Table of Contents

Two Unique Teleseminars

By W. Terry Whalin

The Big Grab

By James Scott Bell

Publicize Via Social Networks

By Fern Reiss, CEO, PublishingGame.com/Expertizing.com

A Window to the Publisher's Thinking

By W. Terry Whalin

The Value Of Publishing Experience

By W. Terry Whalin

Where can a writer turn for good advice? It's hard in the world of competing voices to find someone with a great deal of publishing experience to recommend to others. Often I see it in the writer's conferences. Someone has published one book or even five books and suddenly they become an "expert" and are teaching at various conferences yet they've just burst on the scene. I've attended some of those workshops and words like surface and shallow spring instantly to mind. It's one of the criteria that I use when I go and listen to someone else teach about publishing. I'm looking at their credentials and experience because I know firsthand the lessons from publishing are continual.

In the nonfiction area of book publishing, it is a challenge to find fresh teaching. Why nonfiction? As I've written about in the past, if you study the numbers of books sold from traditional publishers, nonfiction substantially out sells fiction hands down--year after year. I've watched many writers gravitate toward fiction because they believe it's "easier." Basically they are fooling themselves with this line of reasoning because fiction is not easier. Overall there are less fiction slots than nonfiction and many more people trying to write fiction than nonfiction. If you choose to write only fiction, then you are intentionally targeting the most crowded area of the marketplace within traditional publishing. That's my case for nonfiction in books so back to my original question, where do you turn for some seasoned advice?

The publishing marketplace is diverse and no single individual has all of the answers or insight. Yet I've read a terrific resource, You Can Write! by Sheryl Fullerton & Naomi Lucks. Several years ago I met Sheryl, executive editor at Jossey-Bass, at a writer's conference. You can see more details in the "About Us" section of their website You Can Write. Look around this site because it's another resource to know about and study.

You Can Write is loaded with sound wisdom and I want to give a small example. In Chapter 13, Fullerton and Lucks give the Nuts and Bolts of Book Proposal Format and Style. A sub-section is called "Take a Good Last Look" and they suggest hiring a professional editor before you send out your proposal and sample chapters. Then say, "If you can't afford to or don't want to hire a professional editor, go over the whole thing very carefully yourself. Ask a couple of intelligent friends to do the same and invite their candid comments (and sharp-eyed proofreading skills). Here are a few things to watch out for:

-Look for obvious mistakes--we all make them. Missing words, typos, and other common errors are easy to miss when you're familiar with your proposal.
-Use your computer's spell-checker, but don't count on it. Your spell-checker doesn't know if you meant "there," "they're," or "their," but you do."
Then they include three more valuable insights but you get the point. This book is loaded with insight and the voice of experience. It is well worth your time to read and study it.

Five Ways to Promote Fiction

By Sandra Beckwith

****************************************************** Sandra Beckwith is an author and recovering publicist who now offers do-it-yourself courses and materials desigined to help authors create their own exciting book buzz. Subscribe to her free book publicity e-zine at http://www.buildbookbuzz.com and receive a free special report, "Beyond the Press Release: 10 Exciting Book Buzz Ideas That Will Take You to the Top." Visit her blog at http://buildbuzz.blogspot.com.

How To Develop an Original Voice

By Laura Backes

Voice is the simplest writing technique to learn, because it’s already in you. But it’s the hardest to achieve, because it involves trusting yourself. It means learning what goes into a children’s book and then forgetting it, or rather placing all those "rules" into your subconscious and allowing yourself to write. And learning to write without that annoying internal editor who says, "You’re doing this wrong."

All stories start with an idea. We read something in the newspaper, we have a dream, we recall a vivid childhood experience. And in that moment, that first exciting spark where anything is possible, we think, "This would make a great book."

Then we start plotting out the story in our heads. And we begin to worry about the characters and the dialogue, when the climax of the plot will take place, how it will end. I suggest that in that first moment of inspiration you stop and ask yourself "Why do I need to write this story?" Forget about your audience. Be selfish. What’s in it for you? You might try brainstorming on paper, freewriting where you jot down anything and everything that comes to mind. Leave that pesky editor in another room. You need to find a reason for creating this story that speaks to your writer’s heart, in order to speak to your reader’s heart.

Another way of looking at this is to ask yourself, "When I was five, did I need this book?" Try to answer this question from your five-year-old consciousness, which still lives inside you, rather than from your current adult perspective. If the answer is no (you wouldn’t have sat still for this story) then you’re writing it for the wrong reasons. Discovering why you need to write this story -- and this applies equally to fiction and nonfiction -- leads you to that passion editors talk about. If you’re writing the story or article because something inside of you needs to hear it told, then you’re writing from your heart.

However, you still need to develop a technique that translates this passion from your imagination to words on paper. And a big part of the key to developing this technique is time. With a lot of practice, your voice will emerge, if you let it. This involves spending many hours just writing, without the pressure of creating a manuscript that you intend to submit to a publisher. Don’t feel every time you put pen to paper it has to result in something that you’re actually going to show to anyone else. Instead of dictating where your writing will go, allow yourself to be surprised. Write about whatever’s on your mind at that moment, describe what you see through your window, follow a memory and see where it goes. This process of stretching your writing muscles with no pressure to actually create something substantial allows you to relax, and eventually your voice will emerge.

I suggest you keep these "creative stretches" and, after you’ve accumulated a file, take them out and look at them all together. Seen as a group, certain things should pop out at you. If you’ve really allowed yourself to write freely during these exercises without editing yourself, you’ll begin to see how your writing illustrates the way you look at the world. This viewpoint, your author’s viewpoint, will be original. And while I believe that there are no original themes, there are an infinite number of original stories, or ways of examining those themes.

If you read award-winning children's books you'll notice that the prose seems effortless. This is the result of a strong voice, though it’s deceiving because it takes many revisions to achieve. However, if your writing sounds forced, your voice won’t ring true. This forced tone happens when authors try too hard to sound like a writer. I think the best voices happen when authors write as they speak. We've all had the experience of a story sounding great in our heads, but then losing something when it's translated to paper. That’s because in your head you’re telling the story to yourself in your speaking voice, and when you write it down suddenly you’re trying to sound like a writer. You search through the thesaurus for the perfect word, a word you’d never use in normal conversation. And suddenly in that process of writing down what’s in your head, you’ve lost your voice. And you’ve adapted the voice of someone else, or the voice you think your writing should have. So next time you write, try writing exactly what’s in your head.

If you type, try typing your writing exercise with your eyes closed, so you can’t see , and edit, what you've written. Closing your eyes also helps you focus inward where the story is being created. Then all you’ll have to go by is how the words sound and feel in your head, and that’s the closest thing to your true voice.