Growing a Giant Set of Viking Balls

What’s the next big thing? As authors, we are always trying to figure that out. What do we need to do to get noticed? It’s a big ocean out there, and there are a lot of books swimming in the proverbial published sea. How do we stand out? What can we possibly do that hasn’t been done before, or at least, how do we create a new take on an old trick.

 

Viking Tricks

Marketing is a funky kettle of fish. We authors know how to write (hopefully, lol). Learning how to target and market our work is a whole other story. One that doesn’t always end in a happy ending. There’s a lot of trial, error, and blood, sweat, and tears in that tale. Where to even start? We can advertise traditionally—take out a newspaper ad for an event or a launch—or we can try our luck in the online world of advertising by embarking on campaigns through Twitter, Goodreads, or Facebook, for example.

Let’s look at one cornerstone of the author marketing experience: The Facebook Party.

 

The Facebook party allows fans from anywhere to comfortably pull up a computer and join the fun. We ask author friends to host time slots, or we go it alone. Each event involves tons of giveaways and prizes doled out at frequent intervals. We share funny memes, silly gifs, and great photos. We post teasers, excerpts, and trailers. But do we generate sales? Are our efforts tangible? Is there conversion? Do we break even—sales versus giveaways? How do we measure success—is it sales, or exposure? This is a tricky business. I’ve been to my fair share of launch parties, and I’ve hosted a couple of events myself. In truth, I haven’t seen any other entrepreneurial group giveaway so much, so often. It pays to be someone who follows authors. They giveaway the shirts off their backs in an effort to try and stand out from the crowd, and smart contest hunters know this. I read an interesting article about contest ‘groupies.’ Are they friend or foe? Contest groupies scroll the internet looking for new authors to follow and like. When events happen, they are the first ones there, interacting, playing along with the games, and kudos to them, winning prizes. The thing to keep in mind, is that these people love books too and they talk books up to others on the internet. I don’t question the people who follow the contests, I question whether this is a viable, efficient use of an author’s resources and time. Look around the internet. Try and find another industry where so much is given away for so little measurable feedback.

 

Now, I appreciate, not everything is about profit. Sometimes, we do things for the sheer entertainment value, in and of itself. Recently, I embarked on a marketing campaign that blew everything else I’d done before out of the water. It was ballsy, it was risky, and it was downright fun as hell. I have an event coming up at Blue Heron Books on Saturday, March 5^th from 2:00 – 4:00pm. I wanted to draw attention to it. I wanted it to stand out. I’ve done a lot of book signings in big corporate stores, but Blue Heron is a small, intimate Indy bookstore. I wanted this signing to be special. I needed a plan—an outside the box kind of vibe. 

The Big Event

Many moons ago, I read a book about a writer who showed up to her book launch, carried on a pallet, supported by several hulking sentries. At the time, I thought to myself, how cool would that be? A seed was planted. Recently, I found a way to incorporate that wild and crazy vision. My debut historical romance, Avelynn, is set in 869 Anglo-Saxon England. My heroine is the daughter of a Saxon earl, but the hero of the tale is a Viking. 

Ergo, I needed Vikings! I sent a call out on a few local Facebook groups, seeking stalwart young men, willing to pose shirtless as Vikings for a day. Their job was to hang out with fans and hand out chocolates to anyone who bought a copy of the book.  In a matter of hours, I’d found my three Vikings (body building photos confirmed these were just the type of men I was searching for). As part of the deal, I needed one evening for promotional photo ops prior to the book signing. I wanted a photo shoot where my handsome, tough Vikings posed with swords and cloaks, while, I, the respectable author, stood aloof and professional in my blazer, jeans, and boots.

The Respectable Author and Friends

Flash forward a few glasses of wine into the Durham Photo led photo shoot, and while I held onto my jeans and boots, I had donned a sword and shield of my own, and wore last year’s Halloween costume of a warrior princess. The results were magical. Those promotional photos could be used to hype up the event itself, but also to promote the book in general. 

Found another Viking

I then hired, Inkpen Studios, pros at social media promotional posters, and when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, they did! The designs to match the photos were out of this world. 

Me and my Viking

I invited friends to the photo shoot, who blasted their own camera phone selfies and live photos of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans on their own Facebook and Twitter status. I then shared those raw photos as well! 

Behind the Scenes Shenanigans

Will any of this result in more sales? Only time will tell. My event at Blue Heron Books on Saturday happens in two more sleeps. I’ll know if my innovative efforts were received if we have a rollicking good day of book sales and Viking hi-jinks. If the sales don’t come, at least I tried something new. I found a new angle. I played with a never-before-attempted idea. I had to grow a giant set of Viking balls to pull that off, but I’m already trying to figure out an excuse to do it all over again!

Ready for Battle

Happy marketing. Reach for the absolute limits of your imagination and don’t let fear slow you down. Grab hold and put yourself out there. Go boldly where you haven’t gone before.

In gratitude,

Marissa xo

Birthday Sex

I know we just had the big New Year’s countdowns and reflections, but my birthday was two days ago; so for me, this is bigger. It presents a candid opportunity to look at my accomplishments to date and my future goals as a writer. A birthday is a serious crossroads. One minute you’re younger, the next you’re as old as F*&k. 

I appreciate that in reality it’s a slow, gradual build up, but something about that number flipping from one day to the next, like a sadistic, surreal countdown to mortality, is humbling.

I thought since I’m twenty-nine (again) I should come up with a kick-ass twenty-nine list—something really mind-altering and profound—detailing all the things I’ve learned as a writer this year. Problem is, I could only come up with three. So, here instead, is my concise, yet enlightening birthday list. In no particular order:

1.  I really like sex. But more, I really like writing about sex and plan on weaving more of that pleasurable tapestry into my novels. I went to a workshop recently that challenged the audience to find ways of incorporating sex into literary fiction. What I mean to say is, in this workshop, we were exploring deep and penetrating (sorry, couldn’t help myself ;) uses of any sexual act or erotic tension to bring a story to a whole other psychological level. I decided that concept sucked balls (really, this is too easy ;) and will continue to write sex to titillate and entertain.

Sex scenes in any story shouldn’t be gratuitous. It has to mean something to the characters and progress the plot, but it doesn’t need to turn my characters’ worlds upside down and rock them to their core… unless it’s a mind-blowing orgasm—then it should totally do that. There is a time and place for deep questions about sex and sexuality in writing, but there’s also a forum to play with the erotic in a fun and sensuous way. I don’t want to change the world, I just want my characters to be very, very happy. 

2.  I need to write more. I’ve been to a lot of workshops lately that tout the need to write prolifically and super fast. These facilitators were throwing around insane numbers like completing six to seven novels a year. Each of these mystical creatures needed to be between 50,000 – 75,000 words long.

When I first started writing, it took me five years to complete my self-help guide, Life: Living in Fulfillment Every Day. At the time, I was working with my beautiful co-author Annemarie, so I blame the logistics of coordination. My second book, which happened to be my debut historical romance Avelynn, took a year and a half to write, and a year and a half to edit. Three years. Not bad. I was clearly making progress. The second book in the Avelynn series took two years in total. Currently, I’m working on a contemporary romance and have lofty aspirations to finish it well before a year is up. But, seven novels in one year? I know incredible writers who can actually do this. And kudos to you. Seriously. I’m jealous.

For those of you interested in writing more, faster… here’s my take away from those educational workshops: outline, outline, outline. I’m a pantser, so this was a tough pill for me to swallow, but I have to admit, I tried outlining a three act structure using Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat for my newest novel: Hot in Aruba, and it helped. A lot. I have a greater understanding of story structure and where the big moments are and why they are there. Once you get the main bits and pieces down in your outline and are ready to write your novel, take a few moments each and every day to get a feel for what you are going to write before you sit down to write it. Make jot notes; use conscious flow. Do whatever you have to do to understand what needs to happen in the scene you’re about to write and why it needs to happen. Figure out your most prolific time of day. Do you write more in the mornings? Evenings? Commit to writing during that time. Use the rest of the day to catch up on social media, for example. Determine your best place to work, where you are least likely to be distracted. Know your strengths and use them.

3.   Debut novels are not always the great big shiny stars you wished they would be. Once you discover this painful, festering gash of wisdom, you have to learn to cope with it. Avelynn, my beautiful book baby, didn’t get off to a great start. It did very well in Canada, but just couldn’t break into the American market. No matter what I did to promote it, not enough people knew it existed. Despite fantastic reviews, including glowing accolades in Canada’s National Newspaper The Globe and Mail, I just couldn’t garner enough attention. There are millions of books on Amazon alone, trying to make yours stand out is like finding a needle in a haystack. Once you come to this startling conclusion, there might be confusion, grief, despair, incredulity, anger, and frustration, but ultimately there will be relief and acceptance. If you’ve made it this far, a good rule of thumb is to understand that a debut novel is merely a gateway, a stepping stone to bigger and better things. The key is to keep writing.

I’m sure I’ve discovered a great deal more writing wisdom in the 365 days since I last encountered such a stark reminder of my distant birth year, but age blurs the memory. I’ll start working on the other twenty-six points as I go along for next year’s 29^th birthday post. :D

In gratitude,

Marissa xo

THE END: A Commentary on Editing

THE END

Two of my favourite words. To a writer, they are the culmination of days, months, or years of blood, sweat, and tears. But they are misleading. We write them, sit back, and revel in our cleverness, in our determination, our grit, our savvy, our persistence, and our sheer magnificent brilliance. It could grace the page of a blog post, social media blast, short story, novella, screenplay, or novel. Writing THE END feels incredible, but it’s just another beginning. THE END is the start of EDITING.

I recently attended Bookapalooza, which is a really cool venue in my hometown where local authors get together and sell their wares. There were speakers and panels and celebrity guest authors. I was honoured to sit on a panel with fellow romance authors Molly O’Keefe and Mary Sullivan. These ladies are veterans. They’ve written a lot of books. They’ve been doing this a long time. Avelynn is my debut historical romance. I was the newb in the room, but they welcomed me with open arms. I was humbled and thrilled to sit at the table beside them. *girlie fan crush moment over* Back to my point: one of the audience members asked the panel a question, “What do you like better, writing or editing?”

Interestingly enough, both Molly and Mary liked the editing phase of writing better. I stared at them gaped mouthed as they waxed poetic about the brilliance of polishing a first draft and turning something misshapen and clunky into a work of art. I concurred with their sentiment, but ‘like_editing?’ That sounded like something out of a fairy tale. Seriously. Editing_is_hard!

Gone is the euphoria of creation, the buzz of new witty lines of dialogue, the high of brilliant lines of prose. In its place comes the breakdown and rebuild, the dissection and amputation. Our writing is better for it, sure, but the_pain, the_torture.

I recently (like yesterday) finished editing the second book in the Avelynn series. It took me just as long to edit the manuscript as it did to write it. Now, I blame NaNoWriMo for part of the first draft’s shortcomings (writing 50,000 words only to cut 40,000 of them, sucked) but I’m also a pantser. The first draft is a misnomer, it should be called Hundreds of Pages of Verbal Diarrhea. It’s the thrill and rush of creating new worlds, populating them with interesting people, and then making them do all sorts of crazy shit. Shit that just pops into your head, like out_of_no_where.

Inherent in that wild, organic process is wee bit of surplus and ludicrous, irrelevant tangents. We write THE END and then grab our red pens, or click up our track changes and get to work. And we keep working. For_a_very_long_time. We tweak and hone, over and over again. First drafts become tenths drafts and then morph into eighteenth drafts. We get to a point when we can’t figure the damn thing out anymore and call in for back up. We send it out to beta readers and beg for perspective and direction. The verdict comes in, and we crack our knuckles and sit down and get to work. Again. For_a_very_long_time. By the fortieth something draft, we pray we’ve reached the finish line. We send the manuscript to our agent or editor, or we query and submit. We get feedback. It’s still not quite cooked all the way through. So we sit_down_again.

For this final round of baking, I used the Heminway App. The whole writing process this is a never ending learning curve. I now know, I should have tried this handy little resource a few drafts prior. But, nonetheless, I plugged in my pages and reduced my passive voice, cut my adverbs, and cleaned up my run-on sentences. In a final pass through, I obliterated my comma splices and polished my prose until it shone. In short, I made Avelynn #2 as close to phenomenal as I could possible get it.

The good news is, I’m getter faster. My process is more efficient. I’m learning. Avelynn took me six months to research, a year and a half to write, and a year and a half to edit. The second book in the series took me a month to research (same time period just a slightly different setting) a year to write, and a year to edit. I’ve shaved my process in half!

Editing is essential. It’s a tough market out there. As authors, we have to put our best work forward. That being said, do I like editing? I love the results, but I’d rather each broccoli. Trust me. That’s saying_a_lot.

What do you think? Editing: love it or tolerate it. :D

In gratitude,

Marissa xo