World Domination in a Fun Way - Author Interview with Jolene Stockman

My interview today is with Jolene Stockman who is an award winning writer, speaker, and an staffer for Girlfriend Magazine Australia. She is a Master of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and one of the youngest in the world to achieve the Distinguished Toastmaster Award. Jolene lives in New Zealand and I get to interview her here about her first book.




Your first book, Total Blueprint for World Domination might make people wonder if you are some power-crazed megalomaniac. Tell my readers what this book is really about.

Total Blueprint for World Domination takes you from this very moment to your greatest dream. It supports you in designing your dream world – the perfect world for you, and shows you the steps to make it happen!

What makes you an expert to write a life-planning book for teens?

I began writing the book as a teen, and as I hit challenges on the way to my perfect world I became even more certain that the book would make a difference. Everyone deserves to have a voice in their head saying, “Everything is possible!” I went on to tackle shyness to start my own business and overcome my fear of speaking.

What were your writing credits prior to writing this book?

By the time the book was complete I was a qualified technical writer and scriptwriter working in the industry, although it was a slush-pile query and book proposal that ultimately landed me my agent.

How do you motivate teens to focus on their long term future as opposed to their friends and the current trends?

I think one of the tricks to balancing long and short term goals is to find ways to blend them. The more you can connect your current world to your future one, the more passionate you can be about creating the world you want.

What is your writing designation for Girlfriend Magazine?

For Girlfriend Magazine, I take the tips and tricks from my book and advise on subjects like career planning and motivation. While I do think everything is possible at any age – there’s a special kind of oomph and power to being a teenager!

Your bio says you are a “Master of Neuro Linguistic Programming,” What exactly does that mean?

Neuro Linguistic Programming is the study of communication and human behaviour, how we interpret language to design our lives. I love learning about how brain works and how we can use it to make our world more fun and effective!

You’ve now also written a second book which is YA fiction entitled, The Jelly Bean Crisis. Is the book more on the serious side or a fun read?

After working with me on my first book, my former agent (Jessica Regel, JVNLA) suggested I jump into writing YA. It was a big change for me (and a huge learning curve!) but I had a lot of support – and inspiration! The Jelly Bean Crisis follows a driven teen who gives up her perfect life to try and uncover her passion. It’s a fun, contemporary read – but hopefully it sets off some sparks for readers in their own lives!

Do you feel more comfortable writing fiction or non-fiction?

My comfort zone is non-fiction (my day job is writing educational and training materials), so non-fiction is much faster for me. But there is definitely something magical about fiction, something creative and connected and AWESOME! I really love being able to bounce between writing styles, it means I’m always coming into projects fresh.

Did you self-edit or hire someone else?

Being an editor myself I tend to self-edit fairly viciously, and I also get several professional editing rounds before a book goes out. When I’m reading, typos and mistakes really throw me, so I want to avoid that experience as much as I can for my readers. Fresh eyes (especially professional ones!) are always good.

Once you wrote the book how did you go about looking for a publisher and or agent?

I already had an agent when I wrote The Jelly Bean Crisis, so I was lucky enough to be able to pitch the idea and outline first, and to have a good deal of support. Once I decided to go independent, it was still an incredible amount of work – but the delicious-buzzing kind that comes with doing what you love.

What has frustrated you the most in the publishing process?

Some of the most frustrating aspects of publishing are also the coolest – particularly the fact that I have so little control. I can’t control what people read, what they like, or what they say. Luckily, I can always control the work that I do, and my own responses to the world – so I try to focus on that! 

What have you found the most rewarding – outside of seeing your book in print?

Ooh, easily the best-most-exciting, oprah-cry-inducing, heart-poundingly-awesome part of this journey for me, is when I hear from readers. I have cried more over readers than I ever did over rejections (and yay for that!).

What surprised you the most about the publishing process?

In the last few years, the whole process has gone from glacially slow to super fast. I am constantly surprised at the evolution. Writers and readers have so much more power and responsibility now. It’s intimidating, but really, really exciting, too! 

What has been the most productive promotion that you’ve had with marketing your book?
I’ve been lucky enough to connect with some amazing (read: smart, gorgeous, savvy, sweet, hard working) book bloggers and reviewers. Book bloggers are the powerhouses of book promotion now.

And you know what I love about that? I love that it’s so organic. Book bloggers build their reputations on honesty and hard work – and often they do it simply because they love it. So, if they enjoy a book and share their feelings, it means so much more to readers than an ad or even a giveaway.  

Writing seminars are always telling us about building a marketing platform. What have you learned from using social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others?
In what can be quite an isolating career, social media sites offer us both an unprecedented opportunity to connect with readers and other writers, and (duh!) a phenomenal time-sucker. Social media is just like real life: be yourself, be true to your word, and be kind. I’m still figuring out how to balance everything time-wise, but zipping around the world through satellites and cables? Yep, still pretty magic to me!

What is the best advice you’ve received on writing? Or what is the best advice you could give other aspiring authors from your experience?
I love writer advice! Basically anything that says, “Do it, do it now!” is good advice. My advice? From my blog post... Being a writer is a dream. It’s a top-of-the-bucket list, thing-to-do-before-I-die, can’t-believe-I-get-to-see-it-on-a-bookshelf dream. You are doing something that people aspire to. Even when the blank page is taunting you. Even when the twenty-third rejection rolls in. Even when you’re squishing rewrites in with a million other things. You are part of something amazing. Feel that with all your heart. Know that it’s true no matter what. You are a writer.

If you'd like to learn more about Jolene and her writing, here are several options...

Website       Goodreads         Facebook      Amazon          Blog             Twitter  

Working the Kickstarter Campaign

This is a continuation of the blog post earlier this week. If you haven't read it, please go back  to Monday's post (8-20-12) and do so now to get the basics. Today we will continue with working your plan.

How do you go about setting a goal for your campaign?

The vast majority of all successful Kickstarter projects are under $10,000 (81%) and the average goal for a successful project is right at $5,500. Don’t set a huge goal, hoping that you’ll reach it. Figure out what’s realistic for your group of supporters and your project.

The average donation is $70. Take that and multiply by the number of people you think you can motivate to donate to your project. If you think you can get 100 people to join you, set that goal around $7,000. But remember, it’s all or nothing. If you get to 99% of your goal and don’t make it over in time, you get nothing.

Don’t forget to include your rewards in the goal. If you’re sending out books to people who pledge a certain amount, you have to pay for the printing and shipping costs. I used a previous self-published book to figure it costs me about $6 to print and ship one book.

Write up a budget explaining why you set your goal where you did. Don’t feel bad about including your salary in there either. You deserve to be paid for your hard work. But let them see how much is going to printing, shipping, design and editing.

What is the next step?

You need to set up a time frame for the project. You should choose a shorter amount of time

Project that are successful average 38 days in length. The failed projects average 43 days.

I know, first hand, that it’s a lot of work running a campaign. Several people have shared that it’s a full-time job to keep the buzz going. I’m writing press releases, posting to social media, emailing people, updating the Kickstarter page and looking for any way possible to get the word out. If I had to do this for much more than 30 days, I’d probably collapse (and my social media networks would disown me).

How do you get people to donate to your campaign?

You will need to create compelling rewards. In essence you’re asking people to pre-order your book. Find ways to make it enticing. While the average pledge is $70, the most common pledge amount is $25. Kickstarter says that when there is no reward for pledges under $20, the projects only have a 35% success rate. But, projects with a reward for pledges under $20 have a 54% success rate.

In addition to some nice, low-dollar pledges, you want to create some good loot for big spenders. It should all be stuff you’ve created (or will create). Some examples would be signed copies of the finished book or inclusion in the acknowledgements. Get creative here, give people the chance to be a character in your book or to read an advanced copy of the manuscript. Give out signed prints of the cover art or t-shirts with your book’s logo.

Save some of the rewards for after you launch the campaign. It helps to keep the momentum going if you offer new rewards as things go along. For a one-month campaign it would be good to offer new rewards every week or so.

How do you let people know about a project?

Begin with leveraging your social media presence. The bigger your tribe, the better chance you have of being successful. I know this sounds obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. Connect with as many people as possible through your social media channels.

But don’t spam them! Don’t make everything you say about your project. Let people know. Ask them to share it and get excited about it. That’s great. Send emails to people in your tribe who aren’t on social media. Send an announcement out to your email list. And then back off for a while.

You’ll get an initial hit of backers and buzz through that first wave, but you’ll likely hit a slow patch at the end of the first week. All the successful campaign runners I’ve met have said the same thing. Don’t be discouraged. Backers are motivated by newness and urgency. Once the newness has worn off, you need to wait for the urgency to build later on in your campaign.

After that “first wave” how do you keep it going?

Reach out to people who might say no. I’ve been emailing people who, by all rights, should ignore me. I backed a very popular author on Kickstarter and his book was successful. I dug up his email address and sent him a short note. Basically I said: “I was happy to support your book project, would you be willing to support mine?” He did. It’s pretty cool.

Don’t say ‘no’ for people. Give them the chance. Send emails, letters, smoke signals and trumpet blasts to anyone you can think of who might be interested.

But be real! Don’t just send out a spammy form letter. Take the time to actually write to them, show them you know what they do. Mention their work and how it’s benefited you.

What other promotion should someone do?

Write a press release and send it out. Bloggers are always looking for news to share. Write up a press release for your project and then send it out to bloggers in your genre. What I’ve found is that a few of the blogs will have big, long lists of other blogs. Once I found those, I mined them for all the contacts I could muster.

But, don’t be spammy (are you noticing a theme here?). Read the submission guidelines for the blog. If they don’t take stuff like yours, don’t send it. Respect them. I’ve found that about 10-15% of the blogs would carry my press release.

How do you keep up the interest?

Don’t panic. If you start off strong out of the gate and get up to 20% of your goal, then your project has an 80% chance of being successful in the end. Once you get up to 30% funding, you have a 90% shot at being fully funded in the end.

It’s rough going through the doldrums in the middle where you’ve been stuck for a while. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Save your energy for the urgency that’s coming at the end.

Now that I’ve bombarded you with all the statistics I feel a bit like C3-PO in The Empire Strikes Back rattling off the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field (one million nerd-points if you don’t have to look up the number). Sometimes you need to respond with the bravado and reckless abandon of Han Solo, “Never tell me the odds.”

There will always be outliers, people who defy the odds. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe I am. The thing to remember about the odds is this: they define what’s already happened, not what will happen in the future.

Odds are not predictors. A basketball player who shoots 80% from the free throw line can still miss two in a row at the end of a game, and one who shoots 50% can still sink the winning shots. The odds don’t define you.

But they do give you a good place to start. 

This interview was done with James Woods. The writer, not the actor, who works and lives in Portland, Oregon. He's written two books, countless articles and is at work on his third book, a novel.

If you'd like to learn more about him, here's some links to do just that.

 Kickstarter     website

Hope this has given some good tips about doing a Kickstarter Campaign. If you’ve got other ideas for promoting your writing, let me know, so we can share it with others.

Giving New Life to History, Author Interview with Owen Hurd

The title of your book, After the Fact: The Surprising Fates of American History's Heroes, Villains, and Supporting Characters, is relatively long for a book title and it caught my attention. I’m sure that title evolved over time. What were your first thoughts for a title?

We had a tough time coming up with a title that we thought would not only grab someone's attention but also provide a good idea of what the book was about. We toyed around with using the word epilogues in the title or subtitle, but that wasn't really accurate--or very catchy.

We also considered using the title, Second Acts in American Lives, a variation on F. Scott Fitzgerald's quotation: "There are no second acts in American lives." But we eventually decided that there were too many ways to interpret the term "second act"--was it a renaissance or comeback of some sort, or the second act in a three-act play?

Lots of writers want to write fiction first, what drew you to this non-fiction topic?

I've tried writing fiction in the past, but the products of those efforts were uniformly disastrous. I've always enjoyed reading history, particularly the works of Nathaniel Philbrick, Erik Larson, Tony Horwitz and Doris Kearns Goodwin. These authors are all accomplished writers of accurate, entertaining historical works of nonfiction.

This is your second book with a historical basis. The first was Chicago History for Kids:  Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activities (another long title) How did this book come about?

I was actually pitching a totally different historical work to a local publisher, Chicago Review Press, a book about Chicago history targeted to adults. The publisher wasn't interested in that idea, but they informed me that they publish a series of "for kids" books, including "Civil War for Kids," "Mark Twain for Kids," and "The Underground Railroad for Kids." They invited me to write a comprehensive history of Chicago for the 8-13-year-old audience.

This sounds like a book a teacher would do. Were you ever a teacher?

I used to teach rhetoric 101 as an adjunct professor, but didn't enjoy the experience. I got terrible student reviews. But after the book was published I did a lot of presentations to third and fourth grade classrooms at Chicago public schools. Now that was a great experience. The kids were very engaged in the material and always shared great insights and asked excellent questions.

You have a background as an editor and freelance writer for corporations. Did you act as your own editor on these books or did you hire someone to assist you?

I had a lot of help in the early stages of shaping the concept of the book, mostly from friends and relatives. I'm a pretty meticulous writer, so I usually wrote numerous drafts of each entry before sending them off to a college friend who now lives in Seattle. He was great about reading the material quickly and asking questions about things that didn't make sense or were underdeveloped.

After that, my agent, the acquiring editor at Perigee, and the copyeditor had great suggestions. Ultimately, a person who edits his own work has a fool for a client. The process of invention and generating material is vastly different from editing.

How long did it take you to write each of these books? Was one easier to do than the other?

Each one took about a year. The kids’ book was actually harder because I had to find all the photos myself and take care of permissions. Also, I had to come up with 21 activities, which was a challenge. Also, since it was my first book, there was more anxiety about meeting the deadline and actually finishing a book-length work.

Once you wrote the book how did you go about looking for a publisher and or agent?

It was the other way around. I developed the idea, wrote an introduction, sample chapter and took a stab at what I thought the jacket copy might look like. Based on that, I wrote a rudimentary book proposal, which I used to find an agent, David Fugate. David helped me transform the material I had into a professional book proposal, which he shopped it to his publishing contacts. A couple weeks later, we signed a contract with Perigee.

What have you found the most rewarding of being published – outside of seeing your book in print?

The feedback I get from readers, as well as the reviews I got from my first book, which were all positive. It was very cool, the first time I walked into a bookstore and saw a big display of my books. 

What surprised you the most about the publishing process?

Nothing really. Before I was a freelance writer, I worked for two different book publishers in Chicago and I also worked as a copyeditor for several university presses, so I was pretty familiar with the business.

Writing seminars are always telling us about building a marketing platform. What have you learned from using social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others?

I didn't do any of that with my first book, so this time around I am going to give it a try.

What is the best advice you’ve received on writing? Or what is the best advice you could give other aspiring authors from your experience?

Find an agent. Get one of those directories from the library and use the index to identify ten agents that work in your kind of material. Write them a great pitch letter and see what happens. I sent my first pitch to six agents, got boilerplate rejections from three and an expression of interest from the other three. Of those, only David pushed me to develop the idea further, and that's why we ended up working together.

If you’re looking for an interesting history read, I hope you’ll look into these book by Owen.  

For more info on the author and his writing, here are some helpful links…

Facebook                     website             twitter: OwenJHurd

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

 There are so many ways to promote and publish and today we'll be studying just one of them. We'll be analysing doing a Kickstarter campaign. James Woods has been kind enough to offer his insight on this promotion as he understands this concept much more than I do. So let's start with the basic questions...

 

What is Kickstarter and why should you use it?

In the simplest sense, Kickstarter is crowd-based patronage of creativity. Instead of one wealthy person (or company) paying a creator, a group of people can shoulder the load.

Kickstarter allows you to solicit money for your next creative project. You have to be the one creating it, and it has to be a project with a completion and you need to reward your backers. So this isn’t a way to fund your small business or raise money for a charity, but it’s a great tool for raising support for a book.

You could, if you wanted to, just publish your book through a self-publishing service. I published a book through CreateSpace last year and it works well. I’m a fan.

So why should someone use it instead of just self-publishing?

Kickstarter gives you a few advantages over straight self-publishing.You get paid to write. Sort of like an advance from a publisher, you’re essentially pre-selling your book. But it gives you the chance to focus on your writing instead of just writing when you have the extra time. 

You can afford professional help. One of the biggest critiques I’ve heard about self-published books is that the quality is so variable. When you raise money through Kickstarter, you can pay a professional publisher and a professional cover design artist. In self-publishing, quality is immensely important.

You know you have an audience before you publish your book. Kickstarter gives you a chance to vet your idea in public (it’s scary, but good). So if your idea is not connecting with people, you have a chance to fix it before the book goes to press. 

You don’t have to self-publish, if you don’t want to. You can use Kickstarter to get your book polished and pretty, then you can submit it to agents and editors. But your advantage over every other author pitching will be that you have an established audience that wants your book. That makes for a much more compelling and interesting pitch than just another unknown author trying to break in to the market. 

How do you get your project funded on Kickstarter?

I wish I could give you the perfect recipe for funding your next project through Kickstarter. But, just like any creative endeavor, there’s no formula that guarantees success. There’s no way I can give you the exact steps to writing a successful book either.

But, I can tell you the odds and help you to stack them in your favor. There are copious statistics available for Kickstarter, both through the site and through other researchers. When you compile it all together a picture starts to emerge letting you know what your project needs to look like if you want to have a good chance of success.

Where should someone start?

See what’s out there. Spend time looking through the publishing projects on Kickstarter. Look at the ones that have been successful and the ones that failed. Watch the videos, look at the rewards they offer, even back a couple of them just to see what the process is like.

Browse through the top sellers in your genre on websites like Amazon, Barnes and Nobel and Powell’s. See what the cover design is like, what the book pitches highlight and which topics are most popular. I’m not saying you should just do what’s popular, but you should at least know what’s popular.

Just like pitching a book to a publisher or agent, you need to know why someone would want to buy your book, right?

Correct. You need to sell yourself on the project first. Sit down and figure out why this book needs to exist. Publishers will ask three questions: Why you? Why this? Why now?

Answer them for you project. Why are you the author that needs to write this book? Why does this book need to be written at all? Why is this the moment in time for this book to exist? The answers to these questions will provide the content for your Kickstarter project.

What else is important in preparing your project?

Shoot a video.According to Kickstarter, only about 30% of projects without videos end up being successful, but about 50% of those with videos are successful.A video isn’t a magic pill, but it sure helps. Mostly it gives visual people a chance to connect with your project and it shows that you’re willing to do the work to get the word out about your baby.

The video doesn’t have to be flashy, it just has to be clear and passionate. You’ve already sold yourself on the project, now sell the world. Look into the camera and tell them why your book needs to exist. Share the story, show off your cover art, get excited.

I did my video with the free software on my computer and my digital camera. Even with that, it still took me two tries and about 20 hours of work to get the video right (and I did a simple video).

That's enough to digest for one day. Come back and learn more about Kickstarter on Wednesday!
If you want more specifics on his campaign, here's how to do it.
Kickstarter     website

 

On Cupcakes, Murder and the PTA, author interview with Wendy Dager

You’ve now written your second installment in what you call the Daphne Lee-Lee “Misadventures.” What drew you to writing this story?

 For the first book, I MURDERED THE PTA, my motivation was seven years of being on an elementary school PTA board; sitting there, listening to the chatter and arguments and debates about book fairs and cookie-dough fundraisers and jog-a-thons, and thinking “WHY AM I HERE?” Then, after writing the book and finally getting it published—a decade after I wrote the first draft—I learned there were plenty of others who felt the same way. It doesn’t matter what you look like—whether you’re a rock-and-roll mom or not—a lot of us feel like the outsider.

Is the storyline drawn from any part of your own life, family or friendships?

I MURDERED THE SPELLING BEE, the second in the series, isn’t based on anything that happened in real life, other than that my own daughter, now grown, won a couple of school spelling bees. I also like the idea of intangible book titles that don’t make sense until you read the book.

What’s funny about the first book is that I was told some people in my community were buying it to see if they were in it! So, yeah, it’s kind of based on my experiences living in suburbia, but there’s definitely no one in it modeled on an actual living—or dead—person. However, I freely admit that my friend Chillpaw (who, in a twist of fate, became my cover artist) and I made up the term “Cupcakes” to describe all those women who baked so many of them.

This was before cupcakes were so popular—with all those specialty bakeries, TV shows and cookbooks, and Martha Stewart’s jail term and what the media dubbed “Camp Cupcake.” I try to look at the long road to publication as a good thing (hah, Martha!) because my cupcake-themed book cover was so "in."

Writing is far from something new to you. You’ve also written an opinion column? How long have you done that?

I’ve been writing opinion for about 25 years—the last 14 as a “stringer” for the Ventura County Star newspaper. When my kids were small, all I had time to write and sell were button slogans, greeting card copy and the occasional opinion essay. Back then it was easier to break into the newspaper biz.

What topics did you cover in it? What sort of feedback do you get?

I’ve written for other newspaper sections such as news, lifestyles and niche publications, which are all formulaic, but in my column I get to write freely about family and community issues. I do get fan letters, which I appreciate—but I’ve also gotten some pretty gnarly hate mail. Recently, someone hated one of my columns so much that she tweeted about it—four times. I guess the 140-character limit was too limiting. One of my former editors once said, “It comes with the territory,” meaning: “Don’t be such a wuss, Wendy. You signed up for this job, so you’ve got to take the criticism along with the accolades.” She was right.

Now that you are a published novelist, you are called upon to do speaking engagements. Do you do any extra promotion to make sure you’re not speaking to an almost empty room?

I send press releases and use social media to promote my engagements, but there’s no real way of knowing how many people will show up. Sometimes, people intend to go to that conference, book signing or lecture, but life and its distractions get in the way. I always hope the venue will adequately promote an event, but writers can’t count on it. Unless you’re a big-shot author, attendance is mostly hit-or-miss.

How did you learn what to say and what to cover in your talks? 

I try to tailor my talks to the audience. For instance, since so many people know me (in Ventura County, CA) from my column, I warm up the crowd by telling them that if they don’t like something I wrote, then they’ll have to first talk to my six-foot-four husband, who’s sitting in the back of the room. Humor always works. Most always, that is. There always seems to be that one person who sits there, stone-faced, arms folded, as if daring you to make them laugh. 

I love question-and-answer sessions, because I enjoy speaking off the cuff and sharing anecdotes. The only problem is that I can get somewhat tangential. I tend to circle back to a topic pretty quickly, though.

Writing humor is supposedly one of the hardest forms of writing to do successfully. Do your readers get your type of humor or do they question you about what you meant?
I am lucky to have had people of all ages and walks of life come up to me and say that I MURDERED THE PTA was the first book they laughed all the way through. I wrote it to amuse myself and was glad that other people got the joke(s).

I saw a friend when I was out shopping soon after I MURDERED THE PTA came out, and she told me she was in the process of reading it. “I’m so worried about you,” she said. “Why?” I asked. She looked at me sadly and said: “Don’t you like living here?” “WHAT?” I had to remind her that the book was fiction. Besides, my character, Daphne Lee-Lee doesn’t dislike living in her little suburbia. She’s just… different from everyone else.

How long did it take you to write this book?

It only took about a month to write the first draft. I know that sounds ridiculously brief, but it was just so much fun to write that I couldn’t stop.

Did you self-edit or hire someone else?  

As far as editing, being a professional freelancer, I’m pretty good at doing it myself. I had to tweak the book many times, especially ten years later, when it was finally sold, and a lot of the pop culture references were severely out of date. For instance, a reference I’d initially made to the TV show “Friends” was changed to “Two and a Half Men.” Then the Charlie Sheen continuing series of debacles happened almost immediately after publication. Eh, well. Can’t stop time. Or wacky celebrities.

Once you wrote the book how did you go about looking for a publisher and or agent?

 All my first agent did was send mass e-mailings to her authors saying how bad the writing business was. I don’t know if she ever actually submitted the book to a publisher. I then got myself a big-time New York literary agency, where my second agent burnt out, left the agency and passed me along to her colleague. That third agent couldn’t sell my book after two years of representation—even after it was a finalist in a major contest—but managed to sell a porn star’s autobiography within a week. This same agent asked me if I could write a nonfiction version of I MURDERED THE PTA. Uh… OK… how was I supposed to do that when I kill eighteen people in the book?

What has frustrated you the most in the publishing process?

 Oh I’ve been so very frustrated, mostly by the inability to break into a traditional publishing house. My biggest peeve is that the giant publishing houses are selling out by giving huge book deals to celebrities, sports figures, and politicians instead of real working writers. Of course, there are the flukes: Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, etc. It’s the writing industry version of winning the lottery.

There I go again, being tangential. So, yeah, I MURDERED THE PTA was a top five finalist in Court TV’s Search for the Next Great Crime Writer, and I still couldn’t get a traditional publisher to bite. I finally ended up with a contract from Zumaya Publications, a small, indie publisher that uses print-on-demand technology to publish its books.

What have you found the most rewarding – outside of seeing your book in print?

 I love it when a reader tells me how entertained she was by my books. I know my novels are not great works of literary genius—I’m just not built to write that way. But they’re funny and they’re fun and if I can make someone laugh, that’s a pretty cool feeling.

What surprised you the most about the publishing process?

My editor and I copyedited the books online. No galleys mailed back-and-forth. No hassle. No paper. We edited in real time on our computer screens—me in California and she in Texas—writing comments in the chat box and changing passages and correcting the copy. That was a great experience. 

What has been the most productive promotion that you’ve had with marketing your book?

There’s a lovely woman in my town that hosts charitable fundraisers at her gorgeous home. It may sound like an odd way to sell books, but I was the “entertainment” portion of a charitable event, giving my talk in a fabulous back yard setting, taking questions from the audience, then signing books and talking individually to some super nice people in my community. Donations went to a local hospice, and each person received a signed copy of my book. It was a very exciting event with lots of positive energy.

Writing seminars are always telling us about building a marketing platform. What have you learned from using social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others?

Some social media sites work better than others. Facebook has been great for me. I have an author page, a page for each novel, and my personal page. I also have a website and a blog. I occasionally tweet, but I wonder if anyone is reading them, or if they’re just flowing out unseen into the ether. LinkedIn, I don’t get at all, even though I have a page.

What is the best advice you’ve received on writing? Or what is the best advice you could give other aspiring authors from your experience?

My friend, the writer Jim R. Lane, once quoted the writer Dennis Lynds to me: “Never say ‘crimson edifice’ when ‘red barn’ will do.” I will never forget that beautiful quote, because I prefer to write simply and not use those $30 words. Certainly, this doesn’t apply to everyone. (I have a kid who’s an English major and she’s into literary stuff that I’ll never understand in a million years.)

As for my own advice, it’s a little less poetic. I always tell writers to treat their writing as a business. If you want to be considered a professional, set your ego aside (but not completely aside; we all need some ego), and be a thoughtful, organized businessperson.

So if you are looking for a light-hearted read to ease you through the day, one of these books could do the trick. If you'd like to learn more, here's the link to her website  .

On Scripting and Writing - An interview with Hilary Weisman Graham

My interview today is with Hilary Weisman Graham who wears dual writing hats  as  a screenwriter and novelist.  But she doesn't live in the glitz and glamor of L.A. or NYC. Instead she lives in rural New Hampshire roughly thirty minutes away from the nearest grocery store. Maybe being away from the flash gives her more clarity, let's find out.

The title of your book, Reunited and the blurb about it caught my attention. What drew you to writing this story?

The idea for REUNITED actually came from my editor at Simon & Schuster who had a two-sentence concept about ex-best friends getting together to see a band they once loved.  

Is the storyline drawn from any part of your own life or friendships? Your website promotes a band. What is your relationship to them?

Since I’d experienced a friendship break-up of my own freshman year of high school, I really connected with those feelings, even though my story is very different than Alice, Summer, and Tiernan’s.  For most 14-year-old girls, their best friends are the most meaningful relationship they’ve had at that point in their lives, apart from their family, so I thought the idea of ex-best friends reuniting at the end of high school, when they’re older and wiser, would make for an interesting story. 

Plus, I’ve had to good fortune of having been on many road trips in my life—backpacking through Portugal and Spain with my sister and a friend during college, wandering around the Irish countryside with four of my best girlfriends in a very small rental car, and driving from Boston to Juarez, Mexico with a group of friends while shooting a documentary. Though thankfully, I’ve never been stuck in a van with any of my ex-best friends.

Your website promotes a band. What is your relationship to them? 

As far as the band Level3 goes, the secret is that the book actually came before the band.  REUNITED tells the story of Alice, Summer, and Tiernan—three ex-best friends who drive 2,000 miles cross-country to see the one-night-only reunion show of the band (Level3) they loved as little girls. And each time I found myself writing the lyrics to a Level3 song—an event that happened frequently, since lyrical excerpts open each chapter—I became aware of the fact that I was also composing the melodies to these songs in my head.

So even though I don’t have a musical bone in my body, I thought it would be fun to bring my fictional band to life. Luckily, I have some very talented musician friends who helped me do this.  And winning the 2011 SCBWI Book Launch Award didn’t hurt, since the cash prize enabled me to get a bit creative with REUNITED’s marketing.

Today, http://www.level3theband.com is a place where fans can read blog posts by the band members, download two free Level3 songs, peruse photos, watch a Level3 music video and a behind-the-scenes “pop-up” documentary (coming soon), and follow Level3 on Facebook and Twitter. And Level3 is even going on tour this summer at libraries from Boston to Austin!

Your bio says that you are an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter. Tell me about that side of writing.

As far as my filmmaking career, by the time I was 28, I’d written/produced/and directed two feature films  (Life’s Too Good and I Love My Movie) which have garnered numerous awards and played in art-houses and film festivals around the world, though they never received widespread theatrical distribution. But in 1999, despite colorful language and brief nudity, I Love My Movie aired on public television (Go PBS!).

I’d say that most of my work is comedy-based, though I’m currently working on some more dramatic stuff.

I started off my career as a filmmaker and TV producer, but writing was always a big part of my job. Even in my free time, I’d find myself participating in poetry slams or composing humorous essays to share with my friends.  But for many years, I considered myself a “filmmaker who writes” as opposed to a writer.

You were a contestant on a reality show entitled, On the Lot: The Search for America’s Next Great Director. Tell me about that experience.

Then, in the summer of 2007, I was selected to be a contestant -- which, if you never caught it, was like American Idol for filmmakers, and aired on Fox for only one season.  The goal of the show was to find “America’s next great director,” and I’d been handpicked out of a pool of 12,000 applicants.

It was during that summer in Los Angeles, in the midst of an intense filmmaking competition, that it suddenly became very clear to me that it was the writing part of filmmaking that I’d always most enjoyed (and was best at) only I’d never realized it before. So, I guess you could say that my big “ah-ha” moment happened on live TV.  After that, I made it my goal to become a working screenwriter and novelist—and I’m happy to report that with the help of my amazing manager and agent, my dream has now come true!  And the best part is, I’m able to do it from rural New Hampshire.

What surprised you the most about the experience? How much of the “reality” is actually scripted?

The summer I spent in Los Angeles was simultaneously one of the most incredible and difficult times of my life.  In the end, I spent two months On the Lot, the ninth person eliminated from the competition and the last female director standing. Getting kicked off the show was bittersweet. I was sad to have not gone further, and at the same time, ready to be home.  

The most surprising (and wonderful part) about the experience was how generous all of the filmmakers were with each other, despite the fact that we were competing against each other.  It was like living in a creative think tank!

As far as the reality of reality television, on my show, there wasn’t a lot of overt scripting, but producers definitely had a hand in shaping the narratives.

What scriptwriters or authors have given you the most inspiration? Is there anyone who you would like to emulate?

There are so many writers I draw inspiration from, even though my work may be nothing like theirs.  People like Aaron Sorkin, Hal Ashby, John Hughes, Tina Fey, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen, Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, John Greene, Jay Asher, Dave Eggers.

How long did it take you to write this book? How many rewrites did you do prior to sending it out to publishers? 

REUNITED took me about 10 months to write, including revisions.  But the entire process—from getting the deal to seeing it in bookstores—took almost four years!

What has frustrated you/surprised you the most in the publishing process?

The wait!  That was really a killer for an impatient gal like me. ;)

What have you found the most rewarding – outside of seeing your book in print?

It’s been really heartening to get good feedback from readers, especially teenage girls.

Writing seminars are always telling us about building a marketing platform. What have you learned from using social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others?    

As a first-time author, perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from my fellow novelists is that in today’s world, writing is only half the job.  Between publishers tightening their budgets and readers who log onto Google searching for “bonus content” the second they finish a book, writers of all genres—and YA in particular—are embracing the internet not just as a promotional tool, but as a way to supplement the reading experience.

So, once I’d turned in my chapters, instead of kicking back and celebrating, I launched into my next job—building Reunited’s online universe. After I’d redesigned my website and set up the obligatory Twitter account, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and blog (sigh) it was time for the fun stuff, like shooting Reunited’s book trailer, or going into the studio to produce two songs for the book’s fictional band, Level3.  And everyone knows you can’t have a rock band without a website.  See www.Level3theband.com .

Sometimes, all the additional work it takes to do this “other stuff” feels draining, but most of the time, I really do enjoy this part of it.  The actual writing may have ended months ago, but thanks to Reunited’s online presence, the story is still very much alive.

What is the best advice you’ve received on writing? 

 Probably the best piece of writing advice I’ve gotten came from Robert McKee, the author of “Story,” a popular (almost cultish) book on screenwriting.  And I have the audiobook, so it feels like McKee’s talking directly to me (which, if you’ve ever heard McKee speak, comes off more like a reprimand, but that’s part of his charm).  

Anyway, Robert McKee insists that you not write dialogue or scenes prior to having worked out the structure of your story first, because if you do, you’re in danger of falling in love with your own words and keeping a wonderful bit of dialogue that ultimately, doesn’t belong in your story.  I think I fell victim to this a lot when I was first starting out as a writer.  But sadly, we all must learn to kill our darlings.  There’s really no other way.

That's is for today's interview. Hilary is currently working on a new YA novel as well as a script for The Disney Channel.

If you would like to learn more about her, here's the links to do just that.

Blog   Facebook    

Goodreads    website

Making Memories

Memories, light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories of the way we were.
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we give to one another
For the way we were.
Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me would we? Could we?
Memories, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it's the laughter we will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were. 

(If you don't recognize the above lyrics, they are from the song entitled The Way We Were which was written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman and his wife. It became Barbra Streisand's first #1 hit on Groundhog Day, 1974)

As writers we create memories and lives for our characters. Take for example this movie. It follows the lives of a man and woman who somehow fall in love though they have little in common -- except for the fact that she can see greatness in him as a writer. She wants him to write Pulitzer prize winners, but he just wants to make the big bucks and is happy doing that in Hollywood. Conflict arises with different standards and different politics which leads to the dissolution of the marriage. Years later they meet again but it is an awkward moment. What they once had is gone and each will have to deal with their own memories of their time together.

In reality as we look back on the memories of past times, how do we re-color them? Can we be objective? Or as the words to the song imply that we will remember what was special and the rest will go into mists of forgetfulness? In our own lives there is probably some good to forget some of the hard or stressful times and move on with our lives and remember the good.

But what about our country's history? How much of our current history is being re-written so it is more politically acceptable or towards a specific agenda? As an example, having newer history accounts of 9/11 that say we were attacked by "terrorists" and neglecting to mention that they were all Muslim Extremists. Those of  us who lived through the events have the actual memories but with history books sanitizing it how will it read in 50 years?

Have you ever watched those stories of reporters on the street asking basic history and current event questions and the general public (whether college age or middle age) can't come up with the correct answer. One of the scariest ones I heard was of people being asked who Hitler was and the responses were little more than "I've heard the name" and "he's some guy from Germany." Yet, if you asked those people questions about current TV shows would they have the correct answer in a minute?

With an election coming up in just a few short months, I hope those of you who plan to vote will take the time to study the candidates and what they stand for before voting. That doesn't mean just watching the attack ads on TV or on the radio. We've all lived through the past four years and have our memories of them. If you can't take the time to learn and study the issues carefully, then just stay home and watch TV and live in that reality.

This post has been my input to the CW Blog Chain as listed on the right. As you can probably guess, it's all about memories.
 

Dog Days of Summer

According to The Old Farmer's Almanac the traditional period of the Dog Days of summer are the 40 days beginning July 3rd and ending August 11th, coinciding with the ancient  rising of the Dog Star, Sirius. These are the days of the year with the least rainfall in the Northern Hemisphere.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that means there's a good chance that you are experiencing a heat wave. Since we no longer sacrifice animals or humans to appease mythical gods to bring a cooling trend, we need to find ways to keep cool. For most of us that means staying in air conditioned comfort.

Unfortunately, in India right now they are experiencing rolling black outs. On Monday they had their first power grid collapse which affected more than 350 million people. This was the country's worst blackout in a decade. But just when things were starting to improve, it suffered its second massive power failure This one affected as many as 600 million people --which is approximately half the country's population. Think about that for a minute. No electricity means no trains, street lights (stop & go), gas pumps, electric car chargers, elevators, ATM's, and all businesses are shut down (unless they have their own generators).

The picture above shows a traffic jam that resulted from this power outage. Depending on how little gas these people had in their car when this happened, I wonder how many left their cars when they hit the empty mark on the fuel tank? No more air conditioning doesn't leave you much comfort. What caused these problems? It comes down to an aging electric grid that can't keep pace with a growing population and the demands for electricity from businesses and technology.

Now swing your focus to the United States. When was the last time a new electric plant of any kind was built in your area? This lack of new construction is due to environmental opposition -- you can't build coal plants as it is "too dirty" or nuclear as it is "too risky" and should we really do windmills as they are "hazardous to birds." And if you could get past those issues you then have the legal and regulatory challenges.Our power grid is also nearing a breaking point but activist judges and regulatory agencies of the states and federal government don't seem to think that's important. If you'd like to read how they are all doing their part to throw us back to the dark ages, click on this link to an Institute For Energy Research study and scroll down to the subhead of Regulatory Climate. It's easy to understand and put in everyday terms.

However, if you want to read a more updated viewpoint, click to this link from The Washington Post and their comparison of our electric grid and India's. Could be the sale of private generators will be going up.

So, how do you plan to keep cool this summer?