Monthly Archives: August 2011

08/27/11

The Big Bang: The Origin of the Novels

Have you ever gone back and read your fiction from long ago? Found hidden gems within sentences long forgotten? A scene that makes you cringe because it’s so awkwardly staged?

I found very old handwritten pages, and in them, I can count at least five separate novels in one story. This must be the big bang of my novels. All my ideas, some prototypes of my characters, all clustered together in once place. As I realized that more than one story was within, I began to separate the plotlines and characters into their own stories, but even this wasn’t enough. One character kept migrating, unable to find her own galaxy, but she didn’t want to be forgotten. Some plotlines didn’t belong in certain stories and eventually found their place in another. It seemed to take eons for the concepts for these novels to develop fully. Even as recently as a few months ago, two stories merged like colliding galaxies, forming a new, bright entity that is better formed.

And as in in the universe, some stars go supernova or simply burn out into lifeless shells. They weren’t strong enough to endure the creative process. When I asked myself why I was working on a particular story, I asked myself key questions: What is the point of it? Is it strong enough to have an impact on readers? Will they care of about these characters? Sometimes the answer is no. If the elements that make you love such stories can’t be transferred to another work, maybe it’s best to just let it go.

The point is that there is only so much time. Take the strongest ideas that will shine the most and develop them. Be patient. After the first draft, let it rest… for several months or even longer…to get a fresh perspective. Work on something else in the meantime. Each short story, each novel or series, is a world or galaxy unto itself. They can take what feels like eons to take that formation that you know in your heart is just right, and ready to publish or find the right agent to steward it through the traditional publishing process.

When I look back on my old writing, some of it on yellowed paper, scribbled in pencil that is now fading, I know I can still learn from it. Maybe even repurpose some of it…salvage that one hidden gem of a sentence and place it where it will shine brightly in a new novel. Never throw any of it away, even if you come to a boiling point and become so frustrated that you question your ability to be a writer. Just wait, keep each version as you revise, edit, and revise again. The danger with our technology is that we can write over the original and hit delete on the older versions—so how can you see how you’ve developed as a writer? Keep track changes on? I save old versions separately when I get to each major revision. The Veiled Mirror went through nine revisions, and each iteration remains whole. It’s part of the art of being a writer. You’re building resources, and when the mood strikes, you can go back, and see how it all began.

08/18/11

Connecting the Dots: Shaping a Marketing Plan with Google URL Builder and Bit.ly

Since I published my novel as an ebook in January 2010 and in paperback in October 2010, my marketing plan has developed organically. At first, I wrote up a two-page plan with variations of bios and blurbs, and links to websites and social networks. I used the pre-written promos anywhere I could. Over time, some sites grew increasingly active, while others seemed less dynamic.

My initial approach was very Zen: just post wherever it seemed right; set up a free profile page here, another there, post a few notes on my Facebook page, and come what may. Que sera, sera. But over time, I began to wonder what drives successful sales of the book, or traffic to this blog?

After reading other blog posts, I realized it was time to connect the dots, so I know where to focus my energy. Google, being ever–awesome for data management, serves as my central resource. I use a Google Analytics plug-in in conjunction with Dreamhost/Wordpress.org for a broader view of traffic to the blog. I uploaded my book to Google Books and have found their reporting system very useful. I can easily track peak times when my book is viewed. The trigger? Twitter! In July, Smashwords encouraged its authors to enroll their books in a site-wide sale. Every time I sent a tweet about it, traffic peaked across the board in numbers that truly surprised me. There’s a sense of serendipity about Twitter that I love: how I come to follow people, how they come to follow me, the unexpected resources I’m introduced to (to say nothing of the super-smart nerd humor I adore!)…it’s by far one of the most valuable social media channel for me. Goodreads and Bookbuzzr have been successful for me as well. And for an essential written resource that is updated as circumstances evolve, I highly recommend the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, available for free download in a variety of formats.

But I have a new method to experiment with: combining Google, Twitter, and Bit.ly. It’s a system recently introduced at my day job to track the effectiveness of our paper mailings and broadcast emails, and I’m curious to see how it will help me as a novelist. Here’s how it works:

  1. Use the Google Analytics URL Builder to create a tagged link. For best results, create one for each medium you want to experiment with. Enter the site you want to track, and fill in the details to help you track your “campaign” i.e., is it going out via email, tweet, postcard, etc.? Click generate URL, and your web address is now tagged.
  2. Set up a Bit.ly account. Enter your newly tagged URL from the Google Analytics URL Builder and click shorten. The shortened, tweetable link will appear in your account’s history. You may want to rename the title of the project so it’s easier to view as you create more over time.
  3. Use this link in one communication. Create additional Bit.ly links via your Google Analytics URL Builder as outlined above, and check back to the Bit.ly site to manage the reports. You can compare each communication and make note of lessons learned. What day of the week or time of day do you get the most traffic per tweet? If you post one of these links on another blog or website, how much traffic do you get for posting a comment with a link to your site? And if you’re a Smashwords author, do you notice a spike in purchases or downloads?

It all takes very little time to set up, and so far, the information I’m getting from it is very useful. In the long run, I believe it will help me save time as I learn the patterns of success (or lack thereof!). There’s always room to experiment, especially in the realm of social media and the internet, but building a framework to track what works  helps shape the plan, and you’ll better be able to navigate what can feel like a tumultuous storm where your voice is drowned out, or a dead-still and windless sea, with no other ships on the horizon.

 

08/7/11

New short story: Ivy League Crypt

Free short story, Ivy League Crypt, available on Smashwords.com

OK, so I admit, there’s a bit of an inside joke here, but it was irresistible. Last year, I was asked to be a teaching assistant and course grader for a new course at Harvard Extension called The Vampire in Literature and Film. Participating in the course helped me get over my insecurities about writing within a genre, which I wrote about in a blog post after the course was done. It was a hugely popular course, with nearly 200 unabashedly proud fans of vampire fiction. Certainly, some held to their particular favorite series, be it Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books, the Twilight series, or Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, and the in-class discussions were fascinating. It was so popular that it’s being repeated again for this fall term, as a distance-only course, open to all.

Reading a stack of vampire novels, one after another, has its effect. I’ve always been a fan of the genre, and the experience coincided nicely with the paperback release of my first novel, The Veiled Mirror: The Story of Prince Vlad Dracula’s Lost Love. The ebook version had been out for nearly a year.

A few months after the course was over, the Extension School was in the midst of a new online program called Freethink@Harvard, where guest speakers would present a topic in a specially designed classroom for online learning,  and alumni and students world wide participated via chat and email. One event featured Professor John Stilgoe, Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape. It was called “The Obvious Secrets of Harvard Yard.” In it, he talked about a crypt that lay under the stairs of Sever Hall. After having just been involved in a course that focused on vampires, how could I pass up the opportunity to connect the two? The scribbled idea remained in my notebook for several months before the story formed a cohesive plot in my imagination.

What I intended to be a one-off short story has become more enduring. The imagery in Ivy League Crypt has stayed with me, and now I have an idea to keep it running as a series, and it will probably be its own novel somewhere down the road. It’s available for free on Smashwords.com.