Guest Post - The 7 NF Tips Every Fiction Author NEEDS

Today, I have a special guest at Da Muse!  It's none other than the awesome and talented Christine Fonseca, whose new book 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids is racing out of the gate with a bang.  Without further ado, take it away Christine.

Thanks, Eric, for hosting my last stop on the tour. Eric asked me to talk about the things I’ve learned on this little journey into nonfiction publishing – things that apply to my life as a fiction author. Things every fiction author needs to know.

Wow – what I’ve learned. There are so many things I discovered on this path of publishing two nonfiction books, one geared for adults and one geared for kids. Both are niche books, both are published through a very very small publisher. One is considered an educational title, with a very limited distribution, and the other is a trade publication. And both are heavily marketed by me.

The results - The first has significantly exceeded publisher expectations. The second – well, it was just released, so time will tell on that one.

So, what did I learn throughout this experience? First, nothing replaces writing a good book! NOTHING. As new writers we spend a lot of time fretting about our platforms and marketing. Sometimes we allow this fretting to get in the way of writing – bad idea. This entire journey starts, and continues, with a good book.

That said, a good book isn’t enough to get it in the hands of readers unless you are backed by a big publisher. For the majority of us, this means we are going to have to promote our work, whether we like it or not. And that is where the lessons I learned in publishing my nonfiction books can really help all writers:

1. Know Your Market.

Before you design a promotional campaign of any form, it is important to have a clear understanding of your primary and secondary markets. With nonfiction, most authors figured this out when they wrote the “marketing” section of their proposals. Fiction authors should go through this process too. Ask yourself who the book is for – teens, children, adults? Who is the secondary market for the book? With Emotional Intensity, the primary market is parents and educators. Psychologists and other personnel involved in gifted education for a secondary market.

For 101 Success Secrets, the primary market is kids. Parents form a secondary market.

2. Know Your Comfort Zone.

As with all forms of social networking and marketing, it is important to know your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Are you comfortable speaking in person to a large group, or is Skyping or chatting more your thing? Do you like to cold call potential hosts for tours, or does the thought of that give you hives? Knowing your comfort zone is important. Don’t spent a lot of time doing things you hate – you will only make yourself crazy. Instead, spend your time promoting in ways that you are comfortable with. In today’s market, you are really only limited in terms of promotion by your own comfort level. So, get to know what works best for you and your book. Then repeat it over and over again.

3. Set Clear Goals for Promotion.

I have a background in marketing in sales (before my days as a psychologist), so the first thing I did was set clear monthly goals for promotion. I planned one major event – blog tour, book signing, speaking engagement – monthly. I’ve really tried to space out the events to keep the message from getting muddled and maintain a regularly presence. I have maintained these goals for both books

4. Blog Tours and Book Tours.

These are both fabulous ways to connect with readers. The important thing to remember – planning. With blog tours, ask people in your particular niche to host a leg. If you are targeting teens, for example, try to have a blog that is frequented by teens host a leg of the tour. The same is true with book tours – market to both chain and independent booksellers. Do your homework; know which stores are well connected with your niche. A couple of other things to keep in mind:

·         Start early – proper planning of events is really a key.

·         Know the expectations of the host. Ask questions about how they envision your visit, or what they see as their role in the blog tour.

·         Stay organized – use spreadsheets and other organization tools to keep track of the places you pitched too, the hosts of your tour, and any giveaways.

·         Send reminders to participants. We are all busy and it is easy to forget things. Take on that burden and don’t be alarmed when things get forgotten. Just be prepared.

·         Remember to follow-up with a thank you. There is no substitution for good manners! Personal thank you notes go a long way to letting your hosts know how much you appreciated working with them

5. Other Venues to Connect with Readers.

I love doing Author chats. In fact, my author chats are really the reason I have sold as well as I have. In addition to in-person events, I am involved in webinars and events on SecondLife. These are amazing ways to connect with readers and enable you to “go global”. I cannot tell you how excited I am to host a global bookchat in a few weeks.

Be willing to get creative and look for new ways to connect your message to your market. For my newest book, 101 Success Secrets, I have created all new reader-experiences to bring to my book chats. I can’t wait to see how they work out.

6. Using Social Networking sites.

Promoting your message is about creating buzz. In this day and age, it is easier than ever to create buzz on a large scale. But, how do you separate yourself from all the noise out there? That’s easy. Be creative. Do something unique and different – and then make sure EVERYONE knows about it. For my niche, the message itself is unique to the market. So my job was getting it to the right people. Utilizing niche-specific social networking venues (#gtchat on twitter, participating in gifted groups on facebook), I have been able to bring awareness to my message, and my books, directly to those most likely to read it.

This same process applies to fiction – if you are a YA writer, for example, utilize creative sites that teens frequent, and find tie-ins for your specific project. Connect with your readers – that is the key.

7. You Are Only As Good As Your Last Book.

Finally, people have short attention spans. This means the message you have is easily replaced by the next greatest thing out there. To keep your sales up and your message heard, it is important to keep writing. Produce new content – either on a blog, or in a newsletter. Respond in fresh ways to the questions readers have. And write new books. This is how you cultivate a writing career – fresh content of the highest quality.

In fiction, this really means KEEP WRITING. If you want a career as an author, it is important to continually hone your skills and continue writing.

The bottom line – the things I’ve learned promoting my books for NF can really be applied to fiction as well.

Thank you very much Christine, for stopping by and for giving us so much good information.  And for all of you out there, there’s an extra bonus to this post – a contest.  That’s right, one lucky winner will be the recipient of Christine’s new book 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids.  All you have to do is comment on this post and your name will go into the drawing.  The last date for entries is going to be on Tuesday, May 17^th.  That gives you 5 days to get your comment in, but don’t procrastinate too long.  I’d hate for anyone to miss out on this one.

If you’d like to learn more about from the ever-awesome Christine Fonseca or her book, here are all the ways to find her:

Website

Blog

Find me on Facebook or Twitter

Order the book.

Read an excerpt here.

Oh, and if you're wondering where I am during all this fun, I'm lucky enough to be guest posting at Christine's blog.  Go check it out!

Audience - Guest Post By Michelle McLean

As part of her awesome blog tour, I am honored to present the incredibly talented Michelle McLean.  That's right, you'll only get to see this here on Da Muse (okay, her name is on every blogger's page on the tour as well as countless students worldwide - all of them in awe over her amazing literary skill - but let's focus here).   Without further ado, take it away, Michelle.

I think one of the most important things, if not THE most important thing, for any writer is this:

Know your audience.

When I sit down to write anything, I always have a target audience in mind. If I’m working on a YA novel, I’m thinking of teenagers between the ages of about 14 and 19. When I’m working on children’s picture books, I’m usually envisioning my own kids at ages 5 and 7. When I was in school and working on an essay or paper, I had my professor and classmates in mind. And when I wrote Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers, I had an audience of frustrated students who had to write a paper in mind.

If you know your audience, you can gear your book or project for them. You can keep the language appropriate. Now, I’m not talking about swearing or questionable jokes or anything. I mean using the big, field-specific technical language in your papers where your professor will appreciate them and keeping your young adult novels teen-friendly by using the type of language kids use when they speak.

How popular is your YA novel going to be if you use so many huge, unreadable words that your readers have to run it through a translator just to figure out what you are saying? How popular will your adult spy thriller be if your main character is a bunny named Buttons who solves crimes with his sidekick Terry Turtle? What kind of grade are you going to get if you turn in that college-level essay peppered with phrases like “So, dude, like you should totally just listen to me cause I like tooootally get what I’m doing.”

And how much help is a frustrated, confused student going to get from a guidebook that is so overly-technical and complicated they end up more confused than when they started? Probably not much. Which is why I made sure I kept my audience in mind while writing Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers.  

I want my readers to feel like I’m sitting right next to them, pointing out every single step of the process to them. I wrote the way I’d speak to them if I were sitting right there…non-formal, conversational, just me telling them step by step what they need to do.

No matter what you are writing, you’ve got to keep your audience in mind. I guarantee they’ll love you for it :)

Michelle McLean is a writer and the Chief Editorial Consultant for PixelMags, LLC. In addition to her non-fiction work, Michelle writes YA historical novels and other children’s books. If she's not editing, reading or chasing her kids, she can usually be found in a quiet corner working on her next book.

Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers is a fun, user-friendly book that guides the reader, step by step, through writing a dozen different types of essays, including the dreaded SAT essay. Using straightforward, plain English, this book shows the reader exactly what they need to do, from start to finish, and includes rough draft, edited, and final draft versions of every type of essay discussed. This book also provides chapters that include tips and instruction on researching, proofreading, and citations.

Thanks a ton Michelle.  If you stop by Michelle's blog, you'll see she has allowed me to put a post there as well.   You can also reach Michelle on Facebook or Twitter, and she's a contributer at Operation Awesome.  You can pick up a copy of Michelle's book Essays & Term Papers at Amazon, Borders, or Barnes & Nobles.  Or check your local retailer;  it's a sure bet they can get you a copy.

Back In Town

The title is a bit misleading, since I really haven't traveled anywhere.   But I was on a leave of absence of sorts from blogging.  I don't know exactly how much I got accomplished, but do we ever get everything done we'd like to?   Probably not.

In any event, you can expect regular posts from me once more.  Thanks to Cassandra Jade, I had the opportunity yesterday to be a guest on her blog and she on mine.  That's a first for me, and to be honest it was both fun and daunting.  Let's face it - blogging on the page of a published author is awesome, but it also left me hoping that my words would be good enough.  Cassandra has a pretty big following (for good reason), and I was hoping to do her page justice.  Judging from the comments though, I guess I didn't do too bad.

I have a four day weekend coming up, and I'm hoping to take at least one of those days and spend it working on revising my short story.   It actually felt good to do some revisions a little while back, because I could see the story becoming clearer.  It's pretty cool when I feel like I'm making good progress on my skills as writer as opposed to feeling completely lost (like how the classes in my Masters degree program have me feeling lately LOL).

This is a short post, but I'll try to put up something more fun tomorrow in celebration of Friday.  As Michelle McLean shows each week, each Friday should be filled with fun.

What writerly things are you going to do this weekend?  Think you can squeeze in a paragraph or two, revise a passage here or there?

Guest Blogger - The Characters Inside by Cassandra Jade

Note from Eric:   I've had the lucky opportunity to be a part of Cassandra Jade's blog tour (the first person, no less).  I can't tell you how cool this is for me, not to mention the honor of having a writer like Cassandra gracing my blog.  She even allowed me to put up a post on her blog, so you can check out my post here.  Without further ado, heeereeeeee's the talented and awesome Cassandra!

I want to firstly thank Eric for hosting me today and officially launching my blog tour. I’ve been reading Eric’s blog for some time and really love his candid nature as he discusses his writing journey.

As the title suggests, today I am writing about the characters that dwell inside all of us, whether we write them in to life or let them languish in forgotten corners of our minds. I know there are many writers that dispute the idea of characters creating themselves but it often feels like characters find us.

Where do they come from? Probably from hours upon hours of subconscious thought, putting together attributes and ideas before our conscious mind pays any attention and so the character creation process is probably still taking place but without really thinking about it. But these characters spring to life and then they want us to tell their story.

And they all have a story.

I think that’s what I like about characters that seem to simply appear rather than the ones I laboriously construct. These characters have depth and layers that if I was creating a character from scratch on paper, my creation just wouldn’t have. They have backgrounds and likes and dislikes and motivations that I wouldn’t consciously have thought of but these characters come along and just want their story told.

Maybe these are left over imaginary friends from childhood, but somehow I doubt it.

The problems really begin after these characters have been floating around inside your head for awhile. Getting all of the many attributes that you know and love about these characters onto paper becomes difficult and no matter how you write it, they never seem as alive as they did when they were inside your head. The other problem, is after you’ve been writing them for awhile, they seem to exist outside of you and aren’t really bouncing around anymore, clamouring for your undivided attention. And I am all too easily distracted by the next character that comes along.

Other problems arise when you create a character that you don’t personally like. While these characters are sometimes fun, when they are bouncing around your head they can really make you want to delete them.

There were definitely moments when writing Death’s Daughter that I really disliked my protagonist – and mostly I was supposed to dislike her – but sometimes it made writing a scene hard as I would have her say something and then flinch, wondering why I would have her say something that horrible.

So the question for the writers out there is this: Do you have characters inside of you? If yes, what do you do with them?

Cassandra Jade is a fantasy writer from Australia. You can visit her blog at: http://cassandrajade.wordpress.com

Her first novel, Death’s Daughter, is available from Lyrical Press.