Confidence: Selling Yourself

Last week I addressed what I think is the biggest cause of insecurity in writers: a lack of knowledge. This week, I am going to talk about marketing yourself, when you feel like you don't deserve people's attention.

Again, this is an area where I am talking about a problem I don't really have. So while I strongly advise you at least try my methods, take this blog post with a grain of salt.

It can be very hard to promote yourself and your writing. I am super confident when it comes to talking about myself, but I am not the sort of person who pushes sales or hounds people to read my work. However, I am happy to talk about it and I do love it when people read my work. That is, after all, the goal. A lot of people seem to really struggle with this though. They feel if they talk about their own work, they are being narcissistic and will risk boring people. However so much of being an author these days is about promoting yourself. There is a lot of competition in the market and you're crazy if you just leave discoverability to chance. So without further ado:

Promote Yourself As If You Are Your Favourite Author.

How many times have you encouraged friends to read a book you love? Hopefully a lot, since word of mouth is the most powerful success tool for books. If you want your favourite author to keep writing, recommend them to people, so they can quit their day job and write for you full time.

Remember the passion and excitement you expressed? You're not sharing a book you love for selfish reasons, you're sharing it because you are hoping it will bring your friend the same joy it brought you. You are recommending it, because you think they will like it.

And how awesome is it when a friend recommends a book to you and it's AMAZING? And you love it. And you recommend it to everyone else?

When you are promoting your book, I want you to pretend you are promoting a book by someone else. It's an author you love, a story you love. And if you use the same sort of language in promoting your own book as you do promoting other people's books, you'll have more success.

How do you usually recommend a book to someone? Usually with one or two lines that summarise the key appeal (or key sparkly, but more on that in another blog post). I'll give you some examples of me pitching novels I love to my friends:

'Three words. Gay slave prince. Its trashy, and angsty and fantastic. Its every guilty pleasure you ever wanted in one super gay fantasy trilogy.' (Captive Prince – C.S Pacat)

'It's grimdark, subversive, really intelligent political fantasy and one of the characters is a disabled asshole and I love him.' (The Blade Itself – Joe Abercrombie)

'It's world war one, but the Germans have mecha and the British have genetically modified animals and there is a girl dressed as a boy who runs away to join the air force and it is everything I ever wanted.' (Leviathan – Scott Westerfeld) 

How would you describe your book in one to two enthusiastic sentences? What are the key elements that would appeal to readers? Work it out, memorise it, and next time someone asks what you book is about, that's all you need to say. Pitch your book as you would your favourite book. Even pretend it was written by someone else if that helps. It will make a difference.

Be Aware Of What You Are Offering.

Obviously if you are going to pitch your story to people the same way you would your favourite book, you must be aware of what you are offering. If you have no idea, go back to stuff you love and write down why you love it. Just the basic, simple things. It's entertaining, you like the characters, you're hooked on the romance—whatever it is. Be honest. You don't have to be ashamed of what you like. You don't have to like things for high-brow reasons.

Now, it's more than likely, you write similar things to what you like. You're going to have similar elements in your books to the elements you love in other books. This is where you might get caught up thinking 'but I don't do it as well as my favourite author'.

If you ask 10 people what their favourite book is, you'll probably get ten different answers. If you ask ten people who their favourite character is, you'll get ten different answers. Opinions vary. A lot of my friends do not like one of my favourite authors. They find him elitist and inaccessible. And boring. They prefer my style of writing to his. He is inarguably richer and more famous, but if they had to choose between one of my books and one of his, mine would win every time. But I IDOLISE this guy. I think preferring my books over his is crazy. I think he writes like he was touched by God.

You can't really compare your tastes to everyone else's tastes. There are people out there who think your favourite author is crap dusted on a crap sandwich. So don't think just because you think you are terrible when comparing yourself to your idols, that everyone else does too.

It's egotistical to think your opinion on what is good and what is bad is more valid than everyone else's. Tell people what you love about your writing and then let them make up their own minds. Some people will like it and some people won't, just like they do with your favourite author. Which brings me to:

Love What You Have Written.

A friend of mine was looking for people to review his work on amazon. I said sure, and to toss me a copy. He didn't. I messaged him, a little confused, to ask why not. You can never have enough reviews, after all. Had he reached a quota? No. He confessed he didn't want me to read his book because he 'cared about my opinion'.

I was baffled. Completely stunned. I would PAY to have people I respect read my books. Nothing in the world would make me happier than having someone I respect ask for a copy of one of my books. I would deliver it to them on a unicorn with banners and a marching band.

Why? Because I love my books. I am proud of my books. What I want, more than money and fame and a harem of gorgeous polymaths is for people to read my books. Want to impress me? Want to get on my good side? Want me to ADORE you? Read my books. Tell other people to read my books. Talk to me about my books.

I don't want to be an asshole, but why would you spend hundreds of hours writing and editing a manuscript if you didn't want anyone to read it? Isn't that a huge waste of time? Or do you just want stupid, boring people to read it and praise you? It's good enough for the people you don't give a shit about, but not the ones you respect? That sounds pretty dicky to me.

Don't let anyone tell you you're not allowed to be proud of the things you create. Imagine if someone said: "Oh, you're proud of your daughter? I don't think you should be. She's not that great."

Would you let someone talk to you like that about your child? About your partner? About your parents? I wouldn't. I'd punch someone in the fucking mouth if they said that to me. Try me. Tell me I shouldn't be proud of my friends. I will fight you.

Your creative work is the same. You are the same. You are allowed to be proud of yourself and your creations. Just like you are your children. You created them too.

No more bullshit. I am giving you all permission to be proud and talk about your books with enthusiasm. Be excited to share them.

And if you still can't bring yourself to do it, be excited to share mine. They're awesome.

For more updates on how awesome I am, follow me on twitter.

Tag Tackles Genres. Again.

I’ve talked about genres before on this blog, but a conversation with my friend Wonderdog led to tackle it again.

Wonderdog was marvelling over my ability to write many different genres, and I said my books were all similar types of story, just with a different genre focus. I mentioned one book I was struggling with, since I couldn’t decide if it should be fantasy or romance. We then got to talking about what I would need to change to make it fit into one category or the other.

Firstly, it is worth covering what genre is:

Simply speaking, genre is the primary emotion of the book. It is also a label that allows booksellers and librarians to easily shelve your book so it can be found by readers who will enjoy reading it.

So, what do I mean by the primary emotion? Well, the primary emotion you should feel while reading a horror novel is fear. The primary emotion you want to experience while reading a romance novel is love or infatuation. Action is excitement. Thriller is tension. Drama is often nostalgia. Fantasy is wonder. Obviously, most novels will have a range of emotions. It’s very difficult to make someone feel an emotion strongly without contrast. To have high highs, you need low lows.

However, in most cases, the primary emotion is going to correspond with the genre.

And when people go looking for a book, what they are really looking for is how that book will make them feel. Good, sad, intelligent, whatever. Which is why you should want to be grouped in the correct genre in bookstores. If you are grouped in the wrong genre, then people are not going to get what they want, and they are going to be disappointed.

Not knowing your genre doesn’t make you cool, special or different. It just makes it hard for your book to find readers, and tells me it has no strong emotional impact.

Have you stopped bragging about defying genre now? Good. Let’s go on.

Next Topic: What Makes A Story One Genre Or Another?

Quite simply, it’s the focus and word use. In a previous post, I talked about atmosphere and gave three descriptions of the same room. I used those examples to demonstrate how you can take the same information and, in the way your present it, completely change the reader’s perception.

Genre is basically the same. It’s not the content itself, but how you present it. Take for example a man with a sword. In a fantasy, I might introduce him like this:

He was big, brutish. The sword at his side had seen a lot of use. He moved like a fighter, light on his feet and much too alert to be the simple merchant he claimed.

However, in a romance, he might look a bit more like this:

He was tall, roguish. The sword at his side had seen a lot of use. He moved like a dancer, light on his feet, his bright blue eyes alert and attentive. He looked much too capable to be the simple merchant he claimed.

Instead of big and brutish, he becomes tall and roguish. Why? Because big and brutish are not sexy, but tall and roguish sounds like the sort of man women would like to meet. In both cases, he is light on his feet. However, in one he is compared to a fighter, in the other, a dancer. With the added bonus of alert blue eyes.

To go back to the setting and place blog post examples:

Safe and exciting:

The den was lit with cheery, jumping candlelight. Two overstuffed leather couches would be perfect for reading in on cold winter days. The bookshelf was overflowing with titles, new and old, and the TV was so big, it took up half the wall, almost as good as a movie theatre.

Tense and scary:

The den was cold and sallow in the flickering candlelight. Two overstuffed couches stood hulking on opposite sides of the room, like sagging, bloated monsters about to fight. The dusty bookshelf, spilled over with books, both forgotten and abandoned. The TV was the worst of all, a vast yawning blackness that took up almost the entire wall.

I would consider the first example to be suitable for a YA action or even romance, and the second to be a horror or thriller.

How Does The Reader Feel?

At the RWA conference last weekend I was talking to some awesome fellow writers about my psychology degree and if I thought it was better than a writing degree. The short answer is ‘yes’. However, that is true for me, and might not be true for everyone else. It depends on your skill and temperament.

I quickly realised the ladies I was speaking to thought psychology was important to learn how to write characters. Which it is. However, you get a lot more out of psychology when you apply it to readers.

There is a joke in competition judging: The story that makes you cry the most wins.

Think about best-selling books. People are passionate about them. They felt something strongly while reading them. Same with blockbuster movies. What about big budget movies that fail? When was the last time you watched a big budget movie that tanked? How did it make you feel? Sort of meh? Like, it was okay, just… meh?

Exactly.

When you are writing a horror, you want the reader to feel afraid. When you are writing a romance, you want the reader to feel caught up in the character’s infatuation. For some of us, this just happens. We can do this innately, by writing things that make us feel those things.

However, you can often have a lot more emotional impact if you consciously think about what you want the reader to feel. Research how to make them feel that way. Both by learning about psychology, and reading fantastic books and studying how other people do it.

Make sure your book is delivering on the promise of its genre.

And if you aren’t already, follow me on twitter. I always link back to new blog posts and often post really cute pictures of my cats. What more could you ask for?