Mum's The Word

I honestly like the idea of brainstorming with friends. Sitting around a table in Starbucks or in a mountain cabin and tossing out plot ideas sounds fun. I like it but can't do it. Something in my brain shuts down when it comes to verbally sharing my work. Guess that tells you how good I am at pitching to editors and agents, huh?

I love Anderson Cooper and catch him every day here in OK at 11 CST. Yesterday I watched him interview Sara Blakely, who founded a multi-million dollar undergarment company. Maybe you've heard of it: Spanx. Blakely is the world's youngest self-made female billionaire. Sara has some great business tips but one thing she said jumped out at me and I agree 100%.

Blakely said "I didn't tell friends and family my idea for a year; your ideas are the most vulnerable in the moment you have them. People will tell you things that will stop you dead in your tracks, and you have to explain the idea instead of pursuing it."

Did you get that? You have to explain the idea, defend it, instead of pursuing it. That's exactly the way I feel about my writing. If I sense negativity toward an idea, a proposal, my plot, I have a very difficult time going forward with it. I'm filled with doubt.

Blakely says we need to trust our gut.

When critique partners read the first three chapters of an unfinished work, and toss out ideas, suggestions, potential problems, I find my own personal roadmap getting a little fuzzy. Doesn't it make more sense to hand them a finished product--the complete manuscript--so they can read the project in its entirety?

Blakely also says we need to figure out how to differentiate ourselves from the masses, figure out how we're different. If you think about it, that's a great tip for our writing and marketing.

Do you believe your novel or NF book is different from anything out there? If not, how can you make it stand out from the crowd?

E Words: Energy and Elaborate

ENERGY
The strength and vitality required for sustained physical or mental activity. A feeling of possessing such strength and vitality. Dynamic quality energy: the capacity of acting or being active & intellectual energy: a usually positive spiritual force energy flowing through all people

ELABORATE
Involving many carefully arranged parts or details; detailed and complicated in design and planning. . Planned or executed with painstaking attention to numerous parts or details. Intricate and rich in detail.

-------

Energy and Elaborate--two wonderful words: I love it when I get an idea for a short story or novel and feel the energy of it flowing on the paper. When I feel the energy, then I believe my reader does too. Not every idea I come up with reaches that point and I have to elaborate until I get on the right path. Sometimes I never capture what I’m aiming for and lose all enthusiasm for the piece.

Do you think there’s a trick to creating energy in your writing? Like me, do you elaborate, flesh it out, layer it until you connect with that strength, vitality, voice you’re striving for? Sometimes I take a look at my verbs, cut the passive and add active verbs to make my piece come alive.

Would you like to share your writing secrets with us?

Part II: Marketing--More Secrets of John Locke's Success

Back in July I posted Marketing: The Secret of John Locke's Success by Randy Ingermanson but never followed up with Part 2. Here it is for those who have contacted me. And for the record, How I Sold 1 Million Ebooks in 5 Months is now 2.99 on Amazon.

Marketing: More Secrets of John Locke's Success

Last month I began an analysis of John Locke's lastest book on marketing fiction, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS IN 5 MONTHS, which you can get on Amazon for $4.99.

Locke has some great ideas, and my goal here is to organize them into something we can all can use -- a set of steps to follow when marketing a novel.

As I noted last month, there are six main tasks you need to accomplish in creating and marketing your
fiction. Locke doesn't list these anywhere in so many words, nor does he give you time estimates for how long they ought to take. So here's my list:

* Define your General Target Audience (days of work)
* Create your book (months of work)
* Create your platform (weeks of work)
* Launch your book (one day of work)
* Grow your platform (ongoing effort for years)
* Market your book (ongoing effort for months)

Let's look at these elements in turn:


Defining Your General Target Audience
_____________________________________

I talked about the first of these, defining your General Target Audience, in  last month's marketing
column. If you haven't done this task yet, there's just no time like the present, so go have a look now. All back issues of this e-zine are archived here: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/ezine


Creating your book
__________________

Creating your book is of course a topic I've been teaching in this e-zine for years. Most of what I teach
is summarized and organized in my best-selling book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES.

The one main point that John Locke makes which I believe is different from most authors is that he very consciously writes a novel that he believes will delight his General Target Audience -- and nobody else. He really doesn't care if he offends everybody else.

There is real freedom in writing just for a chosen few readers. Make them incredibly happy and don't worry about anyone else. That's the Locke strategy, and I think it's exactly right.

As a matter of fact, you might write a book for some subset of your General Target Audience. This would be the Specific Target Audience for that particular book.

Locke has done that with his western novels, which aren't for all of his fans -- they're only for those of
his fans who love westerns.

Creating your platform
______________________

There are certain standard elements of any writer's platform, and John Locke has nothing new to say here. His platform uses the same basic parts as anyone else's.

Here are the basic elements of a platform. Again, I'm giving time estimates for how long each of these
elements should take:

* Create a web site (weeks of work)
* Create an e-mail list for your fans (one day)
* Create a blog (about a week)
* Create a Facebook page (less than one day)
* Create a Twitter account (less than one hour)

All of these are standard parts of your platform. You don't have to have all of them, but most writers have several of these elements. I've listed them in the order which I'd suggest doing them, although there's nothing sacred about this order.

Since we're trying to understand in this article what John Locke is doing differently from everybody else, I'm not going to go into details about how to do any of the above. I've written tons of material in the past in this column on web sites, e-mail lists, and blogging.

You can find excellent books on all of these topics.
Launching your book
___________________
You can launch your book in one day, simply by announcing it to your platform. Add a page to your web site with all the details about your book, including an excerpt and directions on where to buy it.
Send an announcement to your e-mail list, giving them a good reason to buy the book right now.

Post a blog entry announcing your book. Ditto for Facebook. Tweet your book.

There, your book is launched. Again. John Locke does this the same way everybody else does.

Grow your platform
__________________
It's not that hard to grow your platform. You do this by adding good content to your web site, answering your e-mail, and posting on your blog and Twitter and Facebook.

Your goals are to increase the amount of traffic to your web site, the number of fans on your e-mail list, the number of people who read your blog, the number of fans you have on Facebook, and the number of people who follow you on Twitter.

This takes time and happens slowly. It pays off whenever you launch a new book, because over time
you'll build an increasing number of people in your General Target Audience who now know about you.

By definition, your General Target Audience is the set of people who LOVE your work, so each book launch should get better as the years go by and your platform grows and grows.

Locke really doesn't say much about the mechanics of growing your platform. He does say that he answers all his e-mail himself, and he encourages fans to sign up for his e-mail announcement list. And he tweets a lot, building what he calls his Friendship Circle.

So what is it exactly, that John Locke is doing differently than everybody else? From our analysis
above, it's clear that he's doing most things the same as most authors.

The answer is that he tackles the final main task differently. Let's look at that now.
Market your book
________________

Marketing is an ongoing effort that begins the day you launch your book and ends when your book goes out of print.

Locke does some blog interviews, just like most authors. He considers this to be mainly an exercise in
building name recognition, and he's probably right.

He also listens to his readers, and this is key. What is he listening for? He's listening to what it is they
like (and don't like) about his books.

By listening to readers, Locke is continually refining his understanding of his General Target Audience.

If a reader likes his book, Locke asks himself what it is in that particular reader that makes her like the
book.

If a reader hates it, Locke asks what it is about that particular reader that makes him hate the book.

Where does Locke listen to his readers? He reads the Amazon reviews. He reads his e-mail. He reads the comments on his blog. He reads what people say about his books on Facebook and Twitter.

I think this is where Locke differs from most of us.

Most authors read a glowing Amazon review or a fawning e-mail and think, "Wow, I'm amazing!"

Locke thinks, "Wow, I understand my General Target Audience better now!"

Most authors read a scathing Amazon review or an angry e-mail and think, "Gack, either I must be awful or this reader is a jerk."
Locke thinks, "Well, that person sure isn't in my General Target Audience! I guess I understand who I'm NOT writing for a little better now. So how can I revise the marketing copy for the book to attract more of my General Target Audience and scare off those who aren't in it?"

Locke does two other things for his marketing, and these seem to me to be unique. Certainly, these are the things he considers to be different from what everyone else is doing:

* He writes "Loyalty Transfer Blogs."
* He taps into the "Viral Circle" on Twitter.

These are going to take some time to analyze, so I'll talk about them next month. They're related, so it
makes sense to treat them as two parts of the same basic idea. If you're in a hurry to learn about them
right now, go ahead and grab a copy of his book, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS.

Here's a quick link to his book on Amazon, and of course this link includes my Amazon affiliate code,
because I think the book is darned good and therefore I highly recommend it: http://amzn.to/ndd258

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 26,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND
have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

How To Write and Then Some

Some writers outline their books using index cards or Excel; they jot notes about every scene. In other words, they’re plotting their books scene by scene. I don’t know if they do the entire book all at once or if they go as far as they can before they stop to write to the end of their list of scenes.  When they feel the need, I guess, they start with the scene by scene outline again. Seems like an incredible amount of detail work to me, but I can see where it would be effective. Basically, who, what, when, and where are addressed in each scene. Actually, this method of outlining makes writing a novel seem pretty easy, doesn’t it?

There are so many ways to plot and write a book. The fine-tuning and layering is a whole other matter. Don’t even get me started on subtexting. There are so many things we need to know and learn and do before, during and after we have a finished product.

My question is: do you think a writer can “over-educate” himself to the point any natural talent he has might be warped or distorted by all the rules/how-to/book learning? Does this question even make sense?

My answer to my question is: I suppose we should read, write, study until everything we need to know is second nature when we write.

Yes, I often talk to myself.  

What are your thoughts?

Marketing: The Secret of John Locke's Success by Randy Ingermanson

Everywhere I turn, there's talk about John Locke's ebook, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS IN 5 MONTHS. I didn't pay much attention until I received the Advanced Fiction Writing Ezine and saw this article by Randy Ingermanson. I've subscribed to Ingermanson's Advanced Fiction Writing Ezine for a number of years. I trust it and it's loaded with information writers need to know. Subscription info is at the end of this article. (And yes, I bought John Locke's book.)

(Reprinted by Permission)

John Locke is a self-published novelist who has sold over a million copies of his e-books so far this year.

That's rather amazing. He's had as many as 8 of his novels on the Kindle Top 100 list at one time, all
priced at $.99.

There are people who think Locke got lucky. I've been told that Locke sells well because he produces short novels, writes decently well, prices his books low, releases new ones frequently, promotes them hard, and has the same name as a popular character on the TV series LOST.

All that may be true, but it doesn't explain why Locke's books were selling only a few dozen copies per month until last October, and then suddenly began selling hundreds (and now thousands) of copies per day, starting in November.

How does Locke explain his change in luck? He says that he changed his marketing strategy at the end of October. He says that he began doing things differently in early November, and he saw good results right away.

You can read all about it in Locke's latest $4.99 e-book, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS IN 5 MONTHS. Here's a short link to the description page on Amazon: http://amzn.to/ndd258

I recently read this book and it's radically changed my thinking in a couple of key areas. I consider it the best marketing book I've read in the last year, and it's the best fiction-marketing book that I've EVER read. (To be fair, there aren't many books on how to market fiction.)

Locke's book is a very quick read. It's thin, and it's even thinner if you consider that the first half is obvious stuff that "everybody knows," along with a discussion of all the things Locke tried that didn't
work.

If you already know all the things that "everybody knows" and you don't care about the things that don't work, you might decide to skip Parts 1 and 2.

On the other hand, since some of the things that "everybody knows" don't actually work very well, I suggest you read Parts 1 and 2 anyway.

It's not until Part 3, halfway into the book, that Locke unveils his marketing plan.

If you don't look closely, you might imagine that it's all the same stuff you've heard before. Most of the elements of Locke's plan are things we've all heard about: web sites, blogging, Twitter, e-mail, etc.

Locke only does a very few things differently than most people. That should be reassuring. He's using the same tools as most authors. He just uses them differently.

I've read through Locke's book twice now, taking it apart to figure out what the pieces are. There are four major tasks you must complete and there are two ongoing projects that you will keep doing indefinitely.

Locke doesn't list these in so many words anywhere in his book, nor does he give you any estimates of how much calendar time most of them normally require, so I'll do that here. The first four tasks have a definite end-point. The last two are open-ended:

* Define your General Target Audience (days of work)
* Create your book (months of work)
* Create your platform (weeks of work)
* Launch your book (one day of work)
* Grow your platform (ongoing effort for years)
* Market your book (ongoing effort for months)

Over the next few months, I'll talk about these in more detail in this column.

For today, I'll focus on the first step, defining your General Target Audience. All the other steps depend on this one. If you haven't done this, or if you haven't done it well, all your other efforts are going to be out of focus.

And what is a General Target Audience? It's the group of people who love the kind of books you write, or who would love your books if they knew about them.

Not just LIKE your books. LOVE your books. The people who, once they find out what you write, will buy anything you write.

Don't confuse your General Target Audience with the set of all people who have ever bought one of your books.

Some people in your General Target Audience may never have heard of you, much less bought one of your books. Your goal in marketing is to help them discover you.

And some people who've bought one of your books may not much like your writing. Your goal in marketing is to prevent similar people from buying your books because they probably won't enjoy them.

Your General Target Audience is crucial to get right. The reason is that the other five steps in producing and marketing books depends on them:

* When you create your book, you should do everything in your power to produce a a book that is perfectly targeted for your General Target Audience. You should be desperately trying to make this core niche group as happy as possible.

* When you create your platform (including a web site, blog, Facebook page, etc., you should do everything in your power to make it as appealing as possible to your General Target Audience. You really don't care about anyone except them. These are your people.

* When you launch your book, you should do everything in your power to reach those people in your General Target Audience. If you accidentally reach other people too who somewhat like your book, that's fine, but your General Target Audience will be the ones who love your book and spread the word.

* As you grow your platform over the years, you'll continue to focus on building an online presence that makes your General Target Audience happy. You'll focus on adding them to your e-mail database, and they'll be delighted to be there, because there's nothing they want more than to hear when your next book comes out.

* As you market each book over a period of months, you'll focus on crafting a message designed to appeal to people in your General Target Audience. These are your evangelists. You reach them; they'll reach everybody else.

You may be surprised to hear that John Locke prefers a small, sharply defined target audience. This is why he doesn't want to work with a major publisher, who would try to force him to have wider appeal and would thereby destroy the amazing loyalty of his actual readers.

This may sound like you're asking for a disaster--consciously trying to appeal to fewer readers. But it makes great marketing sense to focus on making one small niche exceptionally happy. Because that's how word-of-mouth gets going. Small fires burn hot.

Next month we'll look at some of the methods Locke uses to reach his target audience, using such ideas as the "Friendship Circle," the "Viral Circle," the "Loyalty Transfer Blog, and the "Guaranteed Buyer" e-mail list.

All of these are powerful tools, and if you can't wait to hear about them, go ahead and grab Locke's book and read it. Once again, a link to his Amazon page is here: http://amzn.to/ndd258

If you get his book, read his description of his target audience. It runs on for about a page and a half. Some parts of it are rather dull demographic stuff, which your publisher has probably already asked you to define.

In my view, the demographic stuff--age, gender, and socioeconomic status of Locke's reader (or your readers) are the least important part.

The real gold comes from knowing what emotive buttons your target audience wants pushed. Locke knows that his readers want a quick read but not a deep read. They aren't a bit worried that Locke's signature character, Donovan Creed, is an amoral bed-hopping assassin, because it's all just good clean sex and violence.

Locke's men readers would like to be Donovan Creed. His women readers would like to date Creed -- but not to marry him, because he's a lousy marriage risk. They like that he has potential.

Locke has plenty more info on his target audience, but you get the point. Locke knows exactly who he's writing for, and everything he does is aimed at pleasing those people. Nobody else. Just them.

Most people are not in John Locke's target audience. I'm not. You might or might be. You might find his books outrageous or offensive. Or you may find them hilarious and relaxing.

This is, I believe, a major part of Locke's secret. He writes so consciously and so specifically for one small class of people. He doesn't care about any other readers.

What that means is that there are plenty of people who don't fit in Locke's target audience -- but they might in yours or mine.

But they'll never know, and you'll never know, unless you first figure out exactly who YOU write for.
So let's get practical. You will probably never have much success in publishing unless you clearly define your General Target Audience. Let's take a first cut at it right now. It won't be perfect, but it's a start. You can polish it later.

Think about the following kinds of questions for a few minutes. This is not an exhaustive list. It's intended to get your mental juices flowing so you can ask the right questions about your particular General Target Audience:

* Who are you writing for? (No, no, no, the answer is not "everybody.")

* What are your readers looking for? Do they want to laugh? Cry? Think? Avoid thinking? Have a romance? An adventure? Both? Neither?

* Do your readers suffer from low self-esteem? Sneer at the "little" people? Don't care what anybody else thinks?

* What kinds of hero will make your reader cheer? A tough guy? Tough girl? A patriot? One with a soft side?

* What are the powerful forces in your reader's life? Religion? Politics? Science? Gaming? Exercise?

Give yourself 5 minutes to think about the above questions. Then give yourself 15 minutes to finish this sentence: "My ideal reader..."

Don't stop and think. Just type. Shoot for 500 words in 15 minutes. Drill out the words. You can edit them later. Just blast out thoughts.

Now save the results in a document named "My General Target Audience." You'll come back to this again and again over the years, and you'll refine it as you get more information from actual readers. But for now, you've got a target to shoot at.

Next month, we'll look at some of the other steps in the process of writing books for your General Target Audience and helping your General Target Audience discover you.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 26,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.