Another Cranky Rant: No I Won't Give You a Free Book (Claire Youmans)

Some people, I have to give free books.  There aren’t many of them.  Either they’ve done me huge services in exchange for a book or books or I’m closely related to them. I also have to have a set in my office to show off. 

This year I have SIX books. All shiny new, with consistent styles and new covers and better jacket copy. All of which cost me a pretty penny, let me tell you.

I just ordered the sets that I HAVE TO give away and have on hand to be sent to Japan from wherever they’ll be printed.  I still have more to order for shipment to the US. In the process, I found out some highly disturbing information.

All those “fees” and “costs” that I’m now being charged meant I had to raise prices, as I’ve said.  But somewhere along the line, my profit margin went way, way down, too.  On a hard-copy book, at full retail price, MY share is less than $0.75.  Yes, that is not a typo. I get less than seventy-five cents. I have to sell like Anne Rice or Stephen King before I even cover my costs. 

If I use my special author price, I simply don’t get the seventy three or fewer cents. I also have to pay for shipping.  I should do this for you? I bet you won’t even write a review. If you bother to read it. 

So that “free book” is costing me just about what it would cost you, if you’d just order it yourself. You can get it for less — YOU can read it for FREE — if you go into your public library and ask them to order it. Yes, the books are available from the Secret Library Distributor Catalogs, of course. 

Loan you my copies? Besides the fact that I’d never get them back, do I look like a library to you? Just go to the library and ask them to order them for you.  I need MY copies right here.

I’m a writer and I’m not going to stop doing that. I am very fortunate that I am in a position of being able to do so. But given the way the industry is moving, I may give some serious though as to whether I want to publish over the next few years. I may want to wait until the industry shakes out and stops trying to shake me down. 

My books are damned good.  They are well worth reading.  But, to quote the song about a chair, “If I can’t sell it, I’m gonna sit right here on it. I ain’t gonna give it away."

Waaa and Whew!

Where’ve I been for the last few months? Reissuing The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series, along with bringing out The Dragon Sisters, book 6 in the series. That’s where.

Why did I do that?

It’s not just that I ran out of cover options with the old art. It’s not just that, at six books, I needed a universal style sheet, glossary and character list all located in one place. Those would be normal in the production of a book series. Nope. It’s that the publishing industry has changed a lot since 2014, when the first book in this series appeared.

Every writer now has to rethink the entire mechanism of publishing.

What happened, you say?

First, the Big 5 Traditional Publishers started raising prices to usurious profiteering levels. $25 for an e-book? COME ON. But the “experts” say I’m supposed to give mine away? (Not happening.  Either one.)

Second, the “fleece the author” industry grows geometrically every month, with all sorts of products and services you simply MUST have. (No, you don’t.)

Third, Amazon has become a strong player in the “fleece the author” industry by making their ads a crap-shoot. Bid for what you pay for clicks? For ad placement?  Huh? They are also ramping up to charging — this will happen very soon — authors to list their books on the Amazon platform. They already have instituted a “delivery charge” so authors get lower royalties. What’s next?

Fourth, Amazon refuses to discount or set up a return system so that physical outlets simply won’t buy from them. Amazon is now solely a direct to consumer marketplace. This has led Baker and Taylor, the other real catalog from which bookstores, schools and libraries buy, to stop listing anything published on the Amazon platform — this JUST happened. This leaves Ingram Book Company as the only game in town. Ingram already charges listing fees — although this year there are promo codes to get out of them.  I wanted to move SIX books over there before I got charged $49 plus a pop to do that. Ingram also sets your prices. Not terribly high, but higher than I wish, in some cases, I had to set them.

Fifth, Barnes and Noble just got bought out. This, too, JUST happened. Whether this means it’ll go under or somehow be salvaged remains to be seen, but this means outlets for physical books are going to change even more.

Sixth, rounding it off at an even half-dozen, Facebook, a major marketing platform, stopped showing posts to more than a few of your signed up followers unless you pay for ads. And they also do this lottery ad pricing thing.  So it’s not just pay to play, it’s pay more to get on the field, MORE to get a ball, STILL MORE to maybe get picked for a team, and MORE YET to maybe play.

I’ve gone back to school in marketing and advertising. 

This has led me to commission new covers and jacket copy designed for a new kind of consumer. Needing to list the books on IngramSpark, now the only game in town if you want world-wide paperback distribution for stores, schools, libraries and people — something my books require. Using an aggregator to make sure I get world-wide marketing on ALL the platforms, not just Amazon. Using Amazon in the US only, because they’re the biggest retailer in the US, so I have to.

I suspect Amazon is going to start penalizing its readers as it has done its suppliers. I don’t have much evidence of this, but I hear little bits of information from people who sell non-literary products.  I want the versatility to be OFF of Amazon entirely. I suspect this may be in the future. 

Want to see what I have done?  I hope so, because it’s cost me thousands and taken about 4 months of 12 hour days — not counting the actual writing and editing of The Dragon Sisters.  Check out www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com.  Look at the listings on whatever retailers you frequent. We’re still in process of getting up on all e-book and on-line physical retailers as of this writing, but that should be done in a couple of weeks, with universal links up on the website.

And then give some thought as to whether you REALLY want to be a writer. 


Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here (book one in the series is always free!!!):

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to write a thinly veiled promo for your own work guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: The Dragon Sisters

Book 6 in the Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series is just about ready to go out to my wonderful coterie of Beta Readers.  Based on their feedback, I’ll do a revision and then it’ll go to its editor. I have interesting things planned for the covers and illustrations and this book will come out on schedule, around the time of the summer solstice. Hurray for my incredible production team!

I’ve been thinking about and referring to this book by the working title Renko’s Challenge since its inception.  I thought the book was mainly going to be about the teenaged Dragon-Girl confronting her draconic and human natures, her European human appearance and her cultural identity in Japan. This is truly hard for Renko. But her older sister, Otohime, also dual-natured, is wrestling with her anger at their father and finally facing the way she’s become stuck in a particular tragic period of her life. Trapped together in a cave-in that robs dragons of their powers, they come to grips with their difficulties and find ways to move on in their lives and grow as dragons, humans and always themselves.

Of course much more happens in this book. There’s a growing ensemble cast  who all face opportunities for personal growth as their world changes around them. “May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse. These characters definitely do.

Starting out with a title and a fixed dramatic arc is like wielding a two-edged sword.  It cuts no matter which way you swing it, and sometimes it cuts what you hadn’t planned it to. I tend to be what’s called a “pantser,” a writer who doesn’t outline extensively, who writes, at least to some extent, by the seat of her pants.  I usually know my first line and my last, and have a rough idea of major conflicts and the history that will bring them forth. I set fictional and folkloric characters in a very real historic period. I use these literary devices to explore and expose authentic Japanese history and character in a way that’s more accurate than most fiction and more fun than any history book.

As I write, things change. Characters insist on telling different stories, on growing in surprising ways, on exploring different kinds of folklore and different aspects of history. Characters I thought had moved out of the series come back with new adventures to explore.

Don’t get stuck in your preconceived notions. No matter how much you like your outline, your character arcs and your plot points, don’t become wedded to them. Let your story and your characters talk to you. Listen when your victim sits up and tells you she’s your murderer, when your romantic hero isn’t the least bit enthralled by his designated love interest, when your dutiful maid decides to set fire to the hay barn, steal the horses and lead a serf rebellion. You can only transcend genre if you let your work dictate to you rather than constraining it with your expectations.

That’s why Renko’s Challenge is now The Dragon Sisters, and is now a much better book.  I hope you’ll think so, too.

Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here (book one in the series is always free!!!):

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to write a thinly veiled promo for your own work guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Nano No-no

I made a mistake. I decided to use NaNoWriMo to assist in scheduling the first draft of book 6 in The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series, Renko’s Challenge. I wanted to work around a couple of planned trips, one of which involves some friends who are visiting Japan for a Buddhist pilgrimage that I will join and the other a planned ski trip at the end of January.

My first draft will be 75,000 to 85,000  words, because 50,000 words, the NaNo goal, is at best a novella, unless you write in a couple of very specific genres.  i started early and planned to continue until my friends appear in mid-December.

But even as modified, this just isn’t working for me.

While I can see the utility in encouraging writers to write daily, I can see the utility of deadlines, and I can even see chasing word counts and participating in groups that talk about all this, it’s not being useful to me.

I normally don’t have a problem working to deadlines or being a self-starter, yet those are the things NaNo encourages best. That’s not the help I need.

I want to love what I do, but what I am feeling is anxiety. I don’t like it. I don't need a community to get my draft done. I need peace and quiet.

I’m cutting my losses and only worrying about meeting my publication deadline of June 21, 2019, or so.

Sure, my books are very well reviewed and they do sell.  Another one even attained best-seller in category status recently. That’s fantastic, but If I don’t love what I do on a daily basis, why am I doing it?

I tried to fit myself into other people’s systems. That’s a huge mistake, one I hope never to make again, and I don’t want you to make it, either. You may love NaNoWriMo and want to do it every year. You may find your check-in groups and informal competitions helpful in meeting your writing goals. Use them if and only if they are useful to you. Don’t be afraid to say no.

Writers have individual processes. It’s up to each of us to discover our processes and to honor those processes. Only then will we love what we do and produce the best books we are capable of producing.

Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here (book one in the series is always free!!!):

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Faith and Priorities by Claire Youmans

I now live in Japan, and my books — The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series, with five published and one in the works — are set in Meiji-era Japan. How good is that? 

It’s darned hard to get a visa to live in Japan, nearly impossible if you don't have a job or attend school full time. I found a new bit of law and slipped in for a couple of years.

Permanent residency is extra-hard. It takes ten years of non-student residency to get PR unless you can somehow meet a “points” requirement to fast-track yourself.

I took a very high level part-time job with a school hoping to get myself fast-tracked for PR using a new program I am developing. I have lots of “points," but I cannot work enough to create the “points" I still need through Japan-based income.

Today, I started crying because I was in so much pain from getting across town on a commuter-time train for my single half-day of hands-on teaching. Last week was so bad that my single half-day kept me writhing for two more. I enjoy the work. The program is interesting and important, something Japan needs. I get out, I meet people, I learn things, it’s fun. But I am old and handicapped. I try to ignore those factors, but they are true, and that’s been brought home to me recently. I can’t do this. I certainly can’t do this and be a productive full-time writer.

I used to travel to Japan a couple of times a year for research, but that’s not something that’s viable for me anymore, if I can’t even manage being shoved into a sardine can commuter train for half an hour. It’s time I acknowledge that and make sure my priorities are in order and my life reflects that as best it can.

My top priority is my writing. That’s obvious to me. Further, I need to have faith in it, and that’s now obvious to me, too. I need to have faith that I can renew my visa when the time comes, four more times if necessary. I need to have faith that my books will sell generally, will actually be translated, will sell well here, and that my semi-fictional universe will expand and grow, maybe in the direction of anime and film — to some extent, its natural home. I need to believe in my work, my talent and myself. I need to always remember my writing is my top priority, and make these things so.

All too often we as writers get caught up in the day to day. We get caught up in other work, family, kids, school. Our priorities can’t be like those of other people. We are writers, and writing must come first on our priority lists.  We must arrange our lives around it, so we can do it and keep on doing it, because it’s important. If we don’t believe in ourselves and our work, we might as well stop now. This isn’t an easy life. I can’t say if it’s one we chose or if it chose us, but we must have faith in ourselves and our work, and make sure it’s our top priority. 


Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here (book one in the series is always free!!!):

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Changing landscape -- again (By Claire Youmans)

Changing landscape -- again

(By Claire Youmans)

When I first started publishing, you had to have a publisher.   The publisher would prepare, issue and sell hard copies of books to brick and mortar stores. I had three books published back then, one by a major, and two by small presses. You were very lucky to get an advance at all, and over the moon if your royalty checks exceeded your dinner checks. Basically, you got a place in a catalog and maybe somebody who bought books would see your entry. 

Words failed me for a number of years, for irrelevant personal reasons. During that time, things changed.

In late 2013, I returned to book publishing.  I had a very good manuscript. But there were only something like six publishers left. Now it’s down to five. I looked for agents. There were perhaps seven who were interested in the kind of thing I’d written. Everybody wanted things exactly like the LAST bestseller. They thought, it seemed, imitation was the path to success.  Books for kids have become almost exclusively “message” books, therapy lectures wrapped in tiny, barely there, stories. 

That’s not what I was writing or ever planned to. I write historical fantasy set in Meiji-era Japan. I planned a series that would start with kids and grow up with the kids, until ultimately they were adult books. No, they wouldn’t be part of a recognizable genre. Historical fantasy? Nobody even knows what that is!

“Self-published” was a death knell.  Anything “self-published” was bound to be awful, an unedited, thrown up mess.  Many outlets, reviewers and contests wouldn’t even accept anything “self-published.”  So I formed a publishing company and gave myself an imprint.  I did what a real publisher does: I got editors, copy editors, publicists, cover art — all the things a publisher would have provided.

I just published Noriko’s Journey, Book 5 in the Toki-Girl and Sparrow-Boy series.  We are quite clearly into YA, even NA, territory, closing in on adult. I still write historical fantasy, and I still don’t write romance, sex or much explicit violence.  What I have are damned good books that get excellent reviews, but the market is changing again.

All I hear now is how “indie” publishers are making millions, MILLIONS, I tell you, by taking this course, reading this book, following this plan. For just $750 YOU CAN DO IT TOO. We’re back to my early days, when I was flooded with “contests” and “agents” that charged entry or reading fees, for services that cost a lot but promised little. Reviews?  You have to pay for those now. Want Amazon or Facebook to even notice your existence?  You have to pay through the nose for ads.  All these outfits do what they say they will, but they do not promise that your book, no matter how good it is, will ever reach its intended audience, and they quite cynically do not care.  That isn’t their goal.  The only guarantee is that THEY will make money.  We’re back to a “fleece the writer” industry again, this time in the context of independent publishing.

Let’s say you do everything RIGHT, take the course, buy the book, follow the formula, buy the ads — will it help?  Probably not. Unless you’re in a recognizable genre and can somehow hitch your wagon to a star, it’s not going to help anything but make the people you’re paying better off.

It’s time to figure out a way to stop supporting this latest iteration of an industry that feeds off writers’ hopes and dreams.  It’s facile to say the material would sell if it was good. There’s simply too much out there. We need to shut down the exploitive industry and bring back gatekeepers.  Real gatekeepers, not “fleece the indie” divisions of formerly prestigious gatekeepers shamelessly profiting off of their former reputations.

How about a return of the magazine, the Mystery Magazine, the Science Fiction Magazine, and others for difference genres and non-genres?  There’s a movement towards the “novella” again.  That was formerly a staple of SF, and that and the short story were what the magazines published.  I discovered many SF and Mystery writers I liked, whose work I followed thereafter, through the magazines. 

We don’t need what I’ve seen happening: writers who use the shotgun approach, who think publishing reams of material will get them to their readers, putting up novellas and other shorter material up on Amazon at lower than novel prices, and hoping that one of their pellets hits the mark. They’re trying, but they’re missing the target. We need curation, we need gatekeepers.  Magazines are one way to achieve that now. 

So — anybody want to start a 'zine?  I have a 9,000 word historical fantasy story ready for you.  I’ll have another in a month or so, before I start book 6.  I’m game if you are.


Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here:

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

8 Steps To Improving Your Manuscript (Claire Youmans)

8 Steps To Improving Your Manuscript 
by Claire Youmans  


There’s power in distance.  There’s power in time.  Your writing will improve if you step away from it for a while and let it rest, let it cure, let it rise.

When I get going, finally, after months of research and in-my-head outlines, scene structure and character development, I rip right on through, nearly 24/7, for as long as it takes. I take minor breaks for the absolute necessities of life  but I leave my brain fully engaged in writer mode.  I am not happy when anyone tries to interrupt me.  I cannot do ANYTHING else because it will interrupt my train of thought, and that will set me back about a day, sometimes two or three, for every hour stolen from my writing at this time.  So, just NO.  Go away until I call you and I’m not going to be nice about it.  But at last…
.
Step One:  I’m done!  I finished the draft!  I think it’s great!  Woo-hoo!  A copy edit and it’s publish-city, right?  Wrong.

Step Two:  I put it away for a week, sometimes longer.  I do something else.  Sometimes it’s another project, sometimes it’s a trip.  Sometimes it’s the normal life stuff I have let slide.  I set a return date, and refuse to look at the manuscript before then.  When I come back to the manuscript, I want to have fresh eyes.  I want to see the things I’ve left out, the things I’ve put in twice.  Or thrice.  The words I’ve doubled.  The character names I’ve changed midstream.  The repetitive words and actions I’ve used to annoying extremes.  I want to read like a reader.  I don’t make notes and I don’t correct anything but minor typos.  Not now.  I just pay attention.  This read can take several days to a week, depending on how long the book is, but then I’m done, right?  A few corrections and it’s ready?  Nope.

Step Three:  I let it sit another week, maybe two.  This is really hard.  I’m on a roll!  I can’t stop now!  But I must if I want a better book.

Step Four:  I read again, but this time, I will address the things I noticed before, the little obvious things.  During the second break, my brain will cogitate over the big manuscript picture I finally saw, for the first time, on that first, fresh-eyes, read.  There will be lists, sometimes in written form, of the things I want to look for.  Of things I want to address.  I’ll get rid of those repetitive word choices, actions and expressions!  This narration needs to come out.  That concept needs explaining. This needs to happen before That, not after.  A character’s arc needs greater definition.  This area needs more emphasis.  I need to see where the longer series arc is going. What are the characters telling me?  What am I setting up?  Where are my loose ends?  Do I tie them up now, or is that for the next book?  How do I fix these over-arcing problems?

This takes longer, and I still can’t take breaks.  I need to keep the whole book in the front part of my brain.  This is a novel we’re talking about.  That’s a lot of material.  There are a lot of characters and each of them has his or her own story.  I must keep all of this clear.  So don’t bug me.  Aren't I done yet?  No!

Step Five:  I leave it the heck alone for another while.  As long as I can keep my hands off it.  I’m not good at that.

Step Six:  I reread.  I tweak.  I do another batch of corrections and edits, sometimes fairly major ones.  Finally, it’s as good as I can get it... 

Step Seven:  …for now.  Now, it's time for serious feedback from my wonderful coterie of beta readers.  While they are reading, I get some serious distance.  I have to use severe discipline to keep from bugging them.  It’s a good time to go out of town.

Step Eight:  When I get their comments in, I’ll do another read, and will most likely see they are absolutely right.  They’ve seen things I haven’t; often they all see the same things.  I see new things myself.  I see directions for the next book I didn’t even know were there.  This absolutely vital step gives me not only fresh eyes, but others’ eyes.  This is where good turns to really good.  By the time I finish this step, I have a much better book than I started with at the end of Step 1. Only now is it ready to go to my editor for her uncannily accurate feedback.  And there’s still more to come in the writing/waiting game before the book at last comes out.

Time and distance are your friends.  They give you the power and the vision to make your work much better than it might otherwise be.  Be strong, be disciplined and wait before rushing off to press.  Let that manuscript cure. Let it rest.  Let it rise.  Your book, and you as a writer, will be better for it.


Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here:

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Research and Trust (by Claire Youmans)

Research and Trust 
by Claire Youmans

I write historical fiction/fantasy adventure. I can’t just make it all up.  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series mixes the history of the Meiji era in Japan with Japanese folklore, so I can make some things up.  Japanese folklore tends to be short, simple and fluid.  What I’ve discovered through 4.5 books (I am writing Book 5 now), is that if I start with the basic folk tale, no matter what I make up, somebody’s grandma somewhere told it that way. While I tell the history through the characters and am limited by their perspectives, their stories need to be both plausible and possible given the history of this incredible time period.  I can’t write something that clearly never could have happened and claim my fiction is historical.  Rifles, for example, existed nowhere in the world in 1629*. The cotton gin was not a fact in 1406.  Research is necessary. Accurate details lead to trust on the part of your reader, who will more readily suspend disbelief and accept your fiction happily.

Right now, I am in Korea, absorbing even more culture and history, waiting for my Japanese residency visa. This is not without peril and comes with a lot of expense. Yet, since I write a series, I like to get out a book a year. Book 5, working title, Noriko’s Journey, will be late and there isn’t one darned thing I can do about it. Moving halfway across the world is no easy task! So, Japanese Immigration Office or no, I have to keep on plugging, and that leads to research.

While I’ve spent about 6 weeks a year in Japan, on average, for many years, and written 4 books set there, much of my research has been conducted on line. As I sit in a Seoul hotel room, which both interestingly and oddly, has no window**, I have reached a time in the story when I have to make sure I have Noriko’s past absolutely clear. Lady Satsuki is coming! The Dragon Queen has granted Noriko a title, and will be very hot under the collar if Noriko doesn’t use it! She must register her marriage! I had plans to visit a few more places and use that information. Visiting the places I have has been beneficial. But now, I have to make something up and use the Internet to make it plausible rather than on the ground research. The two are different.

If you’re writing fiction, it’s not only OK to make things up, but necessary. Is is also necessary to make them plausible. The sights and sounds and tastes and smells, the way the wind chills or warms your skin and where it usually comes from at any given time of day are things best found at the place you’re writing about, or a place very like it. That’s sensory information that can best be obtained on the ground. A family history can be researched on line, and if it is confusing to the point of ridiculousness, more the better for me, because I can create a plausible story within the framework of that family history and not step on anybody’s toes.  I can do that on-line.

If you are describing a journey on foot, it is better to travel that path than omit the fact that there is a big and very real mountain in the way and your character can’t just skip around or over it without even alluding to it! Oh, it is possible to research it, but you need to know you have to — and you do.

A  popular author lost me for all time when he described a sport and a journey I know extremely well — incorrectly. He could have looked it up on line, but he didn’t. If he’d ever visited the area he wrote about he would have noticed that very big mountain. It’s hard to miss. I lost trust in that writer. I have never read another thing he’s written. I can’t believe anything he says.

Research is all about trust. You can make small mistakes. It’s fine if you miss something that your POV character couldn’t and wouldn’t have needed to know to do what the character wanted to do or did. It’s when you miss Really Big Mountain (which is how the native name for Mt. Rainer translates) that you lose your reader’s trust. When you do that, you’ll lose that reader and may never get that reader back. Do your research, both online and on the ground. It matters.


*Yes, there were guns in 1629, but both rifles and the cotton gin were invented in the mid-ninteeth century.
** I pretend I’m on a space ship to avoid claustrophobia. 

Besides writing 6 published books, poetry and an anthologized short story, Claire Youmans has sailed oceans, owned horses and taught skiing. She recently moved to Japan in furtherance of writing more in the well-reviewed Toki-Girl and Sparrow-Boy series of historical fantasy and adventure books set in Meiji-era Japan. She’s currently working on Book 5. These charming books have a following among college students and adults because of the exciting mix of history and folklore, leading to sometimes fantastic adventures, but are also loved by children, fourth grade and up. Writing The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series is a passion she fully enjoys. She’ll stay in Japan as long as they’ll keep her, writing more books about this fascinating culture and its incredible history in this very readable series. Of course, there are dragons.

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

Book 1, Coming Home

Book 2, Chasing Dreams  

Book 3, Together 

Book 4, Uncle Yuta has an Adventure

Box Set:  First 3 books in one discounted package. Kindle only.

Smashwords, books 1-3 and Box Set:  ALL E-formats

Retailers and readers may order through Ingram, for worldwide distribution, in hard copies and all E-formats. 

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a (close) look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

The Greatest Gift by Claire Youmans

Recently, I loaded up on books from various free or discounted sites, because I am writing Book 5, and need something light to read. 

This was a mistake.  These books aren't very good.  I am not finishing them. I'd rather shop for clothes than read them, and I hate shopping for clothes.  I am also trying mightily to refrain from posting truly honest reviews, as I do not suffer fools gladly and have a very sharp tongue.

I am on various lists for writers, all of which seem to be marketing oriented, which means Building Your List (so you can spam them).  People seem determined to get as much content out in the e-verse as possible, regardless of quality, though they are always asking about copy and line editors.

This is also a mistake.  

They're missing a crucial step.  This is the developmental editor.

Without a real developmental editor, the writer misses the fact that all the characters sound alike when they speak, that the same verbs are used over and over and over, and other errors that distract from the story.  Truly, nobody "pads" in steel-toed work boots; a better word would be "clomps."  Not everybody "smirks" all the time, and especially not every single character. 

The writer misses that all women are called by their first names and all the men by their last names, and women, even if nominally in charge, aren't allowed to make decisions without the approval of the supposedly subordinate males, pissing off half the potential audience.  They miss that a character says "sorry" all the time, and it's not a joke.  The writer misses that there is too darned much exposition, that things are told, not shown, that few care about the designer (Prada?) of the holster for the far too lovingly and lengthily described weapons of choice, that talking on phones from cover is probably bad tradecraft, that every single thought of every single character doesn't have to be written down, that the plot "twist" is predictable from page 3, who did it is obvious from the second the body is found, and all the other things a developmental editor will pick up as a matter of course.

You as a writer will not catch these things yourself, not even if you let the manuscript sit for a month before you read it again.  You're too invested in the story.  Your beta readers, if you have any, know there is something wrong, but don't know how to tell you what it is.

You need a real editor.  Yes, it's going to cost you.  You ALSO need the line-editor and the copy-editor and they, too, are going to cost you.  But if you want to get readers, as opposed to List-Fodder who will opt-out with your third spam-mail, you have to give people something they want to read, and a content style and universe they want to come back to, especially in a series.

As a reader, I resent paying even 99 cents for proofread drafts when I just end up making lists of What's Wrong With This Picture.  As I writer, I'd rather pay more for serious developmental editing and put out really well-crafted books than add to the Everest-sized pile of "I'm not going to finish this" material that's out there, and using my budget for ads where there is no curation, just pay-to-play.

I don't want to go back to the Bad Old Days of traditional publishing, and I don't think we even can.  But don't we as writers have a responsibility to produce quality books? 

It can be hard to find a real editor, I know, and I am fortunate in mine. Do yourself a favor and your homework, do some research and find yours, please.  Many writers edit.  Pick someone you like in your genre and ask them if they do or for a referral.  This is the gift that will keep on giving, the step that will make your work shine, and ultimately will make your audience bigger than all the advertising in the world.  

(C) Claire Youmans, The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series

Besides writing 6 published books, poetry and an anthologized short story, Claire Youmans has sailed oceans, owned horses and taught skiing.  She recently moved to Japan in furtherance of writing more in the well-reviewed Toki-Girl and Sparrow-Boy series of historical fantasy and adventure books set in Meiji-era Japan.  She’s currently working on Book 5.  These charming books have a following among college students and adults because of the exciting mix of history and folklore, leading to sometimes fantastic adventures, but are also loved by children, fourth grade and up.  Writing The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy series is a passion she fully enjoys.  She’ll stay in Japan as long as they’ll keep her, writing more books about this fascinating culture and its incredible history in this very readable series.  Of course, there are dragons.

www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com

http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com

Book 1, Coming Home

Book 2, Chasing Dreams  

Book 3, Together 

Book 4, Uncle Yuta has an Adventure

Box Set:  First 3 books in one discounted package. Kindle only.

Smashwords, books 1-3 and Box Set:  ALL E-formats

Retailers and readers may order through Ingram, for worldwide distribution, in hard copies and all E-formats. 

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

The Message Trap

Image Description: Claire Youmans
Holding part I and II of
The Toki-Girl & The Sparrow Boy

An interesting thing about books for young people is the prevalence of “Message” books. “Susie Takes On A Bully”, "Jeff and Jennifer Make Lunch",  or “Ricky Makes A Friend.”  When I read these books — gotta keep current in my genre — I feel like the author had a Big Message about “Healthy Living” and “Appropriate Behavior”  to send and created a simplistic one-note plot to deliver said “Message” with heavy underlining, sparkles, and explosions of fireworks underlining it on every page.  I want to toss them out the window.  Boring?  Oh, so very boring.

Contrast that, if you will, with a Story. A Story is about events that affect people, and how those people respond to those events. What happens next depends on those responses and how those create new events. It’s a sequence of causes and effects. People don’t always respond in the Psychologically Appropriate way. However, the way in which they respond sets up the consequences they face and provides the all-important What Happens Next. How the protagonist reacts, how the antagonist reacts to THAT, and the mistakes characters make that result in their own crises, changes, climaxes and resolutions all make up a Story. A Story lets its message or messages develop through themes and through character arcs interacting to form the overriding dramatic arc of the Story. The message may be different for each character. The overall Theme or Message may be very subtle, almost unrecognized by the conscious mind. There might be hints, but the author won’t rub the reader’s nose in it. It shouldn’t be underlined. It shouldn’t need to be.

These “Message” books exist in adult literature, too, though many of them are confined to the “self-help” shelves. There’re out there, though. And they are still boring.

So many people have A Book Inside Them. It’s usually a Message Book, often Inspirational and based on Their Own Real Life Experiences. Those books rarely get beyond first draft and don’t often get published, much less sell. But they’re IMPORTANT, the struggling writer cries. Maybe they are, but you, writer, are going to have to make your book Not Boring, and that means escaping the Message Trap.

To get around the Message Trap, forget about your Message and start with a Story. Best if it’s a Story about someone who isn’t you, though the story and characters can be based on your experiences. Find a big event, or one that’s at least big to the characters. Stick some characters in it. How does the event change each character over time? How do the characters change the event? How do the characters change other characters? How do the changes in the characters recreate the situation as it was into the situation as it is? Is that generally good or bad? For the characters individually or the Story as a whole? A Story has a story of its own, into which the individual character’s stories fit. Don’t begin with a Message. Begin with a Story and let the characters reveal the Message to you, writer, as the story develops.

As the Story grows and builds, as the characters become real and experience changes in a real way, the themes will reveal themselves in a multitude of ways. This creates a Book that contains a Story that isn’t boring, yet does deliver a Message with no sparkly rainbow underlining required.


The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy Book 3: TOGETHER

The title is final.  Check it out.  http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com.

The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy
A series of fantasy-adventure novels set in Meiji era Japan by Amazon Best-Selling author Claire Youmans.  For tweens through adults.
http://www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com
Hard and e-formats available at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010F01B52

Book 3 will be out towards the end of June, with soft launches through the summer as different venues make it available.  

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Why Should I Give it Away? (Claire Youmans)

There’s an old blues song about a chair. It’s a double-entendre, as blues songs often are, and very funny. The refrain goes, “If I can’t sell it, I’m going to sit right here on it. I ain’t going to give it away.”

Lately, as I start working on the next marketing push around Book Three, which will come out mid-summer, I have noticed ever so many articles, classes, webinars, books and so on being pitched that will enable me to give away more and more of my books. I can even pay them to help me do this! People are seemingly thrilled that they GAVE AWAY tens, hundreds and even thousands of books — something they think they could not have managed without paying, and something they think is a worthy goal.

This morning, I wondered, “Why would I want to do that?”

We’re back to the “exposure” question here, aren’t we? These efforts to separate me from my money talk about building a mailing list, getting my books in front of their particular audience, and potentially, maybe, developing word of mouth. Exposure, in other words.

Do I really want to pay for the chance to give books away? I doubt it. I can do a giveaway on my own, and I will certainly do so at the launch, along with a sale thereafter. I have nothing against giveaways, but my goal isn’t to give away books except as a teaser. A giveaway is an ad, and the cost of giving away samples is part of the cost of the ad. I do have a mailing list, and it continues to grow. At least I know those people are actually interested. I have been reading these items to understand what’s out there that might work for me. I don’t see a connection to my audience, and I rarely see a connection to sales.

If I am going to pay for “exposure,” I want it connected with a review — something I can use to promote sales — and that will be published in a forum that’s probably more closely connected with my readers. I consider the “exposure” a bonus, but there will be a real quid-pro-quo. My goal is to sell books, not give them away.

I’m not in favor of “exposure” for its own sake. I suspect beyond a reasonable doubt that much of this “exposure” exposes itself to the recycle bin. The bigger the name, the more it promises to send out a color glossy catalog including MY books, the more it promises to send that out to (long list of busy people, like teachers, librarians, agents, publishers), the more certain I become that these color glossies and pretty emails are almost invariably tossed without being read. “Exposure” doesn’t matter unless your work is “exposed”.

Before paying out money for anything, be sure you know what, exactly, is being sold. Make sure that what’s being sold is connected with your goals and will help you reach them. A giveaway might be right for you as an author, but make sure it goes to the right people and is done at the right time. Make sure the goal isn’t to see how many books you can give away or how many people you can add to your mailing list, but how that connects with creating actual sales, a real audience for your work. When you look at testimonials, look at the books! Look at the audience! Make sure the fit of anything you buy is right for you and your book.

Giveaways aren’t all bad, but giving it away isn’t your goal. Is it?


Also check out Claire's blog and FB page and available books here:
http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com
www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com
Facebook:  The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy
Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Toki-Girl-Sparrow-Boy-Claire-Youmans/dp/0990323404/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

If you would like to guest blog for Writing About Writing we would love to have an excuse to take a day off a wonderful diaspora of voices. Take a look at our guest post guidelines, and drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.