James Minter's Blog: Writers do it in Public... - Posts Tagged "writers"

WRITE-LIVELIHOOD: How to Craft a Writer's Business Plan by Ryan Petty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


First, I fully concur with Petty on the need for self-publishers to create a business plan. Second, I’m a self-confessed “How to …” book junky – I’m very happy to ride on the back of others shared experiences. There is always too much to do and too little time to do it in. Any shortcuts are welcome. With a book of this type I always pick up a nugget or two or three. Third, much of what Petty says in his book resonated with me.
Petty shows great commitment, enthusiasm and self-belief to his idea, and is truly passionate about his proposal. But for me the book didn’t really start until chapter 5. I had the feeling he was spending along time packing for a journey before actually setting off. Most of what was said in chapters 1 to 4 inclusive were, in my mind, the background thought processes he need to go through before being able to put pen to paper. He chose to share them with his audience which to me felt a bit unnecessary. This book is not for the fainted hearted, newbie indie-author but for the more seasoned self-published writer who needs to move their career forward. A good example of know your audience.
The split between writer, self-publisher and business strategist is useful and allows you to look at what you’re doing with three different heads on. I do question Petty’s maths when he suggests, as an author, 80% of your time should be spent writing and then talks about 15 hours per week. Remember this book is aimed at the professional writer who is looking to earn a living from his/her outpourings. I’m in that position and spend at least 45 hours or more per week writing, editing and promoting. Actual writing for me is about one third -15 hours or 33% of my time.
Petty does believe in writing more content – books in all their guises – short stories, novellas, full novels- finished to a professional standard and not striving for perfection. I’m fully behind him since perfection doesn’t exist. As he says “you need clarity in your writing not luminosity,” so stop polishing and move on to your next book.
He does include a couple of useful exercises; in particular the Relative Merits Review, to get you thinking around which book you should be writing and deciding where to focus your efforts. What’s more, the tool is available to download from his website: very useful.
Chapter 19 on Financial Scenarios is very misleading. I wish what Petty is saying was even half true but his starting point – Amazon pay 70% royalty on eBooks just isn’t the case unless you are selling to Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India (for more info look here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A... ) The truth is royalty payments are closer to 35% or half of what he is basing his financial scenarios on.
In conclusion, his style is evangelical and too wordy for me but he is on to a useful thing looking at the future direction of self-publishing and what “professional” writers need to become. Yes worth a read, yes worth following him and his ideas but they need distilling/refining for his intended audience.




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Advanced Twitter Strategies For Authors: Twitter Techniques To Help You Sell Your Book - In Under 15 Minutes A Day! by Ian Sutherland

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Advanced Twitter Strategies for Authors to Sell More Books – Ian Sutherland

‘How to …’ books are a blessing for busy people – there is so much to learn and so little time to learn it in. Books on using Twitter are many and varied in quality and usefulness. As an author myself, my view of the role of Twitter was it’s a great tool to schmoose the publishing industry but of little use for selling books. Ian Sutherland has changed my mind. ‘Advanced Twitter Strategies …’ was written by Ian from hard won experience, and the proof is in the number of twitter followers he has, and in his book sales rank available for anyone to see on Amazon. Okay, he is not number one but he is respectable placed given the millions of fiction books out there. It was after checking out these figures and noting his claim ‘I’ve struck gold!’ I decided to read and follow Ian’s techniques to the letter. Although at present I cannot report the same level of success (Ian went from 1,500 followers gained over four year period to plus 60,000 in a few months), it’s early days yet but already I’ve seen a marked improvement in the number of Twitter followers, I’ve divested myself on many laggards because of better targeting of whom I follow / unfollow, and I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of ‘lists’ I’ve been added to. What is more, Ian is ethical in his method – SHARP – is his byword (an acronym) which sums up his approach.
This book is not for the fainted hearted as you need a good basic understanding of and previous skills in using Twitter before adopting his techniques. Also it’s not a book to read in a few minutes – I suggest a reasonably detailed first read taking notes as you go, and then opening the book on your Kindle / Tablet alongside you PC screen so you can work through the setting up and configuration of the tools he recommends and illustrates in the text.
Once you’ve mastered the tools Ian gives a detailed plan of how to manage your Twitter account in 15 minutes per day freeing yourself up to do what fiction writers are supposed to be doing – creating jaw dropping stories.
I’m sold on this book, and very happy to give it five stars and to recommend it to all serious Twitter users be they authors or not.





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Blogging for Authors by Barb Drozdowich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As a self-published fiction author, besides writing great stories, I’m like all other authors, and need to jump through many hoops to get my books in front of my readers. Time is a premium, and in my opinion, “How to … “ books are a life saver, especially when written by Barbara Drozdowich. She is always honest and authentic, and writes her books to help—they are detailed, inclusive, tried and tested.
Looking at the Table of Contents will give you a quick insight to the breadth and depth of her coverage, yet she doesn't overburden the reader with unnecessary detail. The chapters are littered with links to other useful resources, which allows the reader to have a very personal experience when reading this book – a great benefit of digital books. To follow or not to follow a link, the choice is yours.
This book is essential for any serious author building their platform, and one that should prove a sound investment. Having read this book I now need to enact the advice, hints and tips, and that’s down to me. Highly recommended.




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Because Self-Publishing Works by V.V. Cam

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Self-publishing is now a very accepted way to bring your novel to market – even the most successful authors like JK Rowling are using this approach. However, writing a novel to the standards demanded by readers is, in many writers minds, the biggest and principle issue they face. As a self-published author of twelve books, believe me when I say that writing an attention-grabbing story, though significant, is only one step to becoming a successful author. The demands of the self-publishing process are high, complex, time-consuming, frustrating, bewildering and at times, make you question is it all worth it.
Any author going down the self-publishing road needs all the help they can get. As V.V Cam says in her introduction, there is a heap of information out there on the internet, but what she has done is make a good attempt at bringing it all together into a single place. By doing so this she’s made the information more accessible, as well as presenting it in a logically structured style – you only need to read the Table Of Contents to see that. Moreover, it is heavily spread with her own hard-won knowledge and experience gained by going through the process with her husband’s book. That’s why I love “How to…” books. They capture hard-won knowledge and experience and make it available in an easily consumable form so saving you making the same mistakes or going off tangent.
People write for many reasons, but not everyone attempts to publish their work. A useful device V.V Cam employs throughout the book is self-assessment questionnaires. In chapter two she offers one appropriate to answer the question – is self-publishing right for you. I recommend you complete this since you will better understand why your writing and if you’ve the time/tenacity/money to bring you book to the general public.
Self-publishing is a big, evolving process, and a guide such as this cannot be complete or totally up to date. As with all eBooks, it can constantly be corrected, amended, or added to. V.V Cam makes a good use of live links to allow the reader to explore some of the software products and tools she mentions.
I’m a visual person, and for me, I would like to have seen a diagram covering the whole process. That way each chapter could reference the diagram as the book unfolds so you can monitor your progress. By its very nature the publishing steps are interrelated, and on a few occasions reference is made to an item like ISBN’s or Tax Identification Number but not discussed until much later. Also, some recommendations like grabbing your Author page on Goodreads and Amazon were weak suggestions rather than being presented as a must do. Additionally, I felt chapters 6, 7, and 8 were rushed/sketchy and needed more attention.
In conclusion, a book worth purchasing but there are gaps, but in fairness writing the definitive guide would be near on impossible.
The author supplied me with a copy for the purpose of a review.



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