In self-publishing, you are the project manager and you are the one to hire contractors as editors, cover artists, etc. but the profits of your labor STILL flows back to you.
There are some really unscrupulous people out there who would love to steal your money. Be careful who you trust. Before giving anyone in the business money, ask around, research, and read reports from other authors. It might save your wallet.
Your assignment: Read and edit chapters 16 - 20 of your manuscript, checking for flow and consistency.
Day 353
The Merch
Keep a running list of anything you make up in your stories. Yep, we’re still big on lists.
Funny sayings
Town mottos
Original T-shirts your characters wear
Anything any of your characters are famous for within the pages of your books
An animal who shows up in a scene
This will make promo easier. You can put your funny sayings on T-shirts and coffee mugs to give or sell. You can make or commission artwork, posters, shareables, teasers and so much more, to promote your book online. The animal in your book can have his own Instagram page with pictures…and probably a million more followers than you.
Basically, if you make it up, try to find a way to use it for some type of promo.
Your assignment: Read and edit chapters 21 - 25, checking for flow and consistency.
Day 354
Your Personal Brand
Your personal brand is, well, you the author. Your established readers will identify you by name and know what type of book you write at a glance. New readers need to get to know you.
A tagline can help! It acts as a short, punchy line—like the tagline on a book cover, only you are selling yourself as an author rather than a specific book.
Example: There’s a list on Goodreads titled “Romance with bite.” With that one tagline, you can probably guess they are referring to vampire romances.
JILL: Don’t be afraid to change your brand tagline from time to time. Because I write in a variety of sensuality levels now, I use: Sweet or Spicy?
GENA: I write in multiple subgenres within romance—paranormal, contemporary, fantasy, retellings, and young adult—with a wide range of tones–dark, light, funny, serious, violent, sweetish, sexy–so I use taglines for my series rather than myself.
Enter the dark world of Atlantis…
Dare to open Pandora’s box…
Original heartbreakers…original sin.
Love, laughter and sexy men!
Need a tagline to describe you and/or your writing as a whole? Well, first you’ll need to nail down the basics about your work. Sexy, sweet? Fast-paced? Emotional? Fantastical? Quirky? Light? Dark? Snarky? Edgy? Black and white, or with lots of gray? What are your themes? What do you like best about your book(s)?
Make a list of the descriptive words that intrigue you most. Then, play around with them. Put them together. Come up with short sentences. Mix and match.
Your assignment: Read and edit chapters 26 - 30 of your manuscript.
Bonus assignment: Did you read a quote from other authors mentioned in All Write Already? Visit their websites and check out their taglines.
Day 355
A Trick to increase Productivity
First of all, congrats! Yesterday, you finished a second read-through of your novel. Another amazing accomplishment!
Did you enjoy your novel more or less this time? Anything left to fix?
Second, you’re one step closer to beginning your second novel. We have a pro-tip to help hopefully increase your productivity. Whenever we begin writing a book, we pretend someone else has come up with the same idea and only one of us can publish it. This helps light a fire under us to get it done. And you know what? A few times, someone else has, in fact, had a similar idea around the same time.
GENA: I lost my first book deal this way. Three days after I’d sold my first two books, told everyone I knew, and announced online, the deal fell through because another publishing house had just bought a different author with a similar idea.
Never take your ideas for granted.
Focus. Magnify. Accomplish. Triumph!
Your assignment: Fix any remaining problems with your manuscript.
Day 356
Agents
With the rise of self-publishing, fewer authors are seeking literary agents. To determine whether you need one, examine your options and decide which publishing path works best for you.
Usually, agents charge 15% of every dollar you make. They contact publishing houses on your behalf. They submit your manuscript to editors. Some agents maintain relationships with those editors and always know what they prefer. Agents also handle problems with the publisher if one should occur.
Plan to submit to publishing houses? You might need an agent. Some publishers do not accept unagented manuscripts. If they do, those unagented manuscripts can be transferred into “the slush pile,” where manuscripts go to die. Though many books have been discovered in the slush pile, expect a long wait.
Want to know how to find an agent? Ask around. Look at the careers of authors you’d use as a benchmark. Read their book dedications. Is an agent listed? Now you know who to query. Are you affiliated with a professional organization? Often they keep records of complaints filed against them.
Follow agents on Twitter. Often they will put a call out for what they’d like to represent. Participate in #pitmad (a pitch opportunity on Twitter) and follow the rules. If PitMad is running an #OwnVoices session, and this doesn’t apply to you, read and learn so you’re ready for the next session that does apply to you.
Please note: A good agent will not charge you until they’ve made a sale.
Your assignment: Begin a final read through of your novel. Read the first 10 chapters. Does everything flow?
Day 357
Reflect and Catch Up
Merline Lovelace is a mentor to us both. She has always been there with encouragement and friendly advice since before we were published. With over 100 books to her name, we couldn’t be more excited to share some of the wisdom she has given us over the years.
—Jill and Gena
Don’t get so lost in the creative side of writing that you lose sight of the fact that publishing is a stone cold business. Treat it as such even before you put those first, brilliant words on paper. So I highly recommend that you: 1 - track every expense, from mileage to laptops to ink cartridges, organization dues and more, then deduct those expenses in your taxes. (Check out Peter Jason Riley’s excellent New Tax Guide for Writers, Artists, Performers, and Other Creative People, available on Amazon). And 2 - sell yourself as well as your story. Publishers want to invest their time and dollars in writers who have more than one book in them, can meet deadlines, and won’t be drama queens when it comes to edits and/or revisions. I always added a one-page bio detailing my professional background with each submission or included the information in the query letter.
—Bestselling Author Merline Lovelace
Day 358
Back Cover Blurb
A back cover blurb serves one purpose: to hook readers. This isn’t the place for extraneous details. This isn’t a place to explain anything other than why people should want to read your book. Your job? Hook them with your tropes and theme(s).
We tend to write three paragraph blurbs. One paragraph to make the reader want to learn more about the hero, one to make the reader want to learn more about the heroine, and one hinting at the plot driving them forward, ending with a hook. Always end with a hook.
JILL: I like to pack the first sentence with as much detail as possible or go with a tantalizing hook. In traditional publishing, your editor will often write the blurb with their house style. In self-publishing, you can hire someone to write it for you or write it yourself. Seek input from a trusted reader or author. Here’s the back cover blurb Gena and I crafted for Fun & Games:
The woman who has sworn off romance finds
herself trapped inside a romance novel…
Some think fate rules their lives. Others by chance. But Annalise Morrison knows who crafts her destiny–an interfering author hag. If Annalise ever finds that meddling writer, she is going to shove that keyboard down her throat. No one is going to tell her who to date, but grrr…why must Theo Griffin be so hot?
The man who's only looking for a little fun and games finds a whole lot of trouble...
Theo Griffin’s down to play hero to Annalise’s heroine. He’s all in for any kind of action between the sheets this novel requires. That’s what the hero does in these kinds of books, right? But this sexy woman entices him to ditch his plans and tempts him to give more of himself than he ever thought possible. Will he turn his back on love…or surrender?
It’s fun and games until the emotions turn real...
GENA: One of my favorite back cover blurbs is from The Darkest Warrior. When I wrote it, I used the three paragraph structure:
He is ice…
Puck the Undefeated, host of the demon of Indifference, cannot experience emotion without punishment, so he allows himself to feel nothing. Until her. According to ancient prophecy, she is the key to avenging his past, saving his realm and ruling as king. All he must do? Steal her from the man she loves—and marry her.
She is fire…
Gillian Shaw has suffered many tragedies in her too-short life, but nothing could have prepared the fragile human for her transition into immortality. To survive, she must wed a horned monster who both intrigues and frightens her…and become the warrior queen she was born to be.
Together they burn.
As a rising sense of possession and obsession overtake Puck, so does insatiable lust. The more he learns about his clever, resourceful wife, the more he craves her. And the more time Gillian spends with her protective husband, the more she aches for him. But the prophecy also predicts an unhappily-ever-after. Can Puck defeat fate itself to keep the woman who brought his deadened heart back to life? Or will they succumb to destiny, losing each other…and everything they’ve been fighting for?
Your assignment: Read the next 10 chapters of your novel.
Bonus assignment: Read the blurbs for your favorite books. Dissect them. Study their word choices. The layout. Now, draft your book’s blurb. Do you recognize tropes and themes?
Day 359
Crafting Your Elevator Pitch
Let’s stay you’re or stuck in an elevator with the editor of your dreams. She asks you about your story. You know you have two sentences to wow her. So what do you say? That is your elevator pitch. A short and sweet description of your book meant to hook a reader hard and fast.
GENA: My elevator pitch for my book The Darkest Night was: “An immortal warrior is murdered every night, only to awaken the next morning knowing he has to die again.”
And here’s the elevator pitch for one of my newer books, The Darkest Assassin: “What happens when a ruthless warrior angel falls in love with the demon-possessed beauty he’s been ordered to kill?”
I used the word “ruthless” to describe the hero because it lets my target audience know he’s an alpha, which is a popular trope in romance. My hook is the idea that a hardened man who might not love easily falls for the one person he cannot have, so what’s his next move gonna be?
JILL: My elevator pitch for Naked Thrill and Naked Pursuit was: The Lost Weekend Series. Two couples. One very long night. Some people just can’t handle dating. I followed it up with quotes from all four characters:
“If I had a dollar for every time I woke up with a naked man stretched out on the floor next to my bed, I'd have... a dollar. And who's giving out this dollar anyway, and with inflation, shouldn't it be more like five? Seriously, I really need the money!”
~Hayden Taylor, recent grad with a ton of debt
“My credit card, car keys and phone are all missing. But considering a gorgeous, naked woman just woke me up – I'll call it a win!”
~Anthony Garcia, documentary filmmaker
“Sure, I'm willing to try the whole mild bondage and handcuffs thing as much as the next girl... I'd just prefer not to do it when I'm running for my life.”
~Stella Holbrook, med student
“I had my chief's orders: nothing but rest and relaxation or my sorry ass would be out of a job. But waking up in a bathtub with a gorgeous woman's head in my lap just might be the biggest rush of my life, and I'm not ready for it to end.”
~Owen Perkins, smokejumper
Your assignment: Read the final 10 chapters of your manuscript.
Bonus assignment: Write an elevator pitch for your story.
Day 360
Promo Tip—Save Deleted Scenes
Save your deleted scenes. You can offer them as bonus material for newsletter subscribers or prizes for contests. You can even retool them and add them to a different book.
JILL: I’m a bit of a hoarder. I admit it. I have saved every scene I have ever cut from a book. I always think I will recycle this scene into a later book. Have I? I don’t think so, but there’s something about deleting a scene wholesale that hurts my heart.
GENA: I’ve used deleted scenes as bonus material in the backs of books. I’ve also compiled different scenes I’ve written and packaged them together in a bonus book. (Down the Rabbit Hole, and Kat in Zombieland.)
That way, your work is never wasted!
Your assignment: You’ve now done two complete read-throughs of your book. Decide whether you are ready for the next stage. Or, does your story require more changes?
Day 361
Creating a Book Bible
Maybe you hope to write a trilogy, or even a long-running series. Maybe you’re writing a stand-alone novel.
What if your readers fall in love with the world and want more, and you decided to turn your stand-alone into a series?
You might want to create a series bible. A document with every detail you’ve written about your world and your characters, including major events and outstanding questions yet to answer.
The more you write, the easier it is to forget a character’s eye color, job or backstory. Details and scenes blend together, and what’s original writing versus what’s been added later. A series bible is an easy access fast-pass when you are writing a new novel in your series.
Your assignment: If necessary, write any outstanding scenes for your novel.
Bonus assignment: Create a list of everything you’ll need to track within your book. Add the details you’ve already written. What a great start!
Day 362
How To Craft A Synopsis
The purpose of the synopsis is to “sell” your idea to an agent or editor. Many publishers require this step with the understanding that the final version novel may stray. A synopsis will also keep you focused on the story as you move forward. Some authors prefer to write their synopsis before the book, so they have a detailed roadmap of their story. Some prefer to write it after.
JILL: I usually will stop after the first chapter or the word vomit stage to examine my idea—will it sustain a full manuscript? Am I still interested in it? How much research will it require? I may let my Internal Editor out just to put her toe in the water, not a full dive. If I want to move forward, I write a loose synopsis, lock the IE away and get right back into frenzied first draft mode.
Regardless of the tense you chose in the manuscript, synopses are written in the present. In length, the old standard was one page for every 10,000 words. However, many editors prefer a much shorter synopsis now, around five pages and even less.
JILL: I begin my synopsis with what you’d typically see as the first line of the back cover blurb. For At the Heart of Christmas it was:
Hiring him could be her best idea.
Or her worst mistake.
Next, you introduce the characters, including their RANGE and plot using what you used with the SEARCH assignment. Keep in mind tone, theme and level of sensuality within your synopsis, it should mirror your manu
script.
You’ll need to mention what the characters want and need, the climax of the story, and how the book ends.
Your assignment: Begin crafting a synopsis for your story. Try to get the bare bones down. If you need an example, jump ahead to tomorrow’s lesson, Day 363.
Day 363
Synopsis: An Example
GENA: Because I was selling a new series and I hadn’t yet written book 1, my publisher wanted to know where I planned to take the story. So, I wrote a detailed synopsis with highs and lows I expected to write about. And, while the below synopsis is how I thought I’d write the book, I ended up going a different route in the end. So, if you’ve read Alice in Zombieland, you’ll find many differences between this synopsis and the actual story.
All Write Already: Year Of Your Book Page 27
