The right view of marketing

This blog is dedicated to Thomas Joseph Hennessy, PhD.
September 23, 1926--November 27, 2008.

This blog has multiple purposes and serpentine logic--as usual.

In the Novelist's Boot Camp Workshops (not to be confused with a recent imitation "bootcamp for novelists"--sigh, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I'm flattered--and considering legal action), I'm often asked about how best to market a book.

My usual response is that the focus of the workshops is writing the best book you can write while doing it faster, better, and having more confidence, control, and fun. Marketing and promotion are topics that deserve a separate space, and for the overwhelming majority who attend our workshops their first priority needs to be completing a fully revised, edited, and proofread manuscript.

But there's more to the story.

That a completed manuscript is necessary before one enters the market is obviously true. Marketing--the novelist's first customer being an agent or acquisition editor--can't happen unless the novelist has something to market, the "thing" being a completed manuscript. After the "sale" to the agent and editor comes the second part of marketing, often called promotion. Again, the novelist needs product, although much can and should be done before the actual publication date.

But the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops normally don't specifically address either of these.

And the "why not?" has much to do with being true to one's self--which has much to do with Tom Hennessy.

Tom Hennessy died on 27 November 2008, following a tough battle with Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. He loved and served his wife, his children, his family, and the students and institution of Indiana University loyally, faithfully, and successfully. He was a mentor, role model, coach, counselor, and friend to many. I consider myself exceptionally privileged to have had Tom in my life, and while the physical body of the old Irishman is gone, the gifts he gave me and many, many others will be passed on. Young men or women looking for a role model would be well advised to look to Tom Hennessy.

Tom Hennessy was many things, but above all he was sincere. He understood what was important and what was not, and his time, heart, soul, and energy went into the important things.

Time. Heart. Soul. Energy. These resources are finite. In the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops we understand this point, and we understand that things which matter most should not be sacrificed for things which matter least. What matters most for novelists, we feel, is the sincere and creative act of writing a book-length work of fiction. The workshops and book offer strategies, tactics, techniques, and advice on how to better engage the novelist's creative spirit and how to produce, from that spirit, a work in which the novelist can take pride.

All novelists, one can safely say, wish for commercial success. Yet commercial success is perhaps the most fleeting of all types. I'm sure Tom Hennessy wished for a better salary.

Tom Hennessy was sincere in his focus on what was important. He was true to himself, and in that he made himself a rich man. Those who knew him are richer for the relationship.

Be true to yourself. Nurture, exercise, and grow that creative spirit that is the sincere part of being a novelist and that manifests itself in the act of producing a book-length work of fiction: your novel. The marketing and whatever riches it might bring will pale in comparison to the reward you create for yourself.

Thank you, Mr. Hennessy.

The more"Aha!'s" the better

Every writer loves those "aha!" moments--those unexpected, out of the blue moments of pure clarity when the way forward in your manuscript suddenly becomes perfectly, obviously, right-there-in-front-of-you-all-the-time clear.  Those are wonderful moments and we authors live for them, whether it be suddenly understanding exactly what a character must do or say in a given scene or something more strategic and structural, such as the need for the author to put a face on her protagonist's opposition.

Do aspiring authors get those moments? Sure.  How about more experienced, multi-published, professional authors?  Surely, authors such as those must be able to manufacture many of these moments--surely they can simply becon the Muse and she will sprint to do their bidding?

Maybe--or maybe not.

Not too many days ago, I returned to an arctic Chicagoland after presenting a Novelist's Boot Camp workshop to the Southwest Florida Romance Writers in sunny and warm (at least for part of the time) Ft. Myers, Florida. 

The group was great, the venue wonderful, and Florida's weather a welcome break from the sub-zero chill of the Windy City.  Among the attendees were two great, well-established authors--Linnea Sinclair who writes wonderful SF adventures infused with romance, and Tina Wainscott, who has a string of successful, fascinating romantic suspense novels (and some new stuff coming under a new pen name, as well). Also present was the up-and-coming author Stacy Klemstein. Keep an eye on this one, especially in the Young Adult market.

We--yours truly as the presenter and all the attendees--all worked hard for the entire day.  The Novelist's Boot Camp workshops are interactive and, unlike many other writing workshops, require that attendees use what they've learned to make their own work better, and do so on the spot.

It was from this hard work that the "Aha!'s" came--first from one writer, then another. Some simply raised their heads with that awe-struck "I see--I get it" look, others were louder and bounced around in their seats. Others tore pages out of their notebooks and began scribbling furiously.  Body language changed. 

I've seen this before in other Novelist's Boot Camp workshops and it's always rewarding to me.

The insight I'll share here is the obvious one, but in an art such as crafting book-length works of fiction, it's an insight we often forget.  Success, progress, creative quantum leaps--they all come from the work of writing and the work of not just learning how to write better, but of writing your own work better.  To use a metaphor from the world of athletics, coaching is important, but it's putting that coaching into practice that actually improves performance.

That's true not only for aspiring authors but for those who are on their umpteenth manuscript.

Aha!

It's a natural thing

Can a writer benefit from a conscious analysis of his or her "natural" technique and strategy and making one or more of those better?

The common sense answer is "of course!" Artists, athletes, musicians, chefs, lovers--regardless of the activity, reviewing "what comes naturally" and consciously improving on that technique makes for a better painting, game, music, meal, or well, you know.

Writing a novel has been called part art and part science, and Novelist's Boot Camp is designed to help the novelist be better in both.

But does it work? I'd like to think so--RITA award winning and multi-published author Linnea Sinclair thinks so as well. Linnea is a self-admitted consummate "pantser"--writing by the seat of her pants. She does it exceptionally well too, as her best-selling books and awards testify. In writing, Linnea does what comes to her naturally.

Yet Linnea also recognizes the value of identifying an unconscious technique and refining that technique in order to become a better writer and produce better writing--so much so that shenot only commented on NBC in her blog, she'll be in the audience at the Novelist's Boot Camp workshop this coming week in Ft. Myers, Florida.

You can find out more about Linnea's books here.

She also recognizes that as an author progresses in his or her career, time and energy grow ever more at a premium. If that author wants to be at her most productive, meet the demands of the profession, and keep the fire of the love of writing alive, then the power of creativity has to be more organized, more disciplined, more focused. One of the end results is a better book. Another result is more fun.

And more fun--whether it be in writing, art, music, cooking, competitive athletics, or lovemaking--is good!

Novelist's Boot Camp a Book Examiner's 2008 Top 10 favorite!

I'm very happy and very proud to report that Novelist's Boot Camp has been named one of examiner.com's top 10 favorite books for 2008. 

From the article:

"This may sound like every other writing book on the shelves of your local Large Bookstore, but it differs radically...Novelist’s Boot Camp is definitively one of the
most down and dirty useful writing books on the market today. Where
other writing books give nebulous advice like “Be sure to develop your
characters,”

"The Novelist’s Boot Camp actually leads
you by the hand through the process. While other writing tomes tell you
to be sure to revise your first draft and look for inconsistencies,
Stone details a specific 9 step revision process that is fully
explained, step by step in the fifth section of the book."

You can read the complete article here.

I'm glad this article's writer--and many others as well--found the book helpful enough t recommend it.  For a "how-to" book, usefulness is the essential measure of worth. In other words, how much and how well does it help the reader make progress towards his or her goal? Evidently this "Book Examiner" feels Novelist's Boot Camp does quite a good job of just that.

I receive private recognition--emails, notes, letters, and so on--thanking me for writing Novelist's Boot Camp or presenting the Novelist's Boot Camp workshops. I treasure those, and public recognition such as the above is wonderful as well.

Not a bad holiday gift at all!

The art of evil

There is an art to evil, whether it be in the real life we experience every day or in the life that we put into our fiction. 

Fiction tells the truths of life in a shorter, more pointed, more condensed and often more entertaining form. Fiction bases much of its power upon the stories inside us, upon our archetypes, our human fears, strengths, hopes, foibles, dreams, and failings.

Good fiction focuses on a few of the above and through a story brings them into a spotlight. And in this blog I want to focus on that part of life that plays such an critical part in fiction--evil.

Because fiction is a condensed, intensified, constructed view of a short space in time of a portion of the human condition, it's natural for authors to wish to do the same with those who oppose their protagonists. That is, there exists a tendency to color and shape the antagonist as the next Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-Il, Charles Manson, or the like. Authors find the appropriate archetype, change a hairstyle or last name, and off they go.

Yet fiction does indeed imitate reality in much the same way art often imitates life. Like their counterparts in the real world, such obviously evil characters in fiction often neither arouse the same passions nor raise the same level of concern as those characters  whose evil is worked in subtler, more manipulative, less direct ways. 

This is a very personal evil, an evil that takes a portion of the truth and twists it to its own ends.  It is an evil that leverages human wants and needs and frailties, rather than compelling compliance via brute force. It is an evil that cuts like a rapier, not chops like a cleaver.  It is gradual and insidious, clothed in its own forms of secular or religious righteousness, and above all is convinced that it is right.

Those will a knowledge of Scripture will nod. They will note that the main characters in the original romance were manipulated out of Eden by evil in the disguise of a lowly serpent, not by a raging demon.

If we have learned some personal lesson from the political events of the last eight years, it is that insidious evil is as or more dangerous and as damaging as the external, easily identified one.  We, and I, have learned that predators outside the home are easy to defend against. Predators inside the home are immensely more destructive, infinitely harder to detect, and regardless of clear evidence to their detrimental effects often almost impossible to break free from.

Don't believe me? Note how long so many abused stay with their abusers.

So evil has an art to it, and to artfully portray evil in fiction an author should remember that it is not the devil as demon, villain in black, or crazy woman with a white purse who will put the novel's protagonist at greatest risk or cause the reader the most emotional turmoil. Instead, the most dangerous, damning, and powerful evil is that which comes in countless small yet cumulatively damning ways from the character your protagonist believes in the most.

Such evil is harder to deal with--for the writer and the protagonist--in fiction as well as in life.

May you be successful in both.

Discovering Fire

There's something about Sunday morning small-town quiet that encourages coffee drinking, increases clarity, and promotes reflection.

With that tease, a word from the commercial sponsor.

In October we presented two Novelist's Boot Camp workshops: one for the Dupage Writers Group and another at the Oak Lawn Public Library. Many thanks to those who attended and those who made the workshops possible. In January we're off to Florida for a full day with the Southwest Florida Romance Writers, where we'll present a Dozen Dynamite Drills from NBC in the morning and the Real World Revision Workshop in the afternoon. There's more info, as always, at www.storytellerroad.com.

When man discovered fire, it was a good thing. Kept him warm. Helped him see in the dark. Cooked food. Kept him alive in the cold, kept back wild animals...Fire good always.

Man took fire into the cave--smoke burned his eyes, made him sick, lit the skins and sticks in the cave on fire and burned him out of his shelter, scorched his skin, blinded him, destroyed all his possessions, ruined his life.

Fire bad always.

So, about that clarity--
In my day job I lead a team of great people, and at regular intervals I counsel them as to their performance and how to get better at what they do. Each of these individuals has one or more standout strengths, and quite naturally they rely on these strengths to carry them through tough assignments and the everyday workload. As I've worked alongside them over the last several months, I've found--and offered to each of them--that for each, their greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses, especially when carried too far.

Very Zen, of course. But true.

On this Sunday morning that observation has sounded a very personal note.

I have always been and will no doubt be, a determined man. That determination has lead to many successes in my life and has served me well--as an endurance athlete (caveated with "former"), military man, author, teacher , communicator, educator, parent, and partner. You've heard the phrase "the fire inside" or "fire in the belly?" Those are applicable.

Yet this morning I've gotten a glimpse--and a powerful, painful, searing glimpse, of understanding that determination is also a weakness. This trait that served me so well for so long--kept me alive at times--left me open to manipulation that I thought I was immune to.

This is not to abdicate personal responsibility. The choices I have made are mine, as are the consequences of those choices--some wonderful, some terrible.

Singularity of focus, endurance, tolerance for discomfort and pain; those "do or die" and "there is no trying, there is only doing" and related qualities can be blessings. Fire good always.

Or curses:
--They will lead you to ignore what is right in front of your face, even when that "it" becomes so big you not only trip over it, but can't move because of it.
--They will lead you to follow paths you know are just simply wrong
--They will lead you to be open to mental and emotional and sometimes physical abuse
--They will lead you to deny furiously that said abuse is taking place
--They will lead you to dig yourself into a hole so deep that climbing out seems impossible, and so you keep digging
--They will lead you to compound your mistakes--you'll run faster in the wrong direction
--They will lead you--along with a little help from someone who wishes to use you for their own ends--to abandon those people who are truly important. Sometimes, you will abandon those who love you.

And along the way those qualities that serve you so well so often will play right into the hands of those who wish you to continue down that terribly wrong path.


All the while, those qualities will drown out the shouts of other voices inside you that point out that the emperor is quite naked and that another person's delusion to which you have subscribed is a delusion. Never mind that you're burning alive--add gasoline!

So we, and I, are responsible for our choices. And we are also responsible for understanding how we came to make those choices/ And we are responsible for changing course once we understand that those choices were detrimental and hurtful. They burned.

And we are--and I am--responsible to say publicly that we are--and I am--sorry.

I am and will be eternally grateful to those who helped me understand, and even more grateful to those who have helped me see clearly and who have welcomed me "home."

Fire bad always. Determination leads to ashes.

Fire good always. Only determination can turn you away from ruin and help you overcome the obstacles and work out removing the contamination. Only determination will carry you through the healing of the burns and the bearing of their scars. Only determination will provide the strength of growing free from abuse.

Is it hot in here?

Entry into the blogosphere

Welcome to the Novelist's Boot Camp blog. It's been far too long since the beginning of this blog until this post...but much has changed.  

More to follow. Carry on.