It may be a love story, but it ain’t a romance.

 

How do you figure this stuff out?  By being where your audience is, doing what they do, shopping where they shop.  By respecting who they are.  In other words, not I’m going to churn out a middle grade novel because they’re short and easy to write.

Know who your audience is and write your book for them.

 

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A lucky week: my newest new client

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

A self-proclaimed writing reference book junkie, Jennifer Nelson is putting together a fantastic writing reference of her own – one that I get to represent.  So, yes, Jennifer is my fabulous new client, and this is my lucky week. 

 

Jennifer is the Stiletto Boot Camp instructor at mediabistro.com.  I just had to say that.  How many people run a Stiletto Boot Camp?

 

In her words:

“For the past 12 years I have been a freelance magazine writer with a concentration in the women’s magazine genre.  I’ve written hundreds of published articles for leading national consumer magazines in health, fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, travel, pets, interior design and writing-related articles.

 

“My work in women’s magazines appear in Woman’s Day, Ladies’ Home Journal, Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, Redbook, Cosmo, Self, Health, Shape, Fitness, Glamour, The Oprah Magazine, Oxygen, Women’s Health, Weight Watchers, Today’s Diet & Nutrition, Better Health & Living, Better Nutrition, Cooking Light, Delicious Living, and more.

“I also contribute to the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Reader’s Digest, Parade, USA Weekend, WebMD, Prevention, Parents, Parenting, Arthritis Today, Continental, Dog Fancy, The Humana Action Outlook, The Writer and Writer’s Digest, as well as chapters in Writer’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books).

“My work online appears at HGTV.com, Lifetimetv.com, ivilliage.com and Discovery.com.”

So, yeah, when Jennifer says, “Drop and give me fifty,” she knows what she’s talking about.

Welcome aboard, Jennifer, and thanks for signing on!

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Another lucky day: my new client

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I just signed another client to my small but growing stable of writers (hello, Flicka!) and wanted to give her a shout-out.  Polly Campbell is a fun, smart and savvy writer with a proposal for a book I desperately need to read.  I don’t want to give away all the secrets here but let’s just say: work, kids, spirituality — and margaritas for everyone.  

          

Here’s her bio (in her own words):

“Polly Campbell is a veteran freelance writer who specializes in articles on psychology and spirituality topics. She is formerly a contributing editor to Arthritis Today and her work has appeared in dozens of other magazines and newspapers including Family Circle, Health,  The Writer, American Profile and The Oregonian newspaper.

           

“As a writer, resilience, mindfulness, solitude, and guided imagery are a few of the topics she’s explored and practiced in her own role as a multi-tasking wife, mother and writer.  She is also an avid player of Candyland, a University of Oregon Duck football fan and a compulsive reader of self-help, spirituality, and psychology books which often tell her how not to be compulsive.”

As I said: another lucky day.

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Complaining is not a strategy

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I can’t remember where I first stumbled across this quote, though I know Randy Pausch talked about it in The Last Lecture.  Lately it’s been popping into my head a lot because I’m reading so much doom and gloom from people about the state of the publishing industry.  As I know I’ve said before, publishing has been in trouble since about 1843, and yet manages somehow to keep staggering along.  Does it change?  Yes.  Does it disappoint people – writers, editors, publishers, agents?  Hell yes.  Does that stop anyone from writing a book and wanting to see it published?  Not if my inbox is any evidence.

 

Now, this is not to say that I never complain, that I accept everything that happens with a cheerful equanimity that you could only hope to emulate. I can bitch and moan with the best of them.  But there are a couple of things I try not to do, which has helped me stay positive despite a lot of negative news:

 

1.  I try not to do it [complain] in public, where people who might want to hire me/buy my book/offer a contract for a client’s project will read it and make negative assumptions about me.  This includes writers’ boards and other online communities.  I know you want to be your authentic self, but trust me when I say, your online persona is no more your authentic self than your car is.  Think a little about how an editor might react if you posted a screed about her for something she doesn’t have any control over.  Then think how another editor might react on seeing it (“I don’t want to be next” is probably what’s crossing her mind).

 

2.  I try not to do it too much.  Blowing off a little steam with a trusted friend is one thing; constantly obsessing about the failures, real and imagined, of everyone I ever came in contact with over the last ten years is another.  Complaining can become a habit, and it’s an energy-drainer.  Ask me how I know this.

 

3.  I try not to let it be a source of validation.  “There, there, you’re right and all those miserable nasty folks who don’t love your work are all wrong!” can feel good, but in the end reinforcing my victimhood isn’t the kind of validation I need.  A certain niche of people have always valued my work; that’s what I need to focus on and where my neurotic need for validation can be fed.

 

4.  I try not to let it be a substitute for thinking and planning what I can do to overcome the problems and challenges I face.  Too often when we complain about a situation, we feel like we’ve actually done something about it when we haven’t.  If it’s a situation about which nothing can be done, stewing about it doesn’t help.  In those cases, how we decide we’re going to think about things is crucial.

 

What do you do when you feel surrounded by the negative and want to stay positive?

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Red Flags

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

I know a lot of writers and visit a lot of online writing communities, and lately I’ve seen an uptick in the number of people complaining about taking on work that has proven to be a huge pain in the ass (PITA).

 

Partly this is because of the economy – publishers are taking longer to pay, editors and editorial committees are taking longer to approve projects, writers are taking on projects they might not have a year ago because their bank balances are getting a bit thin. 

 

But partly – possibly even mostly – this is because writers aren’t vetting their “clients” carefully (whether that’s a corporate client, a magazine editor or a book publisher). 

 

Here’s the thing: desperation is bad enough in dating, but it’s deadly in business.  If you’re desperate, you’re not going to make the best decisions.  We talk about this in martial arts training: you have to have a clear mind to take the correct action.  Desperation (and its buddies, fear and panic) prevent you from having a clear mind and making good decisions.

 

If you feel desperate to take on a project because this month’s rent is due, and you overlook the five red flags as well as the warning siren, and you take on the job anyway, only to abandon it half-way through because your client is psychotic, or you do the job and the client never pays you, how has that helped you pay the rent?

 

Now, I understand that the rent has to be paid.  Mine comes due the first of every month, too.  But I make a distinction between taking on work that I don’t love in order to pay the rent, and ignoring red flags.  Let’s face it: sometimes you just have to suck it up and write another employee manual even though they make your eyes glaze over and your brain go numb.  That’s part of being a grown-up: doing what has to be done.  (That is also, in fact, part of being a kid.  But I digress.)

 

Red flags are those warning signals that indicate this project is not going to work out well for you.  (That does not mean it won’t work out well for someone else; that’s the confusing thing about red flags.)  I have never had a project that started out badly turn out well, so I’m ever-vigilant about what happens at the very beginning of a project.

 

I ask myself these questions:

 

Have I ever heard of this person, company or organization?  If I Google them, what shows up?  What do other colleagues have to say about working with this client? 

Am I supposed to do things another service provider (for example, a plumber) would never do? Such as write a piece without a clear understanding of the compensation?

 

Is the pay reasonable, or am I supposed to be thrilled with the “exposure”?

 

If I’ve worked with this client before, what were the results?  Could any problems or snags have been avoided? 

 

Are the people I’ll be working with professional in their dealings with me – fairly prompt in returning emails and phone calls, forthcoming with the information I need?  Or do I have to pry everything out of them with a crowbar and a blowtorch?

 

Is it being assumed that I’m a professional, or am I supposed to jump through asinine hoops to “prove” myself to someone?  (I don’t mean things like writing a professional pitch letter, providing a well-written resume, or highlighting what areas of my experience match the client’s needs.  I mean the fifty-two e-mails and seventeen phone calls required just to establish that I’m in the running.)

 

Is the work similar to other work I’ve done, or, if it’s a stretch, is it a reasonable one?  I write a lot of self-help and how-to material.  It would be reasonable to assume that I could do a profile of a famous martial artist without risking abject failure, but it would not be reasonable to assume I could do an in-depth expose on human trafficking in developing countries.  Not without doing a lot of other things first.

 

What are the red flags you look for?

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