Top Tips

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I've been blogging for over four years, most of them on how to write in a more literary fashion.  I thought this week I'd do a round up on the most helpful techniques on which I've written when it comes to writing in a literary fashion.  Writing in a literary fashion is all about taking a simple story (about life, in poetic form, or in fiction form) and adding deeper meaning. 

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1. Find your passion.  Before you can write, you need to find what genre, what style, what characters, what meaning excites you.  Literary greats like Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens start with what excites them and makes them love to write.  Dickens had a passion to give insights about the plight of the poor.  Austen and the Brontes had a passion for writing romance.  Shakespeare loved history, comedy, and tragedy.  What drives you to read?  What drives you to write?  Whatever it is, read that.  Write that. 

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2. Plot at a deeper level, with meaning in mind.  Consider what motivates or drives your story.  This is where you can push past cliches to use outlining, types of conflict, balancing light and darkness, hero's journey principles (or the female version, if that works better with your character, base your story on a fairy tale or piece of classical literature (Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, etc), and/or consider themes as a foundation for your storyline (religious themes, social commentary, etc.). 

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3. Characterize main characters and antagonists at a deeper level, which can include intensive backstory planning, loss and tragedy, basing characters on a well-researched characterization system such as the Meyers-Briggs system or the enneagram (either of which can give a strong and deep basis for character relationships, so you don't have to do the work yourself), foils, archetypes such as the everyman, or on classical characters  (as in placing Darcy- and Lizzy-like characters in a Shakespeare yarn set in medieval France, the present, or a dystopic future), or on one of several interviews you can find online. 

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4. Consider perspective and the use of irony, personification, referencing literary material with shakespearean, biblical or allusion, foreshadowing in multiple ways, flashbacks, symbolism, themes, and any of a plethora of literary devices that can enhance the meaning that you plan for your story.  Decide how you will keep rule number one in writing, which is to help the reader feel. 

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5. Polish with meaning in mind.  Consider any writing devices you haven't already used such as polishing your voice, similes and metaphors, enhancing sensory imagery, deepening dialogue, enhancing emotional depth, unreliable narrators, and a balance of showing vs telling.  Examine and weigh words--and especially the working title--for depth, word play, poetic devices, etc. 

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6.  Send it out in the world to get help with revision from writer's groups, friends, beta readers, freelance editors. 

7.  Seek out an agent, publisher, or consider self-publication and research the process. 

Start over with a new piece.  You can do this. 

Step by Step Indie Publication

Next week, I will return to blogging about how to make each piece you write more literary.  This week, I will give you the boiled-down, simple steps to self-publication.  If you want more detail and further instructions on this process, you can look up online classes like https://thewritepractice.com/ and https://www.childrensbookformula.com/.  They have been amazing.  But here are the steps I followed just recently to break into print.  As I said last time, you're welcome to pursue an agent and regular publication.  But if you know your pieces don't follow a regular formula, if you don't want to be tied down with contracts, if you're tired of getting refusals, this may be the route for you. 

Here are the steps and(and some of them can be done in any order--the first two should really simultaneous):

1. Write, polish, get feedback from alpha and beta readers, polish again, send to a freelance editor, polish again.  Basically make the best piece(s) you possibly can.  If it's a kids' book, Fivrr and similar websites can direct you to an illustrator and cover designer for which you need to pay very little.  If you want to illustrate it yourself, that's fine, though keep in mind that a cover may do better if it's professionally done.  If you're just writing a short story or other short piece, you could find a picture you like from Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels, or other free-for-commercial use image.  It's great to cite your source, but you don't need to pay for it.  Make sure to read carefully all legal issues involved. 

2. Set up a writer's platform and make friends among the writing community, so they can share your stuff even as they share yours.  This includes a blog, a web page (it can be free, though it looks better if it is paid and has your name as the domain, for which you have to pay) on which you allow (through mailchimp, mailerlite, etc) the opportunity for readers to subscribe to an email list, Pinterest (which gives you permanent and free advertising), Twitter (get followers by following those eager to follow back, especially fellow writers), a FaceBook page, and any other social media you can find, with special emphasis on getting an email list. 

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3. Publish your story to KDP (Amazon's indie publication branch) and/or Draft2Digital (publishes to everything, including Amazon, though that requires extra steps) in order to get it into the hands of readers everywhere.  If you want to read your own piece or hire someone This is really the easy part and really only takes a few minutes. 

4. Invite your writer and other influencer friends to read your piece and write reviews, the more the better.  Send out messages to all of your social media, email lists, etc. that you're going to launch.  Launch.  Send out messages that the piece is available.  Get everyone you can giving reviews because anything fewer than about 25 reviews means you're not very visible on Amazon.  The more you can get, the better. 

Those are the bare-bones steps.  After that, it's just a matter of finding people to come and read your piece.  There really is a lot more to getting your piece known about and read.  Just doing this doesn't necessarily make you a lot of money.  But it will get you published.  If the goal is to be published, the only thing holding you back from publication is you. 

The hard part I'm still working on--as are many writers--is getting attention to the piece.  For that, you can think about media, ads, paying a PR firm, etc.  There are many classes and webinars out there to help you figure out the advertising end of things.  But if just seeing your name in print is the goal, it's easy.  I just don't want you to fall into the trap I did and pay someone to do this for you.  I let a company publish my academic theses, and they've been making all the money I haven't for my hard work.  I haven't seen a dime, yet I could have done all of this myself.  Don't let someone tell you that you have to pay for this.

You can do this for yourself.  You don't have to wait for someone to publish you.  Publishing firms do have PR for themselves and will get you read if all of this sounds like too much.  The drawback is that you are then, as I said, under contract, signing your work away for someone else to make money, and you're only seeing something like 10%.  On the other hand, 100% (minus Amazon's 30% or 70% fee, taken off the price people spend per book) of nothing is nothing if you can't get it read.  And once it's published any way, many publishers won't look at it.  Consider carefully.  Research.  Listen to some free webinars.  Figure out which is the best way for you, and just do it.  I sat on pages of writing for years.  I'm just now actually getting it out there.  I wish you the best. 

A Guide to Publishing Categories

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I've been blogging about writing in a more literary fashion; however, this post is going to be more of a summary of what I've learned about the publishing world from recent webinars, podcasts, and courses.  If you know this from other resources, this post may not be useful for you.  For those who have just started thinking you may want to get published one day, possibly one day soon, this is for you.  Once, traditional publication was pretty much the only racket in town if you didn't want to foot the bill for every step.  Now, you have traditional publication, indie publication, and everything in between. Now is really the time to publish if you haven't yet because there are so many options.  Step one is, of course, to write a book/story/poem/etc., unless you want to find a publisher/category/contest and write what they want, starting with what they're looking for. 

The first kind of publication is, of course, traditional publication.  From what I understand, they once had a stranglehold on what did and did not come into the spotlight.  In order to come to the attention of a conventional publisher, you first research through Writer's Market , Google, or some similar resource for specific publishers and their requirements.  Writer's Market (online) is a wonderful resource full of the most recent information, including the name of agents and publishers.  For a lot of publishers, they only accept agented manuscripts, but there are some smaller or lesser known presses that will accept you without an agent.  Know your genre.  Know the publisher, including specific names, and how to submit before you just start sending your manuscript everywhere.  The drawback of traditional publication is that they can be incredibly picky.  It's wonderful if your piece fits squarely into a niche that they're looking for.  If not, you need to send it to one right after another, researching and obeying their rules exactly, or you will get nowhere.  If you find a publisher, your standard cut is about 10%, give or take, often split with that agent, but you pay nothing up front.  My pieces are a little more niche than most, so I haven't had a lot of luck going this way.  If, however, you've just written something that squarely fits in one of these markets, this is a great way to go.  They do usually gain the rights to your book, unlike all the others on this list. 

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The second kind of publication is vanity press.  Vanity presses are eager to find your manuscript.  They will take just about anyone and will, indeed, help you get your piece published.  But you pay for everything, piecemeal, to do it.  They get their income from you and often charge a high premium in the thousands of dollars and beyond to produce something you may or may not be happy with.  Many of them are predatory, so you'll want to be sure to do your research in advance.  They often do little to nothing to market your piece without more money from you.  It's easy to get published here, but then you'll often be in the same boat as you would have been indie publishing and for a lot more money. Sometimes, getting published with one of these presses does nothing or something negative with your reputation as a writer.  Do a lot of research before you go forward with one of these.  I've periodically bumped into one of these and researched it, but I hesitated because they said I had to pretty much market myself unless I wanted to pay thousands on top of their base price. 

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Hybrid presses can, at first blush, look like a vanity press.  They do charge up front but not nearly as much and often take a much smaller cut of sales than a traditional publisher, if they take one at all.  They are more selective than vanity presses because they want to protect their reputation, which means they also want to protect yours.  They often include marketing in the fees you do pay.  They may limit their services but are clear about what they will and will not do for you, which may include marketing as part of the original fee.  I have found a hybrid publisher with which I will be working to produce my chapter book series.  Chapter book series are a very niche market simply because a lot of publishers don't want to occupy their space on short, cheap books on short paperback books.  My hybrid publisher will charge up front and will help me with marketing as part of the fee, but they will not take a percentage out of my sales.  I will be publishing my chapter books, at first, anyway, because producing one short chapter book would involve the same costs as publishing a set of books, so it makes a lot more sense to publish them in collections.  If you're looking at niche markets, this may be a good way to go if you can afford the up front fee and find one particular publisher that works for you. 

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My latest experience has been with indie publishing.  You keep all the rights and make all the money, above and beyond the fees that, say, Amazon might charge (30-70%, depending on the option you choose).  What you will pay up front here is the individual aspects of producing the books, including editing, marketing ads, covers, illustrations, etc.  It can be hard to get a lot of sales this way because you are your own marketer.  It is easy and fairly quick to publish your piece on KDP (Amazon's self-publishing wing) and Draft2Digital, which can make your book available worldwide, but getting reviews, readers, etc. can be a challenge.  It helps when you do have a writer's platform, an email list, etc.  Next time, I will spend longer on what I have learned and the classes in which I have learned this information, so you can consider pursuing a course like this to walk you through all of the steps of going from writer to indie published and (hopefully) successful writer.  If you're interested, you can look at my indie published short story to see what it looks like.  You can even publish paperbacks through the route I will talk about next time. 

Regardless of the route you elect, you will need to do research and make sure you have selected the publishing method, which is right for you.  A lot of people have found success through all of these routes.  Just know what you're doing before you pursue any of these routes.