Webinar on Indie Author MagazineChris was on the Indie Author Magazine Webinar series last week talking about what Written Well does, his application of game theory to the self-publishing world, and how to make the best use of your keyword boxes on Amazon.
Building an ARC Team for ReviewsGetting reviews might be the single biggest determinant for how well your book sells. In all the studies I’ve seen, number of reviews has been rated highest for whether a reader will pick up a book by an unknown author. But it’s a catch-22. You need reviews for readers to take a flyer on an author they don’t know; but to get reviews, people need to read and review your book. The way around this conundrum is to use ARC — Advanced Reader Copies. The publishing industry has been using ARCs for years. They print uncorrected proofs, often missing some...
Kindle Trends ReviewSummary: Interesting data service with innovative visualizations and some truly useful info. Limited number of categories minimizes its usefulness. Cost: $15/month, or $10/month with coupon code INDYAUTHOR (if it’s still active). Kindle Trends is a fairly new service that sends weekly newsletters to your email with in-depth data about a number of genres. If it covered all the genres, it would be an immediate recommend, as you get a lot of data for the price, though as with most things data-oriented, it takes a fair amount of knowledge and work to massage that data into actionable plans. However, currently it...
Writing Great DialogueTaking up as much as half of a book, dialog might be the most important part of writing to master. And it is far more likely that readers will remember what a character said, rather than how great a certain description was. But how do you write great dialogue, and how do you do it consistently? Dialogue Isn’t Speech Note that the title of this article is writing great dialogue, not writing realistic dialogue. Great dialogue sparkles, illuminates character, provides worldbuilding, moves the plot along, and creates memorable scenese for the reader. It is often, however, not very realistic. Real...
The Three Act Story StructureThe Three Act Story Structure is one of the most basic story structures and one of the most useful, in my opinion. It gives the author plenty of room for inspiration, innovation, and invention while still keeping them on track to an exciting and satisfying conclusion. Some may need a more detailed plan (the 27 chapter structure extrudes this structure into granular detail), but for those who seek only a little order to help them tell their tale, this structure does the job.
The 27 Chapter StructureThe 27 Chapter structure is kind of a recursive version of the Three Act Structure, breaking down the three parts of each act into three chapters so that there are twenty-seven chapters. But the form of the three-act is still in there with the inciting incident, the plot twist, the midpoint, all falling in roughly the same spot as the three-act. It’s a good structure to reference if you’re lost or running out of ideas in the middle of the book. It can help you understand a little better how to move through the three-act structure — or any structure....
How to Avoid Cliched PhrasesCliches are sneaky little things. The commonness that makes them cliches also makes them hard to spot; we use them so often in our normal life, we write them without thinking. “It was raining cats and dogs.” “He was bored stiff.” “I’m down in the dumps.” They are all descriptive and everyone will know what you mean, but use them too often and readers will eventually be bored with your prose. I’d rather have someone hate my book than be bored by it. Here’s some simple methods to remove cliches from your writing. 1. Use strong words Cliche phrases are...
Not F*cking Up Sex Scenes: Making Love Make SenseIf your sex scene isn’t integral to the plot, then you’re not doing it right. Maybe you’ve heard that sex is just supposed to happen every fifty or a hundred pages. Wrong. Even if what you’re writing is erotic romance, the moment needs to be right, and something should happen to move the characters along or the scene will fall flat and feel gratuitous. The most important thing about writing a sex scene is remembering that it is, in fact, a scene like any other in your novel. That means that all the same rules apply. When writing sex, you...
Buying a Premade CoverSo, you need a cover for your book. It’s a big decision. You want something that you are proud of, but what you need is something that will sell. Assuming you have done your research (link to cover research video) and know what you are looking for, you might be ready to start looking at premade covers. But don’t forget, it’s not that hard to learn to DIY your cover (link to my making a cover with Canva video). Let’s start with the big question: Should I buy a premade book cover? If you aren’t going to design it yourself,...
Using the Appropriate Amount of Realism in Your WritingLike everything else in writing, the appropriate amount of realism is going to be very genre dependent. If you’re writing a gritty crime story, you’re going to want a lot of it; a fairy tale romance, maybe not so much. But how do you decide how much realism is right for your story, and how do you go about putting it in (or taking it out)? Let’s start with some examples. The first is from a story I was critiquing that was written by a very good writer. And one of the things this writer does extremely well is write...
