Authorpreneurship Part 2

How many workshops and conferences have you attended solely because of one author who was speaking or teaching? If you are like most people, more than one. But why do we do that? Maybe we read their books. Maybe we know them by reputation. Maybe, and most likely, because we hope some kernel of truth will drop from them and push us through the grates that strain writers to achieve greatness.

Ever ask yourself why writers (many famous and well published) speak at workshops or conferences or teach? Maybe because they need press. Maybe because they enjoy it. Maybe, and most likely, they do it to bolster their income. As I mentioned last week, well known, well-published, well-honored writers have to work a day job to supplement their book writing. With the exception of a few notables, i.e. James Patterson, most authors only produce a book every few years - at least a book worth reading. With contract fees for books at an all time low, writers must turn themselves into a lean, mean writing and speaking machines to “bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan.”

To some degree, the changes in the publishing industry, coupled with the cost of living and the challenge to find any job these days, has brought a wealth of new ideas, new approaches to writing, new reading resources and gizmos, and thousands of new freelance jobs for writers. When downsizing, business often start with the writing staff - publicity, marketing, education, training - in the erroneous belief that “anybody can write.” The work is parceled out to unsuspecting and too often inarticulate managers.

After almost ten years of this mediocrity and lost revenue, companies have found solid gold. Freelancers don’t require overhead expenses such as an offices and equipment, supplies and insurance, or retirement plans. When this happened, freelance writing requests exploded all over the Internet. If you don’t believe me, type in freelance writers and watch your computer struggle to load the enormous lists. Unfortunately, these same companies, still believing "anybody can write" wanted to pay low rates.

I began working as a freelancer through individual clients, a word-of-mouth type of arrangement. Then I started bidding on jobs through several online freelance companies about ten years ago. Competition was (and still is) high and international. After a few jobs that paid me $1.50 for five 500-word articles for websites, and they wanted ten a day, this dummy woke up. But, I hung in there until I learned how to do research and regurgitate words on the page at an all time high. They weren't looking for quality, they wanted words and keywords that breezed through Copyscape. I built up some credits and that led me to higher paying jobs from the same online source.

It didn’t take me long to realize which companies I didn’t want to work with, but I have to admit that education was painful in all sorts of ways. Some of those companies no longer exist. Nuff said.

And that brings me to today’s lesson. Just as hair styles have changed since the dawn of time, so has the role of a freelance writer. Things have changed DRAMATICALLY in the past three years. It is much easier to find intellectual stimulation and better fees with an influx of professional people and companies vying for our skills and time.

The number of rip-off companies were complained about so frequently, most have been eradicated. I still see companies and individuals seeking to “make a deal” as though hiring a good writer was some type of e-bay activity.

I, too, have changed. I find myself talking to the computer when someone wins the bid; someone who is willing to do the work for 90% less than my I am. I wish the writer well and hope they build their credits quickly. I also wish the client well, because they make what was clearly a cost per hour decision that had nothing to do with logic. We all have to learn from our mistakes.

While online proposals for jobs account for only about 5% of my income, the bidding process is fun and challenges me to sell myself and my work, a trying job for anyone who prefers to hide at the computer or in a book. That process does me more good than anything else I’ve done when it comes to building my business, and I've met some wonderful writers and clients. Oh, the ugly looks I got from other writers when I launched my first marketing campaign. You would have thought I had single-handily pillaged and destroyed the crops for half of the United States.

Here are a few things I learned along the way to become this unusual critter - authorpreneurship.

1.  I do not work below a certain rate. Period. I have stuck to that, which has also been painful at times, but I learned there are more than enough people who understand the value of good writing and appreciate the value of editing to sell their products that I will not prostitute myself for the work.

2.  The difference between assets and liabilities (try not to laugh), and debits and credits (not the Visa or MasterCard kind), negotiation and browbeating, value given and value earned (not ego and id), harassment and feedback, and best of all friends and acquaintances.

3.  The value of contracts and agreements.

4.  The necessity of requiring some payment up front or continue to be cheated by “reputable companies and authors.”

5.  Prepare for the leaner times when you are flush.

6.  I do not work for publications that do not pay. (I have Hope Clarke to thank for harping on this on www.fundsforwriters.com.) Period.

7.  If I want to finish and sell a book, the time has to be scheduled, and if it invades my reading time, I have the power to choose.

8.  Networking is an absolute necessity to survive as an entrepreneur and as a writer. Deal with it.

9.  Prizes such as the Agatha, Pulitzer, Newberry, PEN/Faulkner, Pushcart, Gold Dagger Award, etc. are next to impossible for most writers to win. I will be happy with great reviews on GoodReads and Amazon.

10.  There is a secret to the New York Times bestseller list. It is called advance copy distribution. The NYT list is based on the speed at which a book sells in its first week on the shelf. Pre-orders count towards the first week’s sales rate. No wonder ARCs are all over websites such as GoodReads and the authors are happy to give them away and publicize their upcoming books on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

11.  Careful placement of a book in a category or selling an e-book for 99 cents can skyrocket a book 

to the top of the list, and then the author has bragging rights and sells more books.

If you are interested in being a freelancer and/or an authorpreneur, jump on in. The water’s choppy but what an adventure you will have!

Mahala

Nolan White - Creating Unique Characters

Nolan White, a native Southerner from Alabama, joins us today and gives writers tips to the creation of unique characters. Nolan is the editor of Great Days Outdoors magazine and composes a three-page section of news snippets as well as writing feature articles for the monthly magazine. He is active in numerous local activities and reaches out to those in need. In 2011, his concern for the poor led him to launch Alabama Hunger Relief, a nonprofit and made it a family affair. His brother, Alan White, runs fishing tournament to raise fund for needy families through local area food banks.

Nolan, former owner of a huge marketing firm, knows many local people and taps them to assist with some of his local projects. He served as the president of Baldwin Writers Group three times, including his current presidency. He’s won several short story contests and written two novels about behavior genetics, the first is due out in November 2014. His talents include drawing and he is currently illustrating a children’s book for a local writer. An avid believer in supporting authors, he founded a critique group in 2012 to help serious writers perfect their craft.

Preternatural Proclivities

J. Nolan White

At age twelve I read a passage from The Black Stallion to my mother as she finished placing her famous layered jelly cake in the oven. A trucker in the story was trying to load horses into his trailer in Chicago. I pronounced the city as Chick-a-go. Being a substitute teacher, mom smiled and patiently corrected me.

It later dawned on me that butchered words strike people as funny. But it wasn’t until I wrote my first novel that one of my secondary characters, a quirky actress whose role ditzy humor, began to twist words as if they were pretzels.

Even a simple retort in dialogue such as, “Does a duck float?” becomes “Does a fluck dote?”

Another character has a mischievous streak. On impulse, she changes road signs. A sign reading Silver Queen Corn is now Silver Queer Corn.

Readers love unique characters who are memorable. To create them, why not assign unique traits to some? For example, a character in Messiah’s Proxy is often emphatic. Her words are often followed by jabbing a forefinger into the male protagonist’s chest. Her favorite expression is, “Good happens.”

Like a chameleon, she can change to a more sultry voice if needed.

Unusual traits help to differentiate a character from others in your story. Suppose a character, wanting to upstage someone, uses what she thinks is a hifalutin (that’s show off for you non Southerners) word? And what if she misuses that word? If she uses the word preternatural to describe her boss, not knowing it means existing outside of nature, what effect will it have on her highbrow colleagues? Fun-nee!

 Such traits enrich your story by showing rather than telling the reader something important about the character. So, venture out and take risks. After all, it’s your story.


Tell us about some of your favorite quirky characters and their unique traits. Have you created one in your writing?   Mahala

Michelle Ladner Interview, Part 2

Welcome back, Michelle Ladner.

Lyrical Pens is happy to have Michelle Ladner back with us today. Michelle is a wonderful writer who lives in Ocean Springs, MS, with her husband, Bryan, and a lapful of purr-fect cats.

So, tell us, Michelle, who inspires / motivates you to keep on keeping on.

My husband is an incredible support and inspiration. Not only have I gotten to watch him work at a job he loves, which has taught me the importance of doing something in life that you enjoy, but he’s incredibly supportive: financially, emotionally, and motivationally. I’m lucky that way. Writing can feel very selfish at times, especially when you aren’t pulling in a paycheck or you can’t cull together a list of “respectable” writing credentials when someone asks the dreaded, “what do you do” question. The pursuit of traditional publishing is brimming with opportunities for rejection. That can take a toll on confidence and self-esteem. Having someone in my life that understands the scope of the highs and lows is invaluable.

When you’re creating novels, are you a pantser, plotter, or the newest descriptive, pathfinder (a hybrid who creates a very loose outline then ad libs the plot from that)?

I used to think I was a pantser. That process hasn’t generated a lot of completed first drafts for me, certainly not any marketable ones. My draft shelf is littered with first drafts that are missing good structure. That said, I’m not a meticulous outliner. I think the best way to surprise the reader with unexpected turns and twists is to surprise myself while writing. I lose that ability when the outlining is too detailed—I begin to feel married to my plotting decisions once they are fully formed on paper. Pathfinding is the way I’m finding success. I think now that I’ve discovered that I can do both—plot and write organically—I’m finding my feet in the long form. Pathfinding is instilling more confidence in my ability to tell a good story. I hate that I came so late to the hybrid game, but that’s why I never stop being a student of writing. What you hear and the way you hear it can shake something loose in your process that you need to lose or develop.

What has been your biggest writing challenge?

My biggest challenge has always been (and continues to be) getting too far ahead of myself. All the not-actually-sitting-my-butt–in-the-chair-to-write things are many and ever-changing. I tend to worry about the business and the marketability and the agent and the publisher and the eBook and everything else before I finish the story. My focus on that multitude can, and has, paralyzed my ability to write. I have to force myself to remember that it has to be about the writing. The thing that counts the most is to write the best story I can. If I focus on that, the rest will follow.

Do you have a favorite genre? Do you write in more than one and why/why not? What do you read for pleasure?

I like to read a good fiction story. I do read memoir, biographies, poetry, and short fiction, but I tend toward speculative fiction novels. That said, good writing is good writing. And good fiction is good fiction. So I do venture outside the fantasy sub-genres while reading and writing. I love coming of age stories, and YA is a market I tend toward. I like the pacing and structure of a thriller. I like the big ideas and themes in listed and awarded literary fiction. I get a lot of enjoyment reading a racy romance. JANE EYRE is my favorite book. When I write I tend to weave together all the sub-genre elements that inform me. The largest percentage of what I’ve written to date is urban or alternate reality fantasy. I guess that makes me a fantasy writer at heart. I’ve always had an affinity for the fantastical. I was a kid with a lot of imaginary friends, none of which were human—always talking animals or mystical creatures. The human imagination is a wondrous thing. I love that we have the ability to formulate images and ideas that do not exist in our world or personal experience and put it on the page to tell compelling stories. I like to wallow in that experience.

If you were to host a dinner for your favorite authors, who are the six writers you would include? They don’t have to be living.

Charlotte Bronte, Brent Weeks, Rebecca Cantrell, Neil Gaiman, Neal Shusterman, and J K Rowling—and I’d probably insist that we have Thai food.

Thai food could certainly warm up the evening. What’s next for you and where can readers find out more about you and your work?

What’s next? More manuscripts, more rewrites, and more queries and pitches. I hope to get back into the conference circuit in 2015 after buckling down and doing good strong work on a promising rewrite and a couple first draft projects. It’s become important to me that I only solicit them when I am confident they are written well. I do have a published personal essay up on my website so it’s easy to locate.  You can find me at: www.michelleladner.com, www.courtstreetliterary.com and www.ninjapeas.blogspot.com

Thank you so much, Michelle, for visiting Lyrical Pens. Best wishes from our pens to yours for great writing successes in the future.