Michael Shank's Time Trap

This is pretty amazing. From the guy who did the George Lucas' Special Edition Trailer for Episode VII.

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Quest for an Audience: Promotion devotion.

The default response to the question I have found is: WRITE ANOTHER BOOK. Written in all caps and 36 point. Write books until you've authored a library.

Period.

And they're right, of course. The best way to promote a book is to write another, and by so doing, establish a presence in the field.

But I believe they are also wrong.

Writing a hundred thousand words, or even fifty thousand, takes time. And then it needs a thorough edit. So we're looking at a year or more before the next book comes out.

While that's in progress, there are many little things you can do to promote your work.

And I believe you should.

Kboards has more about publishing and promoting than you can shake a stick at, and the more I learn, the more I realize how difficult the road ahead is.

For what it's worth, here's what I have done:

I established a page on Goodreads. You just create an account, indicate you are an author, link to your book on Amazon for proof, and voila. I also created a blog, a Facebook page, and an Amazon Author page, and I've linked them all in to the blog.

I've joined several forums and began to participate in the online writing community. This not only helps you improve your work by presenting it for constructive criticism, but gives you exposure to people who are interested in reading. Most authors, after all, are avid readers as well.

I work a day job (yay), and I have set aside a small budget to fund my writing hobby. Most of it will go into purchasing artwork, which I am happy to do. The recession in 2008 hit the art community quite hard, and there are plenty of artists out there in need of work and support. I am all for helping people pursue their dreams, even live them if they can.

For my first book, I hired a wonderful and talented artist by the name of Nimit Malavia, who has done fantastic covers for Fables. He frequently works for Marvel and DC. He did a smashing job and I'm tremendously happy with his work.

I consider it money very well spent.

I also intend to set aside a small amount of cash for promotion, likely in the form of banner ads which I will run for a couple months. I plan on spending about $100 to $150 on this. This is fire and, mostly, forget. I will run the campaign using Google AdWords, which will keep statistics on how well the ads do. I am not expecting much, and I'm good with that.

I also intend to approach local publications that do book reviews, as well as review sites online. This will likely be difficult, as they are no doubt inundated by submissions, so I intend to tread carefully. This thread on kboards has some really useful information about reviews and how to get them.

I've also written a couple of short stories set in the same world as the book, which I'm submitting them to sci-fi magazines. There is little chance of getting in for a novice like me, but you never know. One must try. If they are rejected, I will then put them up for sale on KDP Amazon, and in so doing, build the collection of titles I have written. Who knows? An editor may like my writing and the submission may draw their attention to my novel.

I also intend to shorten the length of my books. The key seems to be having a LOT of published work, rather than a few epics.

Welcome to the new normal.

I think these are reasonable steps, and they won't break the bank or soak up all my time. I suspect I will be further ahead having done them than not, and they will not significantly slow the progress of my next book, which I am also working on. It will be my central effort.

The blog, this blog, will be focused on three topics:

1) Science fiction.
2) My promotional efforts.
3) My books, short stories, skits.

Blogs do better when they are focused like a laser on one narrow, niche topic. I've decided to focus for the moment on world building. Several of my crack crew of readers noted that I seem to like it. And I do, although I've tried to keep it to a minimum. I cut over 10,000 words of background material and 'world building' from an early edit, to help improve the flow.

But it's something I find interesting and have enthusiasm to write about, so that will be the subject of a series of posts.

Quest for an Audience will be the second topic.

I hope to write an article once or twice a month, on top of smaller, less involved posts. Every one of them is an opportunity to refine my writing skills.

Finally I will also post excerpts from new novels, short stories, and skits.

I'm not if any of it will be relevant, considering that just about anything I decide to write about will already be extensively covered by others. All I can offer is a strong POV and colourful opinions.

So far, my promotion efforts have not amounted to anything, but the book only went up a week ago.

I'm still digesting the author tips and tricks page on kboards.

I'll let you know how it goes, and in the meantime, I wish you all the success.

It's official: I have an Amazon author page.

The most flattering picture of myself that I could find on short notice. I look better once I've had my morning coffee.

Check it out here.

It even links back out to this blog.

It's almost like I'm tech savvy.

Almost.

Keeping track of your character arcs

Honestly, would you want to have your world conquest defeated by a bunch of preening teenagers?

Organizing all the elements required for a novel can be challenging. I struggled with it a lot writing Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom.

I now use sticky notes and cue cards, a tool taken from screenwriting.

If I have multiple characters with arcs, I create a set of sticky notes for each, detailing the steps in their emotional journey.

I use cue cards for scenes. They're easy to move around. Key plot points are usually key character points, so there's a good deal of overlap. But using stickies as well allows flexibility as you build the character up (or down). If I just work with plot points, character development becomes secondary and I lose track of the arc I'd planned. It's much harder to keep track of everything than you'd think when looking in from the outside.

I the cards and stickies all out on a board broken up into three acts, with the middle act being twice as long as the beginning and the end ones. I then place down the stickies on, or beside the cue cards.

This helps give me an overview of the writing 'battlefield' if you will. I can coordinate the various character arcs and the plot, see it all at a glance, and move things around as need be. Sometimes you want to spread out your arc more, or condense it, or you'll realize you can align the arcs of characters in an interesting way. If you can find different colors for your stickies, so much the better. You know where each character has a major transformative moment.

Use different color pens to note positive or negative changes. Have fun. Do what works for you.

Of course, once I have my outline done and start on the first draft, I often find myself going off track. I'm not saying my process works, or that I follow it perfectly, just that it helps me organize things in the beginning. Lays down the race track. My bad driving is another problem altogether.

An effective character arc can be easier to plan than execute.

You can find lots about structure in books like Blake Snyder's Save the Cat. Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker are also very good. They give a nice break down of plots frequently used in mythology, which also run in tandem with the character arc. In fact, plot elements are really just externalized representations of what's going on inside the main characters head.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was great for that sort of thing. They'd use the poor, doomed monster-of-the-week to throw into sharp relief a flaw, or personal dilemma, of one of the main characters. Tempt their greedy side. Play on their idealism. When you start from that position, it gives the story a very strong emotional hook. Sometimes, it really IS all about them. Very solipsistic in a way: the villains attempt to take over the world and cast humanity into everlasting darkness only happens to help a main character learn a lesson about sharing.

Personally, if I was a villain, I'd be rather put out. Let's not sugarcoat this: it takes a lot of hard work, planning, dedication, and determination to take over the world. People are always trying to stop you. Let's not even get into the logistical difficulties, or what to do with it once conquered. To have such a grandiloquent effort reduced to minor lesson in the life a whiny adolescent would make it so not worth trying.

But then, we read mostly for the emotional connection.

Something to get better at. 

Creativity: are you born with it?

And if so, are you nuts?

"For decades, scientists have been tinkering with the idea that genes may have a role to play in developing creative abilities in individuals. The association described above was suggested in a study of 300,000 people with mental illnesses carried out by scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden."

Learn more over at brainblogger.

Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

Publication calls for a promotional post. And a drink!

Check out the sweet cover by the sensational Nimit Malavia, of Fables fame!

Here's the book blurb in full:

In the barren post-apocalyptic future, former sex emporium Pleasurepit Five is the last bastion of human civilization. It has survived for a thousand years, weathering everything from nihilistic robots and gibbering megamutants to insane advertising campaigns.

Now another, long forgotten remnant of the ancient world has emerged from the smashed ruins: a rogue amusement park, under the sway of a Dark Lord wannabe. It's expanding at an exponential rate, threatening to reorganize the world into sanitized blandness.

To stop it, Pit citizen Magnum Thrax must whip a team of repurposed fembots into shape and lead them into a winner-takes-all battle for the future. Their only chance? Enlist the help of Technowitches and deliver a virus into the evil, beating heart of the Amusement Park of Doom. Yet to reach the witches, they must cross The Death Zone. Like, literally. And no one who enters it has ever emerged alive…