Juggling Novel-Writing and Book Promotion—Part 2 Next Steps

In my last post on this topic, http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2012/02/juggling-novel-writing-and-book.html, I gave you some awesome resources I’ve run across in my own search to learn how to handle this new dual job of writing books and promoting them at the same time. Most of those were resources for the social media/promotion half of the equation. I suggested you look at Twitter, Facebook, and the world of free blogs and add one only to whatever you already have. The other piece of that half of the equation is to build up your presence on whatever social media you are already using.

If you’re already connecting with friends, family, and old school chums on Facebook, you know the basics there, so make a little plan of what you could do on Facebook to build your professional presence there. I know there are people who say we should all get Author Pages on Facebook, but I’ve chosen not to go that way. As writers, a lot of our promotion, of necessity, is just giving our readers and potential readers the opportunity to get to know us and the tone of our voices. An Author Page is more formal and doesn’t allow our regular posts to show up in others’ timelines. So they have to seek us out always. A regular Friend Page lets our posts show in our friends’ and readers’ timelines. NOTE: This does not mean posting five status updates in one morning that all say, “Buy my book!”

Twitter is a very different kind of interface. Tweets are so short and so quickly replaced by others’ tweets that you can tweet several widely-spaced times in a day with a link to a blog or review or announcement that your book is out, is free, won an award, whatever. Again, however, if you send dozens of “Buy my book!” tweets, people will either block you, unfollow you, or place you on a list they don’t have to be bothered with (essentially making you invisible to them).

The key word in social media is social. It’s not cold-calling in sales. You wouldn’t go up to everyone at a party, saying “Buy my book!” Neither should you online. It’s called courtesy and basic etiquette.

If your choice from the last post was to begin a blog, I suggest you sit down and spend half an hour brainstorming topics for your blog, making a long list. You’ll be glad of this when your brain goes blank as you open the New Post window, and it will come in very handy later when we move into writing multiple posts ahead of time and scheduling them to publish at later dates.

I know. I know. I haven’t touched yet on GoodReads or LibraryThing. Haven’t even looked toward Google+ or LinkedIn or any of the other social networks out there. But we’re starting with basics here. We’ll look at those later as we start branching out.

 

The other half of the writing/promoting equation for next steps is answering the question, How do I find time to do all of this and write my books, as well? And the beginning to the answer to that is to restrict promotion to one or a very few types of social media at first, and only as we learn how to use them and combine them to make them more efficient and effective expand. If you throw yourself into every kind of social media at once, you will burn out without ever learning enough about any of them to make your efforts bear any real fruit.

As part of that beginning of balance, we need to keep reminding ourselves that promotion activities may be important, but they’re not vital, not the way writing the next book is vital. Writing has to come first in our lives if we’re writers.

One of the major problems I’ve encountered, as have many other writers I know, is how to keep the promotion/social media stuff from overflowing into writing time. This is something it will do easily. So next week, we’ll look at ways to be actively involved with promotional and social media activities without sacrificing writing time.

Friday, I’ll have a special Writers of Color post on here about the writers of the books banned in Tucson, including my most-published poem, “Spell for Banning a Book,” and Saturday, I’ll be talking on the Writers Who Kill blog about the necessity to a writer of an efficient postal service and what’s going on with our once-envied U.S. postal system.

Juggling Novel-Writing and Book Promotion—Part 1 Resources

By request, I’m going to post some lessons and tricks I’ve learned in the process of going through this whole writing-novels-while-promoting-books thing for the first time. This will be a fairly long post with lots of links and other resources and a choice of first baby steps to take at the end. I’m learning as I’m doing, so please keep in mind that I’ve not yet applied all of the knowledge I’ve gathered. And I know many veteran novelists probably have more tips to add—and I hope you will in the Comments.

Some of the most valuable information I’ve learned comes from the following people and places. (I’m giving Twitter handles, as well as websites, because, as you’ll see, I’m going to suggest you get on Twitter, if you aren’t already.)

 

Bryan Thomas Schmidt, @BryanThomasS, a science fiction/fantasy writer and social media guru—lots of great information at his blog under the heading Write Tips  http://www.bryanthomasschmidt.net

Tamela Buhrke, @iwisecoach, a book marketing coach—lots of great stuff at her blog, much of it free, remember she makes a living at this  http://www.iwisecoach.com

Jenny Blake, @jenny_blake, an author and coach—she has so much to help you, tips and templates, but especially her awesome The Ultimate Book Marketing Master Spreadsheet! http://LifeAfterCollege.org

These are a few of the major sources I’ve turned to again and again, but there are many more out there. I’ve found that the International Thriller Writers is not only a great professional organization for writers of crime fiction, but it’s members share great tips and opportunities with each other in the their two discussion forums on the ITW website, http://thrillerwriters.org/, and in their forum on Linked-In, where I met a New Zealander crime writer and blogger who interviewed me for her blog. Sisters in Crime is another terrific organization that provides tons of knowledge, including free books and videos on marketing and promotion, on their website, http://www.sistersincrime.org, and at their branch meetings.

Novelists, Inc., has membership requirements that will prevent a novice from joining (you have to have published two novels), but they provide some fabulous information on book publishing that includes resources for book promotion for free to one and all on their website, http://www.ninc.com/, the entire notebook that’s provided to their annual conference attendees.

If you check out all these websites and blogs and follow the many links they provide, you’ll very soon be feeling overwhelmed by all the information and possibilities for promotion that you learn about. Don’t despair! As I mentioned earlier, there is Jenny Blake’s awesome book marketing spreadsheet to help you keep track of everything. Download it right now, and give yourself permission not to do anything with it right away. Just knowing you have it there will help with the panic attacks as you learn how much there is available to you. Also from her great blog, I learned about ToDoist, http://todoist.com, a free online to-do list and tracker that lets you break things up into projects and tasks within them and set deadlines and reminders, etc. 

The first step is to check out these wonderful resources, or as many as you can without feeling totally overwhelmed. I’ll be giving some tips that you may want to implement along the way, though. And the first is—know that you can’t do everything all at once! Start where you are, and add one or two things at a time. As you get those under control, add another one or two. No one can go from zero to Queen or King of the Marketplace overnight, and we never want to lose sight of the fact that writing these great novels is our first and highest priority.

The first thing I did, since I was already on Facebook and had a blog, was to set up a Twitter account. So I suggest that, depending on where you are in your online presence, you set up a Facebook account, a Twitter account, or a free blog. Choose one only, at first, please. If you already have one or more of these, choose one of the others. Just take baby steps at first, and you’re more likely to experience success that you can build on as you expand your online presence. Eventually, we’ll link them all together, but we need to have ourselves firmly established and comfortable in each first.

For my blog, I use Blogger, http://www.blogger.com, but WordPress, http://wordpress.com/, is another free blog-hosting site. From what I’ve heard, it’s a little easier to turn your Blogger blog into a website later, but I’m going on hearsay from folks who’ve used both. I haven’t.

If you opt for Twitter as your first step, http://www.twitter.com, you can start by following me and the great resource people I’ve listed above. Except for Jenny Blake, we all follow back. I believe Jenny just has so many followers that she can’t get to it quickly any longer. Another person on Twitter that I would recommend you follow is Molly Greene, @mollygreene. Her website and blog, http://www.molly-greene.com/, offers tons of information, especially on Twitter. Molly was my mentor on Twitter when I first entered that world and terrifically kind and helpful to a newcomer.

I’ll go into the next steps next week. And tomorrow, I’ll be over at Writers Who Kill,  ranting about the threats to our public library system right now. Never forget what a resources they are always to the writer!

The Two Full-Time Jobs of the Novelist

My first novel, Every Last Secret, will be published 4.24/12. My publisher, like most in the business, would like a novel a year. So, in the past year, while going through the publishing process--edits, cutting, copy-edits, page proofs, etc.--I've also written and revised a second novel and started on a third.

However, my publisher, like most in the business, would also like me to build an online presence and promote Every Last Secret with book signings, talks, and appearances everywhere I can. So, while writing that second book and going through the publication process with the first, I've also been building from 0-1275 followers on Twitter, boosting my blog and Facebook/LinkedIn/etc. profiles, as well as guest-blogging and giving interviews on mystery blogs around the world and becoming one of the bloggers on the group blog, Writers Who Kill.

As I've been working at all this, I've been setting up several mini-book tours, as well. Instead of burning up the highways and my body with a massive blast of traveling right as Every Last Secret launches, I'm planning to do the Midwest at first, then later Texas (a tour all its own, that huge state), to be followed by Florida and the Southeast. I've set it up this way, so I won't be collapsing a couple of months after the book launch.

As I've worked at building an online presence and setting up book events, I have had so many wonderful opportunities flung my way that I'm almost overwhelmed by them all. Two things in this process have amazed me--one, that so many people are so generously willing to help, and two, that this is pretty much another full-time job. My admiration for people like Rhys Bowen, Joelle Charbonneau, Allison Brennan, Sophie Littlefield, J.T. Ellison, Lilith Saintcrow, who write two or more books a year and manage all this promotion business, knows no bounds.

I'm still working at this, but I've picked up some tips from  a couple of online sources. So perhaps I'll be able to make a success of the two full-time jobs of the contemporary novelist.

Wish me luck!

Literary Mystery Novelists—Richard Godwin

Richard Godwin is a British poet, fiction writer, and playwright.  His dark crime short stories and poetry have appeared in many magazines, such as A Twist of Noir, Crime Factory, and Needle Magazine of Noir, and anthologies, such as Back in 5 Minutes and Lyrotica. His play The Cure-All has been produced on the London stage. His first crime novel, Apostle Rising, was published in 2011, and this extremely dark psychological thriller has been lauded for its tight, complex plot, vivid characterization, and disturbing yet lyrical prose. A compelling police procedural and psychological thriller about a psychopathic serial killer who crucifies politicians and prostitutes, Apostle Rising pits police detectives Frank Castle and Jacki Stone against this evil while their own lives unravel around them—and in Castle’s case, his sanity perhaps. 

Godwin is a writer with great promise, and readers of his first novel will eagerly await his second, Mr. Glamour, due out from Black Jackal Books in April. Here are links to purchase his book.

Black Jackal Books      Amazon     Barnes & Noble

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novel Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer is crucifying politicians and recreating the murder scenes of an original case. The novel has received great reviews http://www.richardgodwin.net/media It has just sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in Hungary. He is widely published in many magazines and anthologies and also writes horror and Bizarro as well as literary fiction and poetry. You can find out more about him here http://richardgodwin.net. His Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are popular and penetrating interviews he conducts with other authors at his Blog http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog. His second crime novel Mr. Glamour will be published in April of 2012 by Black Jackal Books as a paperback. It can be pre ordered from Black Jackal Books and Amazon in March.

What was your inspiration for Apostle Rising? Had you always wanted to be a writer?

Apostle Rising was born out of my interest with the intersection between crime and horror. I believe that real horror exists in the things humans do to one another. I was also interested in identity and what that means. I wrote it in a style that alternates between what has been called my dark poetry and crime, which reviewers quickly said was unusual and effective. It received excellent reviews. It is also about the corrosive effect of evil on those who come into contact with it. It has just sold foreign rights to one of the largest publishers in Europe.

I wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager.

How would you describe Apostle Rising to someone who has not read it?

A beautifully written, layered novel about why humans do the things they do. It has the biggest surprise in it; no one guessed the ending.

What's your writing process? What is a typical writing day like for you? Do you keep to a set schedule? What are your writing habits?

I write every day. I see it like practicing my tennis serve.

What projects, literary or otherwise, are occupying you at the moment?

My second novel, Mr. Glamour, is being published by Black Jackal Books as a paperback this April. It is a mystery novel about a dark intruder in a Glamorous world. I also have many stories going into anthologies, among them “Tales of the Mustard Man” with Pulp Metal Magazine as an E Book. The Mustard Man is a character with a series of stores based on him. There are some new ones in this, and it will be out in the next few weeks.

Who were your literary influences growing up? Are there any authors (living or dead) that you would name as influences?

The main two would be Dostoyevsky and Dickens. There are many others, too many to mention.

Do you belong to a critique group of other authors. Do you find it helpful? In what ways?

No.

What is your advice to aspiring writers? How important is it for a young writer to be a reader? What would you recommend they read?

Write every day and read. When you are reading, try to see how writers achieve their effects.

What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned in your writing career? What has been the hardest part about being a writer?

I am rarely surprised. I love writing, so it is not hard. It is a process, and the beautiful thing about it is you keep learning—there is no ceiling.

Books of Interest by Writers of Color—Tony Diaz and Librotraficantes

Tucson School District, predominantly Mexican American, has been forced by conservative politicians to get rid of its highly successful and lauded Mexican American studies program—and the books used in it. After a long list of books banned by the school district was released, district employees boxed them up and carted them out of the classroom mid-lesson while teachers were teaching from them and students were reading them and doing projects using them. And teachers have been told they face termination if they’re caught using these books or teaching anything else about “race, ethnicity or oppression.”

The books banned to high school students in Tucson read like an honor roll of the books by writers of color I’ve talked about in this series—or have on my list to cover in the future. American Book Award-winners, PEN/Faulkner-award winners, Pulitzer Prize finalists, and many other award-winning and classic books fill this list.

And it’s not just Latino authors who’ve been banned—Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Luis J. Rodriguez, Dagoberto Gilb, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gloria Anzaldúa, Junot Diaz, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Isabel Allende. It’s also James Baldwin and bell hooks, Sherman Alexie and Leslie Marmon Silko, Thoreau, Shakespeare, and … Jane Yolen. Jane Yolen?

Out of Houston has come the answer to this blatant censorship, guided by novelist, editor, radio host, and activist Tony Diaz—Librotraficantes. A caravan will take banned books and authors from Houston to Tucson, stopping to give readings and pick up new authors and volunteers along the way. Learn more about Librotraficantes, watch a fun video about the project, and donate or volunteer at this website. http://www.librotraficante.com/

Today, on Books of Interest by Writers of Color, we’re talking to Tony Diaz about this terrible situation and about Librotraficantes.

Originally from Chicago, novelist Tony Diaz is the author of novel THE AZTEC LOVE GOD, which Ishmael Reed selected as the 1998 Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction. Reed called Diaz “Relentlessly brilliant.” Diaz is also included in major anthologies such as HECHO EN TEJAS: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Writers edited by Dagoberto Gilb, and LITERARY HOUSTON edited by David Theis. His essays has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Houston Chronicle. He has just completed his second novel CHILDREN OF THE LOCUST TREE which is in the hands of his agent.

Diaz moved to Houston to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of Houston's Creative Writing Program. He became only the 3rd Latino to complete an MFA from that program. While in graduate school, he began conducting workshops and seminars for different community organizations such as the then-Chicano Family Center and Talento Bilingue de Houston. That work inspired him to remain in Houston after completing his studies. He went on to create Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which just celebrated its 13th Anniversary. Nuestra Palabra promotes Latino literature and literacy. This consists of workshops, readings, and book fairs. He is also the host of the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT.

Nuestra Palabra has organized the largest book events in Houston, ranging from book signings for the likes of Sandra Cisneros, and Pulitzer Prize Winner Junot Diaz, to stars such as Cheech Marin, Oscar De la Hoya, and Edward James Olmos.

Tony, we all felt outrage at the announcement of what Tucson School District did. How did you so quickly move from outrage to this great concept?
The radio show I work with, Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, is 13 years old. We have 156 months of working with new writers, legendary writers, and folks who just plain love literature and cultura.

How many authors are standing with Librotraficantes now?
There are many. I ask anyone that I overlook at this second to forgive me. Some writers who are on board: Luis Urrea will meet us in San Antonio and ride the caravan into Tucson. He is writing a magazine feature on the trip. Sandra Cisneros is hosting us in San Antonio. She also made a large donation to subsidize the caravan and will also be with us as we cross the border into Tucson, on Friday, March 16. Carmen Tafolla will read in San Antonio. Wings Press will republish her book CURANDERA, which was banned in Tucson. They are donating copies for us to take to Arizona. Dagoberto Gilb has been a huge supporter, as well, and has been promoting the Librotraficante Caravan all over Texas and the U.S. Beloved writer Denise Chavez, who also organizes the Border Book Festival, will host us in Mesilla, New Mexico. Rudolfo Anaya author of the seminal novel BLESS ME ULTIMA-which was banned in Tucson-endorsed the caravan, donated, and also will receive us when we arrive in Alburquerque. He will give us the bendicion before we cross into Tucson. Manuel Munoz is helping us organize in Tucson. There are many, many others.

I know you’re the guiding hand behind this movement, but one man can’t do something like this by himself. Who are your partners in crime?
We have a huge base of talent in Houston that we have been working with, cultivating in Houston for 13 years. Many of these folks did their first readings at our Monthly Showcases when we first started 13 years ago. Again, I apologize for those who I will overlook at this particular moment. Librotraficante LiLo, AKA Liana Lopez is the producer for our radio show. She is also a 9 year veteran of Nuestra Palabra and helped us organize our huge Houston Book and Family Festival, which drew over 30,000 people. She is in charge of media and reaching out to our national network of allies for the caravan route. Librotraficante HighTechAztec aka Bryan Parras is our board operator for our radio show. He too is a 10 year Nuestra Palabra Veterano. He is also in charge of networking with social activists organizations and has organized caravans before with SWOP-Southwest Organizing Project.Two other groups that were also intrumental with the USSF Caravan were Southwest Workers Union (SWU) in San Antonio and Southern Echo in Mississippi. They are part of a larger coalition working on Black/Brown unity and have been incredibly supportive of our work here in the South and Southwest. Bryan also shot the original Librotraficante video. Librotraficante Lips Mendez AKA Lupe Mendez is in charge of our slam poetry presentations and also teacher outreach. He has 12 years of experience with Nuestra Palabra. Librotraficante La Laura, AKA Laura Acosta is in charge of working with universities and colleges and networking with Chambers of Commerce. She is president of the Baytown Chamber of Commerce, and a 10 year veteran of Nuestra Palabra. There are many, many more.

What do you most need to have Librotraficantes be successful?
We need thousands of people to unite with our brothers and sisters in Tucson to celebrate diversity, to celebrate Freedom of Speech. We need thousands of people to join us at each stop. The full schedule is at www.librotraficante.com

How can readers help with this project?
There is a volunteer pyramid on the Caravan Schedule section of our website. I would ask folks to please download it. We need volunteers at each stop of the caravan. We need volunteers to spread the word, especially via blogs, Facebook, Twitter and websites. If Arizona had banned our literature ten years ago, we would not have heard about it. But because of new media, we have, and we can respond with the time-honored tradition of the caravan. New media is saving classic media--books!

We also need help raising funds to rent buses that hold 55 people at once, for a full week, which requires 2 drivers. We would ask folks to please donate to our Kickstarter program, or via the Pay Pal donation button on our website or to organize fundraisers. We also ask folks to donate copies of the banned books so that we can give them away in Tucson, as well as other points along the itinerary. We thank everyone for their support. It means a lot.

This is the cause of our generation. When your grandkids ask you where you were during the Librotraficante Tour of 2012, tell them how you stood up for the students of Tucson, tell them how you stood up for culture, tell them how you stood up for their Right to Freedom of Speech!!!

"V" for Victory, Vat@s.

Librotraficante Tony Diaz

Thanks for answering, Tony, and for coming up with Librotraficantes, which gives us a creative outlet for all that anger this has stirred up inside of all of us.

The Librotraficantes caravan is intended to:

1. Raise awareness of the issue. Some people still do not know that Latino Studies is being banned in Arizona.

2. Promote the books of banned Latino authors: Hispanic writers are not promoted well enough. This is a chance to bring attention to their work.

3. Celebrate many cultures: Children of the American Dream must unite to preserve the civil rights of all Americans

Literary Mystery Novelists—Charles Dickens at 200

February 7, 2012, is the 200^th birthday of the great social activist writer and the Shakespeare of the novel, Charles Dickens. Like novelist John Irving, I must say, "I became a writer because I read Charles Dickens." I first picked up A Tale of Two Cities in a library right after I’d turned nine years old. I ran back the next week to load my arms with Dickens’s other novels, and I’ve been reading them again and again ever since. At one time when I was weighing an offer of a fellowship to do a Ph.D. in English, I knew, if I took it, that I would write my dissertation on Dickens and Bleak House or perhaps Our Mutual Friend.

How has this writer remained so popular, revered, and read for almost 200 years? And why am I listing him among literary mystery novelists?

In answer to the second question, many of Dickens’s books were built around a mystery and/or crime—Oliver Twist (full of criminals, a nasty murder, and a mystery), Nicholas Nickleby (riddled with crimes and mysteries), Barnaby Rudge (a murder mystery with an insurrection), Martin Chuzzlewit (multiple murders), Bleak House (murder and the first police detective!), A Tale of Two Cities (crammed with crimes and mysteries), Great Expectations (begins with a jailbreak, loaded with crimes & mysteries), Our Mutual Friend (identity theft and murder), and of course, the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (plotting for murder, drug addiction, possible murder). Also, Dickens is an author the academic and literary elites have, at times, named too popular to be of literary worth, much as they do with modern mystery writers.

As for the first question, I study Dickens to this day, trying to learn the answer to that. If I knew it, I could perhaps be as great and greatly loved a writer myself. Failing that, I can best answer it with quotes from other writers about Dickens.

"The reason I love him so deeply is that, having experienced the lower depths, he never ceased, till the day he died, to commit himself, both in his work and in his life, to trying to right the wrongs inflicted by society, above all, perhaps by giving the dispossessed a voice. From the moment he started to write, he spoke for the people, and the people loved him for it, as do I."  — Simon Callow

"I cannot lose the opportunity of saying how much I love and esteem him for what he has taught me through his writings -- and for the genial influence that these writings spread around them wherever they go. Never having seen Boz in the body, we have yet had many a tête-à-tête."  — Walt Whitman

"For all his faults, there is still no one to touch him -- for breadth, for depth (especially in the later novels), for moral seriousness, hilarious comedy, social criticism and for filling a room with characters you suddenly know better than some of your closest friends."  — Katherine Ashenburg

"Books such as ‘Great Expectations’ were part of the great moral revolution which made [Great Britain] prosperous, ordered and civilised.  They are crucial to our civilisation.  Like all great moral books, it makes the reader envy the good characters their goodness, and want to emulate them. It made us recognise the good and the bad in ourselves -- in fact Dickens ceaselessly did this, probably because he was himself struggling all the time against his own cruelty and selfishness, and loathed these things in others."  — Peter Hitchens

“The art of Dickens was the most exquisite of arts: it was the art of enjoying everybody. Dickens, being a very human writer, had to be a very human being; he had his faults and sensibilities in a strong degree; and I do not for a moment maintain that he enjoyed everybody in his daily life. But he enjoyed everybody in his books: and everybody has enjoyed everybody in those books even till to-day.”  — G.K. Chesterton

“Dickens is huge—like the sky. Pick any page of Dickens and it’s immediately recognisable as him, yet he might be doing social satire, or farce, or horror, or a psychological study of a murderer—or any combination of these. He’s always much more than you remember—more playful, more surreal, more campaigning, more sentimental, more Victorian, more good and more bad."  — Susannah Clarke

Thomas Carlyle upon hearing of his death said: “The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickens—every inch of him an honest man.” 

Happy 200^th birthday, Charlie! You’re still the Inimitable!