Originality is Dead

You may have heard from a cynic or two out there that there is no originality left in the world. They may have been referring to Hollywood’s penchant for sequels and remakes in order to make a quick buck or this guy, or they may have been referring to Harry Potter’s striking similarity Star Wars. So, are those cynics right? Is there, in fact, no originality left in the world? Have all of those jerks from Ancient Greece taken up all of the great stories of humanity while Shakespeare filled in the gaps a thousand or so years later?

I want to write a book--but how?

You're rocking back and forth in your desk chair, thinking, "I should do it. I should just do it." You swivel to face your computer screen and let your fingers hover over the keyboard for about ten seconds, then you roll back the chair, stand up, and go to the kitchen to stare inside the refrigerator because it's a lot easier than trying to figure out how to write a book.

Writing a book is less daunting once you figure out the basics can actually be quite simple. Continue reading for 5 easy steps.

Getting Your Genius in Print

 Let’s talk about publishing. That’s why you’re here, right? I mean, the blog’s titled “Publishing: Uncovered” so you must be wishing to uncover the ins and outs of publishing (…or you’re just a vociferous reader of blogs, which is okay too). That being the case, today’s topic will be on publishing your work. Now, there are many ways to get published, from large-run book publishing (which includes those on the New York Times Bestseller list and the like) to small-run book publishing (which includes books for niche markets or those with low-marketability: which of course doesn’t mean that they’re bad, just that the public-at-large isn’t ready for it), self-publishing (which the lovely Lyla P. has recently written on), and journal publishing (which publishes short fiction, poetry, short nonfiction, and essays in various zines, literary journals, and the like). For today’s post, I’ll be focusing upon journal publishing, and how to get your work into print.

  

     

New publisher offers BOTH traditional and indie publishing

It used to be publishers were exclusively traditional or indie-friendly.

1. Traditional: These publishers will typically only accept submissions from literary agents. The smaller ones will sometimes let you send your manuscript, yourself. But either way, if they don't like your work, they don't publish it, and you move on. If they do want to publish it, you may or may not get an advance, and your books will appear in bookstores nationwide. These are your Random Houses, your Harper Perennials, and your Little, Brown & Cos.

2. Indie-friendly (whether "vanity" or POD): they print what you send them and you pay to have the book distributed through online bookstores. (There's a little more to it than that, but the point is, there's no acceptance necessary from a publisher to use any of the self-publishing methods. No gate-keeper is stopping you from releasing your book to the virtual shelves.) These are your Lulus, your Xlibrises, your iUniverses, and your AuthorHouses.

Traditional publishers: Pretty books. Quality books. Professional books. Edited books. Good distribution.

Indie-friendly "vanity" or POD publishers: Not really edited (you can opt to pay for editing "services," but ... well ... ). So-so to really bad paper quality and flimsy, curling covers. Little to no bookstore distribution.

It used to be authors had to make a choice...

Nobody cares what your book cover looks like.

Keep telling yourself that as you, self-published (or "indie") author, create your title in Comic Sans with drop-shadows, inner glow, and some contouring to make it "pop," plopping it dead center on a free stock-photo image you found online.

"Ew," they'll say. "That book looks self-published."

Getting Some Distance

You have just finished your brilliant work—a piece that combines the wit of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman with the social commentary of Midnight’s Children and the style of Finnegan’s Wake—and you are soaring in the clouds. Your long-awaited goal as finally arrived and you are ready to pack your baby off to the nearest publisher and wait for the money and Pulitzers to roll in. But, before you do, there are some things you need to consider that, if they catch you unawares, could cause you to stumble and fall from your great heights in angsty, writerly frustration (Be honest, you’re a writer and thus have a slight tendency towards the melodramatic).

Write what you know. And don't.

"Write what you know" generates a lot of discussion, some arguments, and even some anger.

WRITER 1: What do you mean, "Write what you know"? If I wrote what I knew, I'd write about sunken couches and empty cashew tins.

WRITER 2:  Yes. Do that. Because you have felt the couch. You have eaten the cashews. You know the taste of the salt on your fingers, the corduroy rub of the flattened cushion under your buttocks. That is real. That is pain. Write it. Write!

WRITER 1: I'd rather use my imagination and write what I don't know, thank you very much. I want to write about angels.

WRITER 2: Are you an angel?

WRITER 1: No. I mean, I'm not not an angel. Like, I'm not a bad person, or anything, but I'm not--

WRITER  2: How can you write about angels if you don't know what it's like to be an angel?

This isn't what "Write what you know" means.

Are You Being Followed?: Self-Promotion in the Web 2.0 Age

Self-promotion of your new book has begun, you’ve printed advertisements, told your friends so much about your book they’ll buy it just to shut you up, and you’ve set up a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, you’ve even set up a MySpace page and a Friendster account, you name it, you’ve set it up on the tech front. But, now that you have all of these accounts opened, activated, and ready, you’re in sore need of something to fill your endless gigabytes of message board. I mean, you can’t just keep spamming “LOOK FOR MY BOOK ‘FLIGHT OF THE SALAMANDER’ AUGUST 24, 2011” for an entire year. This forward attempt may have worked with your friends and family, but the internet is a different beast altogether, one who is not above leaving a nasty comment on your wall and cutting off all further contact.

So, what do you do? Well, that’s a big question and requires different answers tailored to the specific social networking formats you’re using. Today’s post will center on the newest social networking site to hit the net; you’ve guessed it: Twitter.

Be a tortured artist, but don't be a spoiled writer.

You’ve written the book, and it’s good. It’s even published—whether by you or by a traditional publisher—and now you want people to read it.

But you don’t really want to have to think about how to GET them to read it, because you’re not a publicist or a marketer—you’re a writer. You spend minutes, many of them, searching for the perfect word (Work? no…Toil? nooope…Labor? yes! labor!). You craft your sentences with purpose, intentionally choosing words with a certain number of syllables (and maybe some assonance, too), and you place your commas (or refrain from placing them at all) very deliberately, all of it working together to draw the reader into the scene or the narrator’s mind and mood. You’ll even spend days—days!—pondering a character’s name—Paulo? Chadwick III? Bob?—until you find the perfect fit for your protagonist’s second cousin. How could you, an artist, be asked to—*choke*—sell your own books?

I say this in the nicest possible way: get over yourself.

The Secrets of Self-Marketing; or, You're Published, Now What?

So, you’ve managed to write your book, snagged a publisher, and are now wondering what you can do to help your book sell once it finishes its run through the publishing process. Well, it looks like you’re not the only one. Recently, the Huffington Post posted an article by publicist and marketing expert Arielle Ford concerning the various factors that motivate someone to buy one book over another. You can find the full article here. While short, it contains some useful information regarding what you yourself can do to drum up book sales both before and after your book hits the shelves. The article can be boiled down into three main ways in which you can work up your audience into a buying frenzy for your book.

Blogger's Block

Today I will be writing about that Sauron to your creativity’s Frodo, that Magneto to your intellect’s Professor X, and that Jar Jar Binks to your inner fanboy’s self-respect. Today, I will be writing about writer’s block.

The irony of writing about writer’s block does not go unnoticed by me, your heroic blogger. I came up with this topic following a desperate bout with this ultimate evil that left me with a fragment of an idea and a near-concussion after applying my forehead to the desk multiple times with increasing force. Now, I wouldn’t suggest such a response to writer’s block if one can help it. If not professionally done, the Head-Desk Method will only result in blunt trauma, a trip to the hospital, and possibly a broken keyboard. So, you may be asking, how do the non-“professionals” deal with this juggernaut if we don’t wish to fork over the money for a new keyboard? Well, I’m glad you asked, as it will provide me with a post for today.

In Defense of Ghostwriting...

Justin Bieber is getting a lot of flak for writing his memoirs at 16. Not only is it difficult to buy that a 16-year-old could have enough to say to fill twenty pages, never mind a book, but it’s just as hard—primarily

[Photo: www.deadline.com]

for writers who have been struggling for years to have their own work published—to see “Bieber” and “write” and “book” and “published” in the same sentence. Not because he’s not capable of writing a book—maybe he is, maybe he isn’t—but because we all know what he does, and it’s not writing. He sings. He performs. He does talk shows and guest appearances on “Saturday Night Live.” Who has time to write with that kind of schedule?

“He’ll probably have a ghost writer,” writers who write their own work scoff.