NINC

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Nink Knowledge: Mixing Traditional Publishing & Self-Publishing

This article, written by Lindsay Randall, is from the July 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

(Editor’s note: For the purposes of this article, hybrid is defined as having published front list in both trad & indie during 2018-2019.)

Is it double the trouble or worth the effort to publish front list titles both traditionally and indie?

Several of NINC’s hybrid authors shared their thoughts, words of wisdom and warning, and how each times releases to widen her reach.

Why publish trad and indie simultaneously?

For author Katie MacAlister, concurrently publishing indie and trad offers the opportunity to push beyond boundaries of style and storytelling while reaping the benefits of publisher support and a conduit to a larger readership.

“It’s the best of both worlds, allowing me freedom to write whatever twangs my strings, yet remain in the traditionally published world,” she said.

MacAlister’s most recent trad title is Day of the Dragon, the second book in the paranormal Dragon Hunter series (March 2019, Hachette Group). Her latest self-pub book is the contemporary romance Ever Fallen in Love, released November 2018.

While the genres may differ, MacAlister noted that she sees an uptick in her self-pubbed sales whenever a new trad book is released.

“My publishers have connections and abilities that I either lack or don’t want to spend time doing. They put books up on NetGalley, arrange for reviews in trade journals, organize blog features, run ads and contests, coordinate PR campaigns online, and so on. They usually have a longer reach with subsidiary sales and contacts within foreign publishing companies,” she said. “It's also nice to be able to write a book and hand it over for editing, production, and cover work without having to arrange for all that myself.”

Indie publishing also netted her a new publisher. She released Fireborn in 2018, the first book in a new series she wanted to write regardless if a publisher wanted it. She’d no sooner posted news of the release than Kensington made an offer. It was a bid MacAlister liked. Kensington will re-release Fireborn in June and two other books in the series.

“I’d highly recommend being hybrid to any author,” said Bronwen Evans, who writes and publishes historical romance through indie and trad channels. “This market is ever-changing—in fact, it’s more like revolving and spinning. I think it’s good to ensure you have a foot in each camp.”

Attracted to the Earl is her most recent trad release (May 2019, Random House), while her latest indie offering is To Tempt a Highland Duke, released in April as part of the Dukes By the Dozen multi-author boxed set.

Evans said she loves the freedom found in self-publishing and appreciates the marketing available through her traditional publisher.

Words of wisdom and warning

Both MacAlister and Evans said they must deal with non-compete clauses.

“My agent works hard to eliminate any non-compete clauses in my contracts, narrowing the language so that I can write outside of a series whenever the whim strikes me,” MacAlister said. “I do try to remain cognizant of how many books are coming out and when. Since I'm not a rapid release sort of writer, I like to make sure I have a new book dropping every few months, and I will shift my self-pubbed books to make that happen.”

As for Evans, the non-compete clause nearly made her walk away from traditional publishing.

“In the past two years, non-compete clauses began to pop into my contracts and the non-compete period got longer and longer,” she said. “I have a good agent, and we tweak most of the clause now and work around it with my release schedule.”

Lyn Cote, who has been hybrid since 2010 and traditionally published for 12+ years before that, said “being a hybrid is a juggling act” of positioning indie titles around the release of trad titles.

She, too, worked through an agent to deal with the non-compete clauses, remaining with Harlequin’s Love Inspired Historical line until its end in 2018 (her last title was Suddenly a Frontier Father, part of the Wilderness Brides series). She stayed because most of her readers purchased their books in Walmart “and Harlequin could get me into almost every Walmart in the U.S. and Canada.”

She noted that sales for both increased whenever an indie book released around the time a traditionally published book came out. (She writes contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and historical novels. The Heart Hopes is her latest indie title.)

Today Cote said the biggest reality in all retailing is that more people are shopping online.

“When an author looks at a traditional contract, he/she must ask these questions: ‘Where will my publisher sell these books?’ and ‘What will they do to actively make my books visible?’” she said.

Cozy mystery author Lynn Cahoon, who indie writes in romance as Lynn Collins, said “keeping your foot in both worlds gives you an edge over other authors.”

“I now have a better understanding of the entire process for publishing a book, which gives me the ability to ask for things I know the publisher can do and not look stupid asking for things they can't do,” Cahoon said. “As authors, sometimes we don't know enough about the entire book publishing cycle.”

Cahoon’s most recent trad title is Mother’s Day Mayhem (April 2019, Kensington), part of the Tourist Trap Mystery series. Her most recent self-published title is Country Hearts, book five of the Castle View romance series.

“You have to plan your time and energy well,” Cahoon said. “Make sure you’re taking as much time writing and editing your self-published books that you do with your trad. And think about marketing. You can't just put a book up on Amazon (especially under a new name) and expect it to sell.”

For Lea Wait, the model of pubbing both indie and traditionally offers her a larger income (to date, her trad books out-earn her self-published titles), while allowing her the freedom to write what she wants in whatever genre she chooses.

She traditionally publishes mysteries (her latest is Thread on Arrival: A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery [April 2019, Kensington]) and indie publishes historical and young adult fiction (Justice & Mercy: A Post-Civil War Mystery in February).

Wait markets all of her books together, regardless of genre. When speaking or signing, she has both types of books available, plus blogs about both, and features them on postcards she shares with fans.

Timing releases/widening the reach

Each author said they time self-pubbed titles around their traditionally published titles and take care not to dilute the market.

“My traditional books come out about every nine to 12 months,” Wait said. “I try to have indie books come between them.”

For Cahoon, she tries to avoid releasing her self-pubbed romance in the months she has a mystery releasing on the traditional side.

“My trad contracts all say I can't give a book to another publisher before I complete this contract, except anything written under Lynn Collins,” she added. “In a perfect world, I'd love to have one release a month—trad or indie.”

Evans plans her release schedule each January. She also watches cover design on the trad side so that it doesn’t clash with the indie side, and she makes use of her self-published work as giveaways and free reads for newsletter signups, marketing all of her releases to all readers.

MacAlister said she staggers books to release three or four times a year, and adds a link to all works in the end matter of every indie book. “Being very, very organized is a must,” she said.

Wait summed it up like this: “Take a lot of deep breaths and don’t overcommit yourself in either direction. Make sure you meet contracted deadlines. Have fun with the whole idea!”

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Lindsay Randall serves as assistant editor of Nink, and while she has indie published front list and backlist, she hopes to once again work with a traditional publisher.

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Nink Knowledge: Tricking the Limbic System into Giving You the Right Drugs at the Right Time

This article, written by Patricia Burroughs, is from the J 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

In last month’s Nink, I explained how procrastination isn’t simply a matter of willpower or character, but rather a product of a brain battling with itself over who’s the boss—the executive in the prefrontal cortex or the bodyguard in the limbic system.

Most if not all of the time, we procrastinate because doing The Thing is not fun or pleasant, which means we have a negative feeling about it. It happens quickly:

“In 1/32 of a second we become fearful and we can’t think! THAT is what procrastination really is.”
– Maribeth Blunt,, Psychotherapist & Life Coach

But we are not without weapons, although nothing will work all the time and some things may never work. One of the best and often immediate ways to connect with your prefrontal cortex is to conjure up a good mood. The limbic system is designed to play nicely with your executive functions and even fuel them with stuff that helps you stay focused, energized, and happy with what you’re doing. One suggestion is to visualize happy times with the activity you’re avoiding, simply because doing so establishes the good mood and lack of stress you need to write.

One reason video game designers let people pile up the points before the game starts getting tougher is to give repetition, practice and confidence, so that when the game gets harder, you don’t just walk away. Yes, they get you hooked by letting you win a lot before they make it hard. Creating a habit of writing is similar.

Break the writing or project you’re avoiding into small bits, and recognize that if it’s not working, you haven’t broken it down into small enough bits. If you’re not writing at all, any progress is good. Remember, you’re tricking your brain into doing what you need it to do. No matter how ridiculously small you have to make your goal, do it. You may do this more than once in the day. Or start and go a little further. Or a lot further.

Or get to the very end of that goal and stop—even if your 100-word goal ends in midsentence. Do it. That was the goal and you aced it! Setting a goal that you know you can achieve is vital.

Gamification

If your brain has a hyperactive rescue mode and wants to fight-or-flight you away from anything that makes you feel tense, stressed, or just plain negative, the key may be to cultivate habits that are as entertaining as video games or YouTube.

No, really. It’s a thing. There are a wide selection of apps that turn establishing productive habits into games, or close to it. (If you want a fun and motivating introduction to gamification along with some unexpected games to turn loose on your life [zombies!], let Jessica at HowtoADHD tell you How to Turn Your Life Into a Video Game.)

Habatica is a full-fledged RPG (role-playing game), complete with the ability to level up, buy gear, earn gold coins, etc. However, to reap those and other fun rewards, you don’t fight battles. You get experience or health points each day for each “habit” you are able to check (you did the good habits, refrained from the bad ones). You write the habits (write a chapter, write a newsletter, write two sentences, however you’ve set it up). There’s a to-do list for one-off tasks that don’t repeat, and the rewards you set for yourself, whether it’s a treat, an episode of your favorite television show, or time on Facebook. When you reach a high enough level you start accruing money and pieces of armor. It’s  a real game that even lets you form a “party” with other people you know, adding a social element.

SuperBetter (overview of book and app) (tutorial)) may have the most dramatic storyline. Dr. Jane McGonigal had been developing games for 10 years when she suffered a debilitating concussion that wasn’t healing, was causing horrific pain, and left her so depressed she contemplated suicide. Instead, she developed Jane the Concussion Slayer. That game became SuperBetter, and it’s designed to work for you while you play.  You create Quests (daily tasks and habits), create a Secret Identity (which is half the fun), challenges, Power Ups (tiny moves that give an emotional or physical lift) and more. Your negative habits or mindsets are Bad Guys. Is there something you’ve always wanted to do? Make it a Quest you’re working toward. This app also has a social aspect.

The Fabulous (overview) (tutorial) is described by Girlboss as a sleek app that will help you stick to your goals.

Daylio (overview) (tutorial) is a daily mood and activity tracker that lets you monitor the patterns of your emotions and establish new habits.

Finally, and perhaps saving the best for last, productivity consultant Denis Duvauchelle said, “Dopamine can be triggered with meaningful rewards, funny jokes and pleasant pictures. Have trouble motivating yourself to write? Kitten every 100 words!”

Rituals

Some writers find grounding and motivation in rituals that are creative, sensory, sometimes spiritual and/or religious—and can be designed to get you into the mood.

Remember the ongoing battle chronic procrastinators have? There are many ways to elevate that mood, and rituals are amazing tools.

One writer decided to take the plunge and write full time but quickly discovered that, since he didn’t have to cram all of his writing into stolen hours from work and family, the new sense of freedom led to him frittering away his time. His solution was a simple two-step ritual. Every day once the house emptied, he quieted himself and stroked a mallet down a set of desktop chimes. As their vibrations slowed, he lit a candle, one that would burn for four hours. The chime was his attempt to establish a Pavlov’s dog affect. Chime equaled time to write and he soon had no trouble diving into his work. But the candle was even more vital as once it was lit, it indicated his writing time. As it burned, his time grew shorter. He did allow himself to break as necessary, but even then he was aware that he was burning time, not to mention he had a burning candle he had to keep an eye on! His simple two steps provided a trigger [time to write] and mindfulness [time is burning].

Your ritual could be starting with a prayer. Or turning on music that fades into the background. Or using essential oils or incense.

“Make it so.”

Finally, one of the most helpful tools has to do with establishing new habits—fast.

Not after 21 days or 60 days, but almost immediately. That may sound impossible but this technique is recommended in many academic and psychological circles and is worth trying.

Program yourself to take a positive action or to avoid a negative one through self-talk, either aloud or mentally.

Isolate the precise action you want to take. Then create the sentence—the mantra, perhaps—that you’re going to start saying. It can be a straightforward plan, simple in its execution. “After I finish loading the dishwasher tomorrow, then I’m going to sit down and write for awhile.”

That may sound unimpressive, but if you start saying this in the morning the day before, and if you write it on a post-it and stick it on your computer, or wherever you will see it most often, and if every time you see it, you either speak the words aloud or read them silently… I think you can take it from here. It’s unassuming, direct, and not exciting. But by the time you’ve matter-of-factly and repeatedly reminded yourself of your intention, after you load that dishwasher, sitting down to write is going to be a lot easier than it has been. You’ve been preparing your brain for it for over 24 hours. Have fun with it, if you want. Roll your eyes, laugh about it. Next morning you may laugh all the way to the chair.

Need some extra motivation? Link the action—in this case, writing—to something you want to do, before and after.

“After I drink my expensive, special occasion coffee that I only use for guests, then I’ll sit down and write [two sentences, two scenes, two chapters, two hours]. And when I’ve done that, I’ll go to the coffee house and pick up another bag of those special coffee beans.”

You’ve outwitted your brain because you sandwiched your writing between two things that will make your prefrontal cortex purr happily in anticipation.

Hey, you may have not only gotten yourself jumpstarted, but you might have just established an effective new writing ritual: bestowing yourself with alone-time and the “good” coffee before and after writing because you deserve it.

Because one of the most vital things you can do is develop habits and rituals that take care of you.

________________________

Patricia Burroughs has ADHD, dyscalculia, and associated cognitive disorders, all of which are disorders of executive function and the prefrontal cortex. She generally manages her issues through self-education, medication, and therapy. She is not a neurosurgeon nor is she a psychologist. She encourages you to seek more information if you want to understand the nitty-gritty of brain function beyond their squabbles, which may include professional help.

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Nink Knowledge: Converting Your Books into Comics/Graphic Novels — A One-Page Experiment

This article, written by Jennifer Stevenson and illustrated by Elizabeth Person, is from the May 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

With graphic novels and comics all the rage, I worked with Elizabeth Person, an illustrator, animator, and comic book writer-artist on a three-panel experiment. This will show you how author and artist collaborate, a different exercise from drawing one’s own.

Original 250-word story

At three in the morning of March first, 1893, the moon rode high in London’s sky over the old mansion in Grosvenor Square. All was still: no hansom cabs rumbled over the cobblestones, no policeman’s whistle sounded, and even the gas lamps burned with a fainter hiss, around which bats flitted noiselessly. No house thronged with a private party, no orchestra was heard behind the tall, darkened windows. The only sign of a disturbance was a window ajar on the ground floor at number 12, its curtain blowing outward.

Inside the darkened drawing room, Miss Emmeline Moriarty stood behind the curtain, her pistol raised, listening for telltale sounds of the householder’s return. It had been simplicity to enter. She knew Lord Jowles to be at his club that night, celebrating the success of his plan to seize her father’s criminal empire. The servants would be in their attic rooms. The square was silent. She hadn’t even had to break the glass.

Lord Jowles was still drunk; he had walked all the way home from his club and the unseasonably warm night air had nearly put him to sleep. He never noticed the curtain blowing out of his own drawing-room window. He had spent the evening drinking whatever friends bought for him, eating roast duck and oysters and pudding and everything his medical advisors had forbidden him, accepting congratulations from his cronies until they had tottered home one by one, the slackers. Unsteadily, he now paused on his own doorstep and scrabbled at the keyhole with his wayward key.

Let’s turn it into a script in three panels. In my directions to the artist, I sent the following:

  • Establishing shot: London city scene, full moon in a starry sky, and below, small, a house lit in front by a street lamp. On the first (ground, if you’re British) floor front, a casement window (door-style, not opening up-and-down) is a little open, and the tail of a light curtain is hanging out and fluttering slightly in a breeze.
  • Interior closeup shot: Mostly dark. Half of a young woman’s face illuminated by moonlight from the window. She is standing behind the curtain inside that room, but all we see is half her stern, lovely young face, perhaps a curl beside her fiercely narrowed eye, her small hand raised, holding an enormous service revolver circa 1893, pointing up, and perhaps a bit of the street, sidewalk, streetlamp below. If you can’t fit all that in, just give us a bit of her face, the hand holding the revolver, the curtain, and maybe the moon beyond it.
  • Interior closeup shot: A bit lighter. All we see is Lord Jowles’s plump bare hand trying to thrust his key into the keyhole. The key is attached to a fancy key chain with a fob and a couple of other keys dangling on it. Lord Jowles wears a gaudy man’s jeweled ring.  Small speech bubble comes down into the picture: “Damned keyhole moves around on a feller.”

I also told Elizabeth “There’s no room for her clothes as you’re showing how tiny a keyhole image an artist can work with to create the mood, illustrate character, set the time of day and setting. You’ll notice the backstory doesn’t mention whether she’s working for her father’s criminal empire or working against it, so the artist is at liberty to make her look villainous or virtuous, as well as pretty and young and well-bred and determined.”

Elizabeth then sent me some draft images.


Feedback

At this step, as the author, I provided the following feedback: “This is lovely! Street and house are the right kind of architecture. Emmeline looks ladylike, resolute and fierce. The revolver is terrific—huge in her hand, and clunky like army revolvers of the period. The doorknob & keys are excellent. Also, Lord Jowles’s hand is nicely masculine without looking ‘stevedore.’”

I then gave her more specific feedback on what I had envisioned:

  • Panel 1: I had imagined looking down on the house from up above, but this works fine! When you polish, might add a tiny bit of light from the streetlights, and a sliver of a moon above, to help signal “nighttime.”
  • Panel 2: I imagined this closer up. Perhaps show us maybe less than half her face, and the revolver in her hand or even just part of the revolver (barrel & cartridge-cylinder), the rest of her face partly concealed by the edge of a closed curtain. Because you’ve made her hair, face, collar, hand, and revolver perfectly signal all the things I wanted, if you zoom in, you will still give us everything we want, nice and large, without wasting extra space on the room décor or much of the street view. Also, Emmeline should be behind a curtain. Probably not behind the one that is blowing open. Although it adds continuity to have her standing beside the open window we saw in panel 1, it isn’t logical. The implication being, she is waiting for Jowles to enter the room, and she expects to ambush him when he is inside it.
  • Panel 3: The third panel, another extreme closeup, brings the promise of the waiting menace of the revolver-holding woman closer to a moment of actual conflict. Lord Jowles’s hand is just right. How about you take out his thumbnail and add a seam on his thumb and a button at his wrist, to indicate a white glove (surely a sign of the upper class!) and add his ring.

Elizabeth responded that she could see what I meant in the wider shot feeling less intimate and dramatic. She then offered her thoughts and sent a cropped copy of the second panel that approximated what she had in mind for my feedback.

 

 

At this part in the process, I found what she had done interesting, and let her know that the shorter, wider frame looked better. I also noted that perhaps we needed to consider putting the door on her right so doesn’t have her back to the door and that the view through the window of the buildings across the street confused me. Logically, I knew that the houses across the street very likely look like that, but my immediate assumption is that she’s in a window across the street from the house with our blowing-curtain-open-window. This is because I am a lazy reader. Since there’s no action or dialogue, I think we should expect lazy reading.

I then proposed some solutions, giving her three possible solutions. She chose the third, which was to use the short, wide panel-view she’d sent, and changing it to put her behind the curtain and shift the camera angle toward sky.

After a bit more back and forth emails, Elizabeth sent me the cleaner versions of panels 1 and 3, and three compositions for panel 2:

Panel 1:

 

Panel 2, three versions:

  • Top: The same as before but with the door right next to the window on the right. Architecturally, this might seem weird, but visually it read well.
  • Middle: The view from a lower camera angle with the door closer the reader. The light draws reader eyes to her immediately before seeing the door, so it works narratively.
  • Bottom: A lower camera angle, but parallel to the wall. It’s dramatic but the door is a bit hard to read.

 

Panel 3:

 

The minute I saw panels 1 and 3, I knew we were good there. I also thought the second of the three options for #2 was most effective, because she takes the eye! But I thought that she should have the pistol should be bigger, and she should give the reader a stern eyeball.

I also noticed what seems to be a pole in the room, because the view is of being in the room looking out. As we discussed this, Elizabeth realized the lamp post didn’t have a grounding point in the image, which made it look odd. We decided adding the moon might give a better idea of the camera angle without mistaking the lamp post for some kind of indoor pillar.

Here is the final shot for panel 2:

 

The final series of images comes out like this, then:

 

 

A few takeaways from the process

  • Your story shifts shape on its way out of your head and onto a page. First, you imagine a series of images and words. Then you convert those images and words into fiction. Then you revisit the fiction to convert it into a comic book script. So your story moves a lot between right brain and left brain, and you may find that what you imagined when you originally wrote the story is not on the page, perhaps has never been on the page.
  • Don’t be afraid to try drawing your comic book yourself first, using stick figures, to block out the story you want to tell. “Thumbnailing” your script like this will help you learn about communicating with the artist…and learn about your story as well!
  • Listen to the artist. You have your expertise and they have theirs.

________________________


Jennifer Stevenson is the author of five series, nineteen novels and twenty short stories. Her story "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" appeared in Jam! Tales from the World of Roller Derby, a graphic anthology. Her paranormal women's fiction series Coed Demon Sluts was nominated for the James Tiptree Award and featured on John Scalzi's "The Big Idea" blog. She lives in Chicago with two cats and a stagehand.

 

Elizabeth Person is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. She graduated from Allegheny College in 2017 in fine arts & computer science. She has been illustrating covers, maps, and characters for writers since 2011.

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Nink Knowledge: C.H.A.N.G.E. and Every Writer

This article by Melanie Stiles is from the April 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

Ask any number of your writer friends if there is something they could change about the mechanics of their writing career and most (if not all) will respond with a yes. So, as writers, why don’t we take action, instead of merely thinking about it? The answer tends to be as varied as the tasks. In the end, many writers are more than tempted to give up and remain in the status quo.

Change almost never takes place instantly. Real change is usually accomplished through a series of gradual, purposeful actions. The beautiful thing about change is that even one small adjustment contains the possibility for a myriad of beneficial outcomes. So whether you view change with a fair amount of chagrin, or embrace change as eagerly as a leaf is carried on the autumn wind, by engaging with a few minor examinations that require minimum effort, you can move forward into the C.H.A.N.G.E. you need today.

C = Community
When it comes to our money, most of us look for competitive interest rates on credit cards. We want to pay the lowest cost for the greatest amount of insurance, and we want the best sale price on major purchases. But when it comes to our communities, we tend not to give them a second thought. If we have fully incorporated a person into our writing life, they are apt to be there for the duration. If we accumulate enough folks, we simply don’t have room for more. People are definitely not as interchangeable as credit cards, but writers can do themselves a great disservice if they do not periodically take stock of their own community. We tend to travel in genre herds, aligning ourselves with those who speak our lingo. That’s great for critiquing particular projects or for shoring up our comfort zones, but it’s not always conducive to expanding our writing horizons. Branching out can offer new opportunities. Writing communities should support several basic areas; it’s rare that one group does it all. For example, if you haven’t already, consider adding the following:

  • A Social Media Partner – When it comes to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all of the other outlets on the web, it hardly matters whether the writer you connect with writes in the same genre. If a writer likes to post more than you do, he/she is a community treasure trove for you! A simple weekly telephone appointment can change the nature of your own social media presence as you trade information or navigate mutual chores.
  • A Marketing Partner – Marketing partners do not necessarily have to be other writers. Successful sales people make great connections, as they are innovative and often gregarious about thinking outside of the proverbial box. As writers, we can always use a fresh approach that differs from what we already know about.

Adding and subtracting community, when done deliberately, can push us to the next career level.

H = Habits
We generally recognize when someone else practices habits that are different from ours. This can create a silent message that winds its way through our brain saying, “I wouldn’t do it like that.” Interestingly, most of us never consider a secondary message, the one that says, “But, is his/her way better?” Consider performing a short, three-question survey. Ask questions, of other writers, that relate to areas in which you deem yourself most entrenched. Examples might include:

  • How do you maintain a consistent word count?
  • What does your social media management look like?
  • What is your most successful marketing tactic?

These simple inquiries can often encourage us to make small habit changes that can lead to greater productivity.

A = Attitude
Winston Churchill said, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” It seems to be true for an army of writers such as J.K. Rowling, Dr. Seuss, John Grisham and Madeleine L’Engle, who never let multiple rejections stop them. To make mental adjustments in our attitudes, it’s often necessary to redefine or reframe our challenges. We have to believe and accept that there are no dead ends, only redirections that move us one step closer to our goals. In the end, attitudes are always a choice. Contemplate writers who have traveled before you and what their lives could have been like if they had quit.

N = New routines
Let’s face it. The evolution of new apps, software, computers and most everything related to writing and publishing, is traveling at exponential speeds. By organizing our learning endeavors so that they are both purposeful and scheduled, we can increase our skillsets gradually and successfully. We already have a lot on our plates, so pacing is primary. Try attending seminars or participating in online classes with a partner. Having a study buddy automatically increases consistency. There will always be something new on the horizon, so why not make our educational experiences as pleasurable as we can?

G = Goal centered activities
The average American now spends a little over five hours a day watching television (www.bls.gov) and a little less than one-half hour thinking. In order to ascertain whether or not an activity truly supports our goals, we will have to exceed this sad, thinking statistic. Taking the time to simply ponder or daydream about the end result of a project carves out an imaginary path to its completion. By mentally plotting our way, we can easily see what fits and what is irrelevant to its success.

E = Extending the vision
No writing career is complete if it doesn’t include the acknowledgment of the people in our surroundings. We must extend our knowledge, time, and pens to include helping those who are new to the writing journey. It is our way of repaying those who were there for us.

By tweaking the things that we already do right, we can effectively hone our lifestyles to increase our maximum productivity. As we apply the components of the C.H.A.N.G.E. acronym at least twice a year, we can create a lifestyle overview that quickly ascertains what is missing, what we need to let go of and what is going well.

________________________

Melanie Stiles is an award-winning author and life coach who has accumulated hundreds of bylines in various publications. She has authored three books specifically for writers and frequently speaks at conferences. She offers writing-related services including editing, ghostwriting, coaching and more.

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Nink Knowledge | Tactical Crowdfunding: Using Kickstarter for Quick Capital

This article by M.C.A. Hogarth is from the March 2019 edition of Nink, the monthly newsletter of Novelists, Inc.  (NINC). Nink, which is packed each month with informative articles for career novelists, is a benefit of NINC membership. 

* * *

Most people know about Kickstarter, the website where creators crowdfund their projects to the tune of thousands of dollars, and for the most part we’ve heard about the outrageous successes (and the devastating failures). These stories paint Kickstarter as a “go big or go home” platform, which obscures one of its most useful functions: arranging for small infusions of capital, quickly. Would it be nice for us to swing one of those $100,000 campaigns? Sure, but who has the time to manage several thousand backers’ products? We’re too busy writing. But that doesn’t mean you need to pay for the small-to-medium expenses of your career on your own.

What kind of things am I talking about?

  • Putting your backlist in print again (or in ebook for the first time).
  • Getting a new cover designed for some of your backlist works.
  • Buying audio editions of your work.
  • Writing that niche novella you can’t justify otherwise.
  • Getting fun merchandise done for in-person events.

Most of us have some loose ends we’d like to tie up. Why not enlist your fans’ help? You can do it with the right kind of Kickstarter campaign.

Think small

First, ask for the least amount of money you can get away with. The formula is this: Amount I Need to Buy the Thing I’m Raising For + Amount I Need to Fulfill Prizes + 20 percent of that total for fees and taxes + another 20 percent for profit. (You need to pay yourself.)

Your total goal should be under $2,000; if it’s not, you’re out of the ‘quick and dirty’ Kickstarter range and into the ‘I need to take this a lot more seriously’ department. If your goal can’t be achieved in under $2,000, then you have three choices: (1) pick something else that does come in under that goal; (2) run the project intending to fulfill only some of your expenses, and (3) pay the rest out of your pocket; or retool to run a major campaign. (Which I don’t recommend. Write another book instead.)

The best way to keep things small is to limit your prizes and your tiers—that minimizes your mental overhead when it’s time to figure out who gets what. Most of your prizes should be virtual and cheap to deliver: wallpapers, ebooks, emailed cut scenes, cameos, names listed in the backs of the books, etc. Get creative; anything you can do once and reproduce infinitely is good! Are you good at singing? Send an MP3! Like talking to people on camera? Give them a backer-only video. Reserve physical prizes for very high tiers, and limit their numbers. Don’t get trapped into shipping several hundred hardcovers; have one tier for 10 autographed books and charge more for them.

Don’t feel bad about fewer tiers. Tell your backers that you’re streamlining so that everyone gets what they backed for as quickly as possible. So many Kickstarter projects never send their awards that if you do so consistently, you will be lauded for it.

Think quick

Don’t let these campaigns drag on. A well-run campaign needs daily attention, plus you’re going to be burning time fulfilling prizes. One to two weeks is good; generally the more money you’re asking—the longer you need. But there’s a point of diminishing returns: it’s hard to sustain backer excitement over three or four weeks, so don’t try.

The moment you hit your goal (and it might be fast!), start to work on those prizes so you can get them out the door as quickly as possible. You don’t want your responsibility to your campaign to linger any longer than necessary.

Think minimalist

One of Kickstarter’s features is the ability to offer stretch goals: additional prizes that get “unlocked” when the campaign hits a certain goal over and above the one needed for a successful campaign. These stretch goals give backers a reason to keep throwing money at the project. Usually creators promise things like more merchandise, extra gifts, another story—the possibilities are endless. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t declare too many. Stretch goals are a good way to overextend yourself. Pick one or two that won’t take much time or effort and don’t be tempted to add more as your totals go up. You’re not aiming for “most money possible” because that usually entails “most effort possible.” You’re aiming for “most money possible for the least amount of effort, so I can stay focused on my core business. Which is writing. Not fulfilling Kickstarter prizes.”

I usually pick one or two stretch goals, and tie them into something I want to do anyway, and can resell later, like cut scenes or bonus short fiction I can bundle later into a collection for retail.

I didn’t fund!

There are a lot of reasons a Kickstarter might not fund, but most of them boil down to “my goal didn’t match up with my audience.” (It’s a lot like writing a successful novel that way.) But here are the most common problems:

  • You didn’t tell your fans. They can’t fund your project if they don’t know about it, and you should give them some advance warning so they can plan their budgets. (I usually tell mine a month in advance, and hit up all my major social media/newsletter/chat outlets before and during the campaign.)
  • You didn’t keep the project alive. You should plan to post an update to your project every day it’s active, and then regularly after closing, especially until you’re done sending out prizes. Don’t just talk about the campaign’s progress; have a list of topics related to your project. If it’s a book, you can talk about how you came up with the characters, or share photographs of the place the book’s set, or discuss forensics—whatever seems relevant. If it’s a side project, like merchandise, you can talk about the process of hiring artists, or what your vision was, or ask fans for suggestions on how to use the results. (Asking your fans things in these posts is a great way to promote engagement.)
  • You asked for too much money in too little time for the number of fans you have. Keep in mind 95 percent of your money’s going to come from your existing fanbase, not from people “discovering” you on Kickstarter: the amount you can raise is going to be limited by that number. If you have one hundred fans, don’t ask them for $2,000, ask for $250. Likewise, don’t ask people for $2,000 in five days (unless you have several thousand fans). The amount you can raise and the time you can do it in are directly related to how many people you can mobilize, so use that to set your expectations.
  • Something about your prizes wasn’t compelling. Best way to fix this problem is to ask your fans what they want—and what they find uninteresting. Mine keep telling me they love bookmarks, for instance, and aren’t very interested in patches, so I keep producing bookmarks!

It may take you a few tries to get the formula down. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t figure it out immediately. Use Kickstarter’s search engine to find other (successfully funded) writer projects and see how they handled it. (Here’s my profile if you want to see mine: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/mcahogarth/created). Take notes. Listen to your fans, too; they’ll tell you what they’re willing to pay for, and how often. They want to help you! So let them!

Do it again

Did it work? Excellent. Do it again. One of the side effects of a good Kickstarter campaign is that it gives your fans something fun to get worked up about. They like helping you accomplish something; they enjoy watching the totals rise and unlocking your one or two stretch goals. Don’t let this tool rust now that you’ve mastered it … any time you’ve got a small project that could use some capital, use Kickstarter for a quick injection. Have fun with it!

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M.C.A. Hogarth is a former vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the author of over 40 novels in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and romance. She is also a professional visual artist, doodles cartoon jaguars for fun, and has written a book about Kickstarter.

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