The map to succes

For any product you sell on line you need to find sources to promote this product. Depending on the demand you can choose from an array of options. Not all of those are as straight forward as they claim a lot of research and time needs to be executed.

In the Land of Make Believe where most writers live, this might be even harder. Along the way we get site tracked by beautiful maidens, princes on white horses and drunken mad men. When we have the wall of the castle in sight suddenly a dragon with seven heads appears and we are forced to fight with the little weapons we have. Already half dead from hunger and other battles we've fought along the way, we sit down and weep. These are both frustration and confusion tears. Have we missed an exit. At night in our make shift tent an oil lamp spreads its light over our wrinkled map. Some parts of the map we can't see any longer, because we have spilt tea over it. To see better I lean forward. I'm unaware that the lamp falls over and before this sentence is typed the tent is one big blaze. Nothing can save the tent, never mind the map, I realise now I've left the map to success on the kitchen table at home.

I must find my way back and water the plants. I've put some seeds to germinated in a tray, in the hope they grow into use full promotion sources. But if I don't tend to them and nurse them, we don't get anywhere. Better to have one tray of seeds then a greenhouse where the weeds have taken over. Yes if you like me a one person show, you need to divide yourself into several parts.

Any one for a piece of cake? Click here for something to enjoy it with.

Women's unit of mental hospital 'totally unsuitable'

You might think in this day and age we have moved on from Victorian times, but this isn't the case. I did not make the situation of the institution where Anthony resides in my book Virus up. Those were facts which I have researched. Below there is more prove that a lot more needs to be done. Mental illness this something that can overcome us all.


Women's unit of mental hospital 'totally unsuitable'

Facebook does it really work

Today I have been fiddling with the like button of facebook. I must say that wasn't easy, it was plain impossible to put the code on my blog. One has to perform three different handlings. If you have to believe facebook things can't be easier. Put this code here and that code their if you want the like button to work. I did and the button still doesn't work. What a waste of time.

Promoting the book is hard enough as it is and takes up a lot of time. Frustrating is a better word, because this time can be used for other things. Like continuing with my second novel. I can't go on like this any longer, things have to change before I lose all the elan to write. therefor I dugged into the file today and scribbled a few lines. Again I'm jumping from one branch to another as I did with Mind Games, but that's how writting works. You put the pieces together when you think you have them all gathered and make the jigsaw. Fill in the missing junctions and bridges as you go along.

Are you creative?

Have you written a short story of maximum 2000 words and you want to publish it on the net? Send a copy of your story to cumulusad@gmail.com and I might post your story on the Post doos. Please don't send  pornography or anything about child abuse. I'm looking for fiction.

I'm looking forward to your creations.

Jules Verne 20.000 leagues under the sea.

Christine

Books which sell well

A story doesn’t have to be grammatically correct, when the readers like it you’re on the right track. All you need to do is find a niche in the market and off you go.

I spend some time on writer’s forums lately. I have my moments in which I do a lot of posting and reading other peoples post and then I stop visiting the sites all together. I have been on a few like wattpad and writersbeat. There are a lot of young writers ranging from 13 to 16 on wattpad and most of them love fantasy, zombie or vampire stories. They receive the most views on their stories, while all the others are limping behind. This doesn’t mean the other genres are less well written. This particular forum is crowded with the result of books like Harry Potter, Twilight and so on. Don’t forget that J.K. Rowling’s first book arrived about 10 years ago on the market. Thus the teenagers writing stories now have been spoon fed the scars and spells throughout their life.

This doesn’t mean we all have to create fantasy or horror stories as youth is only a part of the population, there are many other age categories, and genres you can pick from. A lot of these young writers are copying their idols. A new genre is fan fiction. The name says it all.

Ok, you belong to the group of somewhat older writers and looking for a niche in the market, where do you start? I just Googled and came to the conclusion that the following are also highly appreciated.

·         Memoirs autobiographies

·         Romance

·         Adventure

·         Sci-Fi

·         Fantasy

·         Mystery/thriller

·         Medical

·         Action

So there you go it’s not so bad and there is plenty to choose from. I’m sure your book fits somewhere. You need to figure out in which category it fits, and that’s not always easy. 

Nowadays Mystery and Thrillers are seen as one genre, but my book isn’t exactly a thriller it is more a mystery a medical mystery with a hint of Sci-Fi.

Now dig up your diary and start typing, sling a few bad experiences in here and there and you might have a best seller under your belt before you know. I wish my PC didn’t crash, I might have gone for my own autobiography. However I do have the first draft on paper, hand written.

The jigsaw which becomes a novel

A couple of years I took part in a creative writing course. The woman conducting the course gave the participants a copy of her published book carrying the name; Jigsaw.

Editing is a bit like putting a jigsaw together. You have all the pieces, you might even have the puzzle nearly completed, however a few pieces look out of place; they don't seem to fit properly where you put them. OK there you go; you take those pieces out and put them aside. You fiddle around with some other pieces you hope will fit better. In the process you come to the conclusion the situation is actually far worse than you anticipated.
Panic stricken you throw yourself in front of a passing bus. You've put so much time and effort in writing and editing the story it is driving you crazy.

I found a solution for this problem many writers suffer from; I have a print out of the complete book, going over each page I divide them in different sections.
I color each passage with a separate color;

• red for action/conflict.

• purple for discussions

• green for descriptions

• brown for memories/flashbacks/dreams

• blue for anything else

So with the colour pencils out I am able to see which piece of the puzzle is where in the current draft. When making a real jigsaw puzzle I begin with the border and the corners, this gives the jigsaw a strong foundation and all the other pieces fit inside the border. You know if you've read J.A Konrath's tips you  put action or conflict in your first chapter, later you can play with different color combinations to see what suits best to keep the story flowing.

Tips from J.A. Konrath

Tips for the first chapter

1. Make sure the first chapter starts with action.
    
2. Show, don't tell. This means you don't need a one paragraph description of a bedroom, a character's thoughts on everything, and for god's sake don't put any back story in the first chapter.
    
3. Keep it short. It doesn't have to be James Patterson short, but a ten page first chapter is better than a thirty page first chapter when it comes to grabbing attention.
    
4. Watch your POV... try to stick in one character's mind for the whole chapter.
    
5. Cut everything that doesn't move the action forward. EVERYTHING. If it moves the story forward, or gives us a better feel for the characters, put it in a later chapter, but not the first. Leave the reader wanting more, not knowing everything.
    
6. You probably don't need a prologue. Editors often cut them, and readers often skip them. Try to remove it and see if the story suffers. If you really believe you need one, don't make it longer than a few pages.
    
7. And this is the most important---trust yourself. You've been writing since you were four. You know how to craft a sentence. Not everything needs to be rewritten---sometimes it comes out right the first time.

Conflict is the main ingredient for successful fiction. The question of "What happens next?" is what keeps your audience glued to the page. Not pretty description. Not clever phrasing. Not cute dialog. The motor that drives the story is conflict. The central plot of any story should be centered around a conflict. The sub plots should introduce more conflict. There should be conflict on every page, and even in every paragraph.

Readers don't want characters to be happy. They want them to be tortured for 90,000 words, and then happy at the very end. Maybe. That's the essence of a page-turner.

Travel for more useful tips to Joe's site.

http://www.jakonrath.com/writers.htm

Free online store fronts are they worth your time

Free online store fronts like, offtheshelf, lulu, smashwords and others give authors a platform to self publish their books. Readers can then buy the books when they become a member. Herein lies the problem; in order to shelf a book you've created you must fill an online form and go through the motions of uploading your files and making a book cover. Once your finished it's up to you to promote your book. Off you go and post as many links as you can to all the social networks and your contacts.
Doing this without any result it began to dawn on me that potential customers might not want to sign up with any of these online stores but rather buy directly from the author. Maybe you say I'm not doing enough to promote my product, maybe so, but I don't want to waste my time with relentless marketing while I rather write on my new novel. The only online store front I am going to put time is create a space. They are involved with Amazon and Barnes & Nobles.
I am currently waiting on a revenue number which I need to create an account at create a space. Next I will receive an ISBN. This magic number (ISBN) is going to give me the opportunity to sell my book on any storefront.

On which devices can you read an e-pub file

We have all heard about PDF files and perhaps also about e-pub files. PDF is around for along time but e-pub is one of the newer formats and  reads on iPods, PDA's, e-book readers, iPhones etc. However you can also read an e-pub file on your personal computer or laptop. All you have to do is download Adobe Digital Edition or Stanza from lexycle.

There is much more to be said about electronic devices and how to translate electronic files, but as a writer I am not really intrested in going into detail about technology. It was never the intention to do so on this blog. 

Publish and sell your book on a shoestring budget

I have discovered that promoting your book is actually more work than writing it. I didn't spend whole days sitting behind the computer or writing on my notepad. I did a few hours here and a few hours there. I can write basically anywhere I can turn into my own world. I wrote in cafes, coffee shops, hotels, during a Jungian course at home and even at work. I also write with music or the TV on.
I designed a poster and the cover for a DVD. I got this idea of putting the book on a PDF file and mail this to buyers. But then it dawned on me when I was in a € 2 shop to get more disks to put them in a DVD box and sell them on markets and fairs. I already made a design for the sleeve.

Now the next time I go to a market or fair I put up my poster and present the book as a electronic book in a DVD box. I made the copies in Nore Side Education in Kilkenny (thanks a million)