How to write a novel: 8 Published!

Once The Syndrome Diaries was uploaded to Amazon, it was live within hours. There was a huge temptation to carry on fine-tuning the content and to hold back on publicity: one of the hardest things about publishing is letting go of your baby, knowing that it could still be better. Everything can be better, but there’s a danger of editing and editing and never letting the novel leave home. So I emailed,  tweeted and facebooked.

One sale. Just one person wanted to read my book.

At first, I was downhearted. Then I was confused: I knew at least three people had bought it. They’d told me. Then I realised: the reports analyse by territory. The default report is for .com, but there are separate figures for .co.uk. It was a huge relief to find the drop-down menu and see 7 more sales.

The toughest aspect of publishing has been the marketing. I get annoyed by repeated tweets so didn’t want to make that mistake, but I’ve probably been too cautious. So far, I’ve tweeted once for the ebook launch, once when I got the paperback proof and once when it received its first review (five stars!). I think I can probably get away with a little more than that. I generated some interest at a local reading event, though I spent more on other people’s books than I made on mine. Still, is that really so bad? I like reading as well as writing.

I’d love to share my sales figures, but my Amazon contract forbids me from doing so and I’d rather not get on the wrong side of my main sales channel. The rumoured ‘whoosh’ of sales hasn’t materialised, but the word is spreading, and the feedback has been positive. One frequent comment has been that the person doesn’t have a Kindle, so I’ve been blowing the trumpet for the free Kindle smartphone app. Originally, I was only going to publish an ebook, but a few people encouraged me to try Lulu.com’s print-on-demand service. I’ve had to price the paperback at £7.95 to cover costs, which is  a little high to generate impulse purchases (the ebook, at under £2, is more likely to do that) but it’s out there if anyone wants it! It was easy to take the Word document I’d prepared for the ebook and tweak it for Lulu, and I was lucky that the cover art I’d designed for the ebook doesn’t require a high resolution and actually looks pretty good as a hard copy. Other than my proof copy (about £8 including postage), I’ve not paid anything to make it available.

Self-publishing has to be considered a long-term project, with gradual awareness-raising alongside more novel-writing. And that’s fine. I’ve had loads of fun writing and publishing this first novel and I’ve no intention of stopping.

So that, in 8 blogs, is the story of a novel’s 2-year journey from NaNoWriMo 2010 to Amazon 2012.  If there’s anything I haven’t covered, or that you’d like more info on, please add your comment and I’ll do my best to help.

How to write a novel: 5 Writers’ Groups

There comes a point where, if you’re serious about getting your writing out into the world, you have to let other people see it. The first time I did this, about 10 years ago, was on a writing course. I wasn’t ready for it. I’d written very little, wanted to learn more, but felt compelled to perform. The class format was to write something in maybe 10 or 20 minutes, read it out, and have it critiqued. After a day at work, an evening of word-churning and being bashed back down wasn’t really for me. And so began an avoidance of writing groups.

At the beginning of this year, I knew that had to change. I was well into the editing process with The Syndrome Diaries, and it was time to see what others made of my writing. I made it my New Year’s resolution to join a group.

My first reading was nerve-wracking. I remember getting to the end of the passage, and being met with silence. I thought that I must have written a pile of rubbish and everyone was wondering how to tell me. But then the comments began: helpful, constructive and largely positive. I went home feeling that my writing was OK, and, more importantly, that I could make it better.

Since then, I found a group much closer to home, so I’ve been able to go more regularly than I was able to with the first group. Over time, I’ve come to recognise different styles of feedback and, when comments conflict, I can select which is most useful (which is not necessarily the most flattering!). That in itself is a writing skill.

You can’t please everyone all the time and that can manifest itself rather energetically in a group; this is another lesson I’ve had to learn. One week, Ben’s behaviour in The Syndrome Diaries sparked a particularly heated debate. I wasn’t expecting it and worried that I’d upset others in the group, and that my plot was ‘wrong.’ This is one of the disadvantages of a group: you read extracts, and without the whole, it can be disorientating or appear that someone’s behaviour lacks motives. That’s where your beta readers come in, and that’s the subject of the next instalment of the ‘How to write a novel’ blogs.

But let’s not forget: while a writing group might be your critics, they’re also your champions. Last night, a group member told me she was part way through The Syndrome Diaries, and that she couldn’t put it down. That was the moment when I first realised that the effort I’d put into my writing was now bringing enjoyment to a reader. It’s a moment I’ll always remember, and it’s a moment that I wouldn’t have had without the writers’ group.

Have you joined a writers’ group? Has it helped your writing?

The bit of marketing that people forget

Do you monitor your blog/twitter/Facebook stats?

It’s vital you know what’s working and what isn’t if you’re going to use your  time on social media productively. I know that this blog is the bit of my platform that sees the most action. That’s why this overdue posting is what I should have been doing instead of hanging out quite so much on Twitter.

This blog has been checked out 72 times this week, and it has 4 new followers, despite me not doing very much. This might be because I visited other blogs (I love visiting blogs!) and commented on them.

I’ve been reading tweets (I love reading tweets!) but failing to contribute. Still, I picked up 3 new followers and tweeted 23 times. I’ve tried to diversify my tweets, although they still have a bit of an academic bias. I suspect academics are  my main category of followers, so maybe that’s not so bad – if you want to know why, here’s my day job.

I posted a few times to my Facebook author page, and got a couple of likes for my 1990 youtube indie disco, but there is tumbleweed rolling across the dancefloor. Now that the page is there, it’s not high maintenance, but it’s rather pointless at the moment as a website can provide all the information and more. I’m hoping it will be home to discussions about the book once it’s published (assuming some people buy it!).

I made no effort at all with LinkedIn, and I still don’t ‘get’ it. In return, it made no effort with me.

Ultimately, none of this matters if there is no book. This week (please imagine a small trumpet fanfare) I finished my final ‘does it all hang together?’ read-through of The Syndrome Diaries, so I can now progress to the next stage: formatting it for Amazon.

Last week I mentioned putting together a sheet I could record stats on. Did I do it? Yes I did! That’s where the numbers above are pulled from. They are (ahem) modest, but useful as a picture of what happens if I slack off. That’s a good reason to turn up the activity this week and see how the figures compare.

Do you monitor your author platform? Is there anything you’ve found that surprised you? And do you ‘get’ LinkedIn?

I won! Now for some work…

I finished another draft novel yesterday, hitting the 50,000-word target at Camp NaNoWriMo. Will I do the regular NaNoWriMo in November? Quite probably! Nano is a useful exercise because it forces you to write, write, write and edit later. How many of us have started Chapter One, honed and honed it within an inch of its life, and never got any further? I also find that I’m more productive in my academic work if I’m writing regularly.

So it’s back to work on The Syndrome Diaries. I’ve had feedback from my beta readers who have been wonderfully picky and wonderfully encouraging too (sorry, they’re mine! You can’t have them!). I had specific requests not to change too much, but there are some things that need tweaking, so that will be completed in September.

If you’ve visited this blog before, you might also notice its name-change and some new pages across the top. I’m trying it out as a web presence on the recommendation of several people. I’m also trying to get out more in an online kind of way, which means reading more blogs. There are so many people out there with great blogs, entertaining and full of ideas, and I need to do more visiting. It often seems like an indulgence, but I know that it’s also motivating and creativity-boosting to see what other people are doing.

I need to set up a Facebook page for my novels, and also tweet more. I’ve no intention of doing those ‘Buy my book!’ tweets that make me unfollow people (see my blog on promotion a few weeks back), but I do want to be on people’s radar. It feels slightly dirty confessing to all my platform-building activities, as if I should be striving for my art and letting its quality do the rest, but this is the real world. And I said I’d blog what I was doing.

What do you think is the best way of raising awareness of your work without inviting unfollows and unfriends?