Posted: October 1, 2012 | Author: Stacey Wallace Benefiel | Filed under: Authors, Writing Tips | Tags: Cidney Swanson, Indie author, Kirkus Reviews, paying for reviews, Professional vetting for the self-published, Self-publishing |
This is a great post by Cidney Swanson that I’m reposting here because I think it’s incredibly useful. (And we’re super proud of Cidney and her Kirkus starred review!!!!)
In the September/October issue of the SCBWI Bulletin, there’s an article devoted to an issue faced by all writers choosing a path of self-publishing: What can these authors do to vet their books? The article mentioned two new-to-me paid reviewing services (grubstreetreads.com andblueinkreview.com) and suggested that the use of either service might benefit an author looking for that exterior stamp of approval.
Depending upon where you sit in your self-publishing journey, the $99-575 which such services charge for reviewing can look like a lot of money. For myself, I thought of it as a cost on the order of what I might spend to attend a conference, something I budget for several times a year from my writer income.
I really appreciated the SCBWI nod to the appropriate use of for-pay review services.
Many of us, when first encountering the idea of a paid review service, rightly look askance at it. However, there are organizations which offer honest reviews, and it was nice to see SCBWI endorsing a couple of new ones.
While I haven’t used either of those services, I have used two of the older, more established options. Of the major review publications in the US, only two currently offer reviewing services for self-publishers, and both are available on a for-pay basis only. (Both expressly exclude self-published books from being submitted through their non-pay channels which they reserve for publishing houses.) Publishers Weekly offers a $149-199 program and Kirkus Reviews offers a $425-575 program.
Publishers Weekly devotes a supplementary magazine each quarter to self-publishing and includes paid-for reviews in the publication. I have not yet heard back from Publishers Weekly, so my experience with them is incomplete. However, here are some statistics from their last (quarterly) publication devoted to self-published titles. Of the 186 submissions they received, they reviewed 47 in their publication. Of those 47, 7 were starred reviews. What this tells me is that for authors who plunked down $149 (or $199) last quarter, they stood a one in four chance of having their title reviewed and a one in twenty-seven chance of having it receive a starred review.
Kirkus Reviews follows a different setup from PW. Kirkus promises that if you pay, your novel will be reviewed. They make a point of telling you there’s no guarantee of a positive review. The pool of reviewers is the same as the pool used for reviewing traditionally published novels. Kirkus created this service specifically so it would be economically viable for them to be able to review books from indie authors and/or small presses (which are not revenue-generating for them.) Because the review they offer may be negative, they give you the choice of publishing or not publishing the review. The vast majority of self-pubbed reviews are not published. Overall, starred reviews are awarded to about 10% of books reviewed, but fewer self-published works receive stars than do traditionally published works.
For me, the experience was a bit terrifying. As soon as I hit the “pay” button for the Kirkus review, I began waffling between the extremes of muttering to myself, “It’s only one person’s opinion,” and, “But it’s Kirkus!” I think that anyone going into this needs to realize that both of those are true. To receive a positive review from Kirkus or any other professional review organization is a significant achievement, but in the end, you have received the opinion of one reader. If you can live with that, for-pay reviewing might be a good option for your self-published title.
Finally, a humorous warning for those who pay for a review with Kirkus and receive a starred review: they will not email you to tell you that your novel has received this distinction. I got my review on the exact day promised. I tried to read it. This was difficult because all the air in the room seemed to disappear as soon as the pdf opened on my computer screen. After reading it, I hit the “publish” button. Then I got to see my review looking all nice and shiny on the Kirkus Reviews website. I smiled at it for several minutes before noticing that they’d placed a star just to one side of the title. What did that symbol mean? Was it an asterisk thing-y intended to make me look lower on the page? And then the screaming started. My family rushed into the room to find out what was wrong with me. They saw me gesticulating wildly at the computer. A few inches away from my star was written this phrase:“For Books of Remarkable Merit, Look for the Kirkus Star.”
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Posted: January 1, 2012 | Author: Lisa Nowak | Filed under: Writing Tips | Tags: ebook formatting, formatting for Kindle, formatting for Nook, formatting guides, Lisa Nowak |
For all of you who plan on self-publishing in 2012, I’ve put out this helpful guide.
This short, pictorial guide uses screenshots to show you how to convert your Word documents to Kindle and Nook formats using free and donationware programs. The step-by-step instructions are easy to follow and nearly foolproof. No knowledge of HTML is necessary. With this guide, your book can look as good as a pro’s. And it only costs 99 cents.
Happy New Year, and good luck with all your writing in 2012!
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Posted: November 26, 2011 | Author: Stacey Wallace Benefiel | Filed under: Authors, Writing Tips | Tags: Authors, reviews, writers, writing |
I’m in a strange mood today – we’ve just come back from a trip to the mountains and as we got lower in elevation and the more the snow melted away, the weirder I felt. Like our vacation didn’t happen. Also, I’ve been eating nothing but sweets for three days.
I felt like writing something about reviews and when I logged on to Twitter this morning, I saw this tweet from The Story Siren:
“sending me an email lecturing me for not reading/accepting self pubbed books, makes me want to read them even less.”
Let’s talk about etiquette.
Most of the book bloggers that write thoughtful reviews and don’t trash or over enthusiastically praise (in other words, the ones you want to read your book) have a review policy. Take the time to read it, folks. If they say they don’t read self-pubbed books and you are the author of a self-pubbed book, don’t query them for a review. If they say they don’t read e-books, don’t send them a PDF and complain that you’re too poor to send them a hard copy. Follow the rules.
Your book will not be the one to change their mind. People have to come to things in their own time and the best way to slow down that process is tell them that they’re wrong about something and need to change to suit you. Move on to the next book blogger, there are literally hundreds of them. The indie book collective has lists by genre of book bloggers that read self-pubbed and accept e-copies. That’s a great place to start.
I can’t state this next bit enough – if you receive a bad review, don’t engage the reviewer. This applies to both book bloggers and customer reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, etc. If the review is inflammatory or doesn’t say anything critical about the actual book (I’ve just received a one-star review on Glimpse that only said, “how many pages are in this book?”) then you can ask Amazon or Barnes and Noble to remove it. Otherwise, just let it be.
Readers are smart enough to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to read a book. They will read the good and bad reviews and come to their own conclusions. Rest assured, some people will love your book and some people will think it’s awful.
The work you have to do on yourself as a writer is to get to the point where you don’t care about either. Not all good reviews are going to be, uh, good. Sometimes they’re three word, exclamation point-ridden silliness. Sometimes they say: OMG!! Luv it!! Not all bad reviews are going to be bad. Reviewers that give you low end stars, but write a thoughtful review outlining what they didn’t like about the book – these reviews are not a detriment. Also, I find that most of the time these reviewers will include a line or two about how your book was “not their cup of tea.” Fair enough.
I’m not going to pretend that I had a thick skin about reviews when I first started out, I definitely did not. I do now, because I’ve realized that while reviews are important for getting your name out there and attracting people to take a look at your book, they’re not that important otherwise. No need to stay up at night worrying about them. The people that like your book and review it positively will stick around to read your others, the people that don’t like your book and review it negatively will move on to someone else.
Our job is to entertain the people that want to read our books and to not waste time trying to win over the rest.
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Posted: November 19, 2011 | Author: Stacey Wallace Benefiel | Filed under: Authors, Writing Tips, Young Adult | Tags: Authors, Young Adult |
Some days, I don’t want to write.
I know I should try to, that’s part of the reason I join anthologies like Death by Chocolate or writing challenges like ROW80, to have people hold me accountable, to get my butt in the chair day after day and put some words down.
But, some days, I’m just not in the mood. On those occasions, here’s what I do to get myself motivated or to, at the very least, keep my head in the game.
1. Music – Dissent, the 5th Day of Sacrifice story, is stuck at about 1,200 words right now. I haven’t worked on it in weeks because I’ve been writing my anthology story and because I don’t know what I want to happen next. This is a story I need to have out by the first of the year, so yesterday in order to get my brain thinking about it, I listened to my DoS playlist in the car while I was driving everyone to work and school. It’s amazing how music can get you in the right frame of mind when you associate it with writing a similar story or a previous story in this case. I had Halo and Bleeding Love on repeat all day. Just thinking about my characters in a video montage sort of way (does anyone else do that or am I a weirdo?) I jump started my enthusiasm for the series and came up with ideas for the end of the scene I’ve been stalled on.
2. Sexy New Ideas notebook – Again, I may be a weirdo, but I never have more new ideas for other stories than when I’m trying to complete the one I’m supposed to be focused on. I combat this by keeping an Idea Notebook. If I can get the idea down on paper, my mind can let it go. It’s like a promise to myself that I will come back to it later. Of course, there are always more ideas than there is time to write them, but I’ve also found that sometimes the ideas can be combined together – genre mixing at its finest!
3. More than one project – I’ve tried only working on one story at a time. It’s not my style. I find that if I have multiple projects to work on – I usually have 3-4 going at once – and can add a new paragraph to one that is not my main focus, that it does two things: Like with the SNI’s I can get nagging conversations, scenes and descriptions out of my head and it gives me a confidence boost. Nothing makes me feel better about myself than writing does, so it stands to reason that if I’m feeling crappy and distracted with my main WIP, getting some words down on something else I’m working on makes me feel like I’ve done something, made some progress in my own little world.
4. Read/watch TV – Sometimes when I’m supposed to be writing, doing either of these things can feel decadent and like I’m wasting time. Really, though, they can help – if you stay on genre. I have a particularly hard time writing action/fight scenes – with the Zellie books, I often turned to reading the Vampire Academy books and to watching teen shows like Roswell, The Nine Lives of Chloe King and Kyle XY – books and TV shows that are aimed at the same audience as the Zellie books are and contain both a paranormal romance aspect and a lot of action. With the DoS stories, I can’t tell you how much Supernatural and Nikita have helped me come up with ideas for both characters and new ways to write fights. So, yes, I’m being entertained and slacking off a bit, but I’m also consciously studying the ways other writers do what I’m trying to do.
What sort of things do you do to get in the mood to write?
This blog is cross-posted on my personal blog and the Death by Chocolate blog.
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Posted: October 19, 2011 | Author: Stacey Wallace Benefiel | Filed under: Writing Tips | Tags: WordTalk |
Here’s a link to some free software that will allow your computer to read Word documents out loud to you. Very cool, very useful in editing. It works with PCs, and while there is a Mac version available, a friend has told me that the free version is limited. However, I’ve also been told Mac has it’s own tool for reading a document out loud.
I’ve been using this program a lot lately, both to catch typos and missing words, and to check for overall smoothness in my writing. I can’t begin to say how helpful it’s been.
http://www.wordtalk.co.uk/Home/
After it downloads, click to install (rather than saving it). Let the setup wizard do its thing.
Once it’s installed you might have to take extra steps to get it to show up on your toolbar in Word. Here is what their FAQ says to do.
I’ve installed WordTalk but can’t see the toolbar in Word 2003
- (In Word) Go to Tools>templates and Add-ins;
- Click on the add button;
- browse to the WordTalk.dot file in c:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\microsoft\word\startup.
You might also have to turn on the toolbar. Go to “View” then “toolbars” and select “WordTalk.” You can find a key to what the each tool means here:
http://www.wordtalk.co.uk/Toolbar-Quick-Guide/
You can also adjust the voice from male to female. From the Start menu go to “settings” then “control panel.” Double click the “speech” icon. In the box that opens, choose the “text to speech” tab. There will be a choice of at least two voices, one male and one female. Choose the one you like and adjust the speed.
That’s it. Now you can play around with your new toy.
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