Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

A number of readers posted questions today on various aspects of promoting our fiction. I’ll try to respond to a fair number of these here, in no particular order:

1) Colleen asked:

Valerie’s question is excellent. Thanks for answering. But I have another one . . I write adventure stories of a missionary kid in different parts of South America and eventually, the world. My one-liner for my present novel: “A twelve-year-old boy risks his friendship–and his life–to unmask crime and superstition in the mysterious Archipelagos.” Any ideas for a super article when you write for kids?

Randy sez: The key word here is “South America”. I bet there are a ton of kids every year who have to write a report about South America. You should do a little research here to find out exactly what parts of South America get searched on most often. (See my e-book on SuperArticles for how you do this research.) Then write some informative and kid-friendly articles on those areas. You might even include a short story set in South America.

2) Lynda wrote:

I’ve been pondering. My novels will deal with creationism. I am a former chemist and homeschool mom,so I thought I could come from that angle. Problem: its already been done and by people far better than I in both education and creation science. Any ideas?

Randy sez: Creationism is big among home-schoolers. Since you are a chemist and a home-school mom, you have an inside track here. How about creating a unit-study for home-schoolers on some aspect of Creationism? A unit-study should be targeted to a particular grade-level, so you could do one for each grade you’re interested in. You could sell them on your web site and generate some cash while you promote your novels!

3) Valerie asked:

I am still stuck. What kind of Super Article can a fantasy writer make? The closest I can think of is writing about the extensive research I did into the year 3000 BC. I have based the setting on a blend of many cultures and technologies during this time. Of course, I will maybe use at most 10%, if that.

Do I convert my story idea into a gaming format or module? Do I make an interactive map? (Not exactly sure how to do that but have seen a couple).

Randy sez: Yes, fantasy is harder to write a SuperArticle about. I’ve been meaning to address this question, because it’s come up several times. The advantage you fantasy writers have is that fantasy is big, especially among kids and adults in their 20s. I think it’s going to see a lot of growth in coming years.

One idea I had a few days ago was that one of you fantasy writers could create an article on dragons. Where did those myths of dragons come from? How have dragons played a role in myths and stories through the ages? What is the closest living species to a dragon? What sort of dragon art is out there? Any or all of these could form the basis for a web page on dragons. Google “dragons” to see what’s available. What do you see missing? Can you fill that gap?

But there are other aspects of fantasy you could tie into. For example, all those “creative anachronism” societies. What appeals to those people? How can you serve them? The definition of an entrepreneur is “someone who finds a need and fills it.”

4) Pam wrote:

For example: I have an autistic daughter. She has seizures. That makes it just about impossible for us to go to church while on vacation or visting my parents. Most churches do not have a special needs nursery and are not equipped to handle kids who can’t sit in church, Sunday school or the regular nursery. This should not be. Of all the places in the world, the church is one place where I should be able to take my daughter. I can write an article about this. I even have a name: No Place For Anna.

Will that boost my writing? I don’t know. But like Randy sez, if the writing is good, it will get noticed.

Randy sez: I wish, I wish, I wish when my book DOUBLE VISION came out that I had got in touch with some of the national organizations for autistic people. Because I’m sure they’d have loved the book and helped to promote it. (The leading man in the story, Dillon, has Asperger’s Syndrome.) I’ve heard from a few moms who wrote me to say that they have a son with Asperger’s and he’s just like Dillon. They felt that the book was good for their sons because it showed an autistic man in a positive light.

But I didn’t do that. I wish I had. So Pam, yes, write that article. Then promote it. There’s no telling how far an article like that would take you. If you have autistic characters in your fiction, that would definitely help you promote your novels.

Bottom line: Anything you care strongly about is a prime candidate for a SuperArticle. If you care about it, the odds are good someone else will care about it. Maybe a lot of people will.

Carrie has announced the name of the person who gave her the best ideas for writing her SuperArticle: Joleena.

Joleena wins a free critique of one page of her current work in progress. Joleena, email me that as a Word doc and I’ll critique it for you.

Valerie asked a good question today:

How do you write super articles, when you’re not a leading expert in a certain field, just a person, whose imagination can’t/won’t shut off.
This is my current struggle and frustration. I have the ideas and the ability to write, but my expertise is ‘limited’ by publishers’ standards.
Do we have to be qualified to write the stories we desire to tell?
Or are their other ways to prove ourselves to the publishing world?

There are several related questions here:

1) How do you write a SuperArticle when you’re not famous:

Randy sez: I wasn’t famous as a writing teacher when I wrote my Snowflake SuperArticle. My SuperArticle made me famous. Nor was I known at all in the world of New Testament scholarship three months ago when I wrote two articles about the alleged tomb of Jesus. Those articles MADE me famous because they had high perceived value.

Here is the secret with SuperArticles: People will judge you on the merit of your ideas, not on who you are. People don’t care diddly who you are. If you have a good idea and express it well and do your part to get the word out, then people will notice. My Special Report on SuperArticles explains a bit of what you need to do to promote your SuperArticle, but promotion is an infinitely large topic which we’ll be discussing here for years.

2) Do you have to be “qualified” to get a story published?

Randy sez: No. For certain kinds of stories, it helps. Carrie’s qualifications as a forensic artist will help her sell her story IF her writing is good enough. My qualifications as a physicist helped me sell my first time-travel novel, but ONLY because my writing was good enough. I know a cop who writes cop stories. His qualifications help, but ONLY because he writes well.

Excellent writing is your best qualification. Degrees and job titles are just gravy. The reason I started this web site is to teach excellence in writing. That’s the main thing.

3) Do you need to prove yourself to the publishing world?

Randy sez: If you’re a novelist, no. Just write well. The best thing a novelist can do for himself is to write superbly well. The second best thing is to have some sort of “marketing platform.” The third best thing is to have some sort of relevant qualification. Those are the only three things that I know that work.

Sending chocolate to the editor doesn’t work. Sending cash doesn’t work. Sending lingerie doesn’t work.

You ask how I know those don’t work. Well . . . I’ve heard stories. Enough said.

For those of you new to this blog, we’ve been discussing how to write SuperArticles that help promote our fiction. For the last few days, we’ve focused on Carrie’s novel on a forensic artist who stumbles onto the killing grounds of a serial killer.

I’ve been reading the comments suggesting ideas for Carrie’s SuperArticle. I like the YouTube idea. That could take a lot of work, but it could also be cool. I also like the idea of “How To Spot A Liar” which is the subject of a DVD Carrie produced. Hmmm, maybe a short YouTube clip on how to spot a liar? That could be very popular, if it were entertaining.

I haven’t researched keyphrases on WordTracker that involve liars or lying, and now my one-month subscription has expired. (I used it to research keyphrases for all the topics on any of my web sites, and now I have a vast wealth of ideas for articles.)

I do think Josh had a killer idea. Carrie, if you try that, be sure to give Josh FULL credit. And you don’t need to mention my name at all.

One point I should highlight is that if you’re trying to promote a novel, then writing a SuperArticle targeted to novelists isn’t the best strategy. (That’s a great strategy if you’re trying to promote a book on how to write fiction. My Snowflake SuperArticle has made me so famous in the writing world that I now have little choice but to write a series of “how to write fiction” books. But that wasn’t the original intent. The original intent was to not have to answer emails from people who had heard about the Snowflake by word of mouth. Little did I know how much email the Snowflake article would generate.)

My recommendation for promoting fiction is to write a SuperArticle that will target the same people who might want to read your novel. Of course, there are no guarantees on how successful that’ll be, but the world is full of people who succeeded by putting their own peculiar genius into something that was already known to work, but giving it that extra little twist that made it their own.

I spent some time on Saturday doing some basic legwork for our forensic artist, Carrie Stuart Park. For those of you who missed our discussion a few days ago, we were talking about potential SuperArticles we could write. Carrie is writing a novel with the one-sentence summary:

“A forensic artist stumbles upon the killing grounds of a serial killer.”

That’s a great premise, but how’s Carrie going to promote that? Carrie has the huge advantage that she’s a forensic artist. So I went to Wordtracker.com and fiddled around, looking to see what subjects might be related to her work. As it turns out, “forensic art” doesn’t get a lot of searches on Google. So she isn’t going to get famous by having people search on that keyphrase.

HOWEVER, here are some keyphrases that got quite a few searches in the last few months. The number in parentheses is the number of searches in the last 90 days:

zodiac killer (1654)
serial killers (1535)
forensic science (913)
missing persons (575)
forensics (540)
missing children (382)
the zodiac killer (379)
crime scene investigation (375)
famous serial killers (334)
forensic scientist (332)
forensic (233)
serial killer (226)

It seems to me that Carrie could do a couple of things to help promote her work.

First, she could start a blog on “serial killer fiction.” It could be EITHER about serial killer fiction by other authors OR about writing serial killer fiction OR BOTH. I’d recommend doing both. The blog should of course highlight Carrie’s expertise as a forensic artist. That’d be a unique angle. I bet there aren’t too many forensic artists writing novels. Over time, her blog could attract quite a following among readers and writers interested in serial killer fiction.

Second, Carrie could write some SuperArticles on one or more of the topics I listed above. Since the Zodiac killer is at the top of the list, she could write an article on the status of that case. But she could follow it up with articles on other serial killers. For example, who is her favorite candidate for Jack the Ripper? These articles of course should highlight her background as a forensic artist. And they should point readers to her blog.

Third, she could write an article on how forensic artists can help track down missing persons or missing children. If she’s got any examples from her own career, these would be good to work in. Again, these articles should point to her blog.

A blog is a nice way to build an audience. You don’t have to go coerce people to read your blog. They read it and tell other people about it if your writing is good.

OK, folks, now it’s your turn! Make some suggestions for Carrie! I’ve been a little vague and generic in my suggestions. Can you sharpen my ideas up? What would be a killer SuperArticle Carrie could write?

Be specific! Be precise! Be brilliant! The best suggestion (in Carrie’s sole judgment) as of midnight PST, Tuesday, May 29, will win the usual prize: a free one-page critique of your novel by me.

Start your suggestions!

Several of you have noticed that the FeedBlitz emails are no longer being sent out when I post to this blog. I suspect that the new FeedBurner plugin that I installed the other day is causing problems, so I’ve disabled that. If you’ve subscribed via FeedBurner, it should still work. But what I’ve turned off is a WordPress plugin that sends ALL feeds (including FeedBlitz) through FeedBurner.

If we all get a FeedBlitz email for this blog post, then the problem is solved. If not, I’ll look into it more.

Yesterday, I asked to hear what ideas you all have for marketing your work. Carrie’s caught my eye:

OK, Randy, I could use your help. I’m a forensic artist. I’ve written/illustrated three books on how to draw. I’m working on my novel with the main character a forensic artist. (A forensic artist stumbles upon the killing grounds of a serial killer.)

I wrote an article on the REAL story of how forensic art was used in such cases as the Unabomber, Polly Klaas, etc. I’ve given helpful suggestions on my Amazon page. Any suggestions (outside of “don’t give up your day job…”) for better marketing?

Randy sez: Wow, this is cool! You definitely want to keep your day job, because it’s your connection to what you write. There are a lot of things you COULD do. It’s a question of what direction you want to go.

But help me out a little here. What exactly do forensic artists do? Do you work with the cops or do you work with ordinary people? Are you trying to draw suspects in crimes, locate missing persons, or what exactly?

I just now Googled “forensic art” and found that there are over 1.1 million pages that are listed under this subject. So for starters, you could visit the top ten of these sites and then ask yourself the simple question: “What’s missing on these sites?”

Oh, gack! Nobody wants to talk about marketing, right? We all want it to just happen, by magic.

Sometimes it does just happen by magic. I know a FEW writers who never think a bit about marketing. They just sit in their corners and type and their books sell like hotcakes. A very few writers, actually.

I know a LOT of writers whose books sell like hotcakes. The great majority of them work their buns off marketing themselves.

I wish, I wish, I wish that when I started writing that I knew then what I know now. I’d do two things different:
1) I’d write 3 or 4 books that were all similar in subject matter, instead of skipping around all over the place and confusing my readers about what to expect when I write a book.
2) I’d market myself more effectively.

I’ve turned over a new leaf in the last couple of years. I’m now focusing myself better than I used to. And I’m marketing myself WAY better than I used to.

I intend to keep marketing myself. I have one SuperArticle, the famous Snowflake page, which has been viewed 25284 times in the first 23 days of this month, according to my web stats. No kidding, it’s averaging more than 1000 page views a day this month.

I plan to rewrite my article on Writing the Perfect Scene and turn that into a SuperArticle too. That’s going to take a lot of work. Right now it’s getting about 40 page views per day, which adds up to 14600+ per year. By the end of this year, I’d like to see it getting more than 100 page views per day. That’s a doable task.

I also have some ideas for some SuperArticles for my forthcoming novels. More about that in due time. I’ll just note that the two articles I wrote in March on the alleged family tomb of Jesus have now landed me in a documentary that is going to air on TV this weekend. (On the INSP channel.) Those aren’t SuperArticles, because they were time-limited in interest, but they still did something cool for me.

I explained why and how to write a SuperArticle in my recent e-book on Super Performing Articles.

What about you? Do you have a blog or web site that’s not attracting a lot of attention? Is there a SuperArticle you could write that could help you build a platform over the next five years? If so, I want to hear about it. Leave a comment telling what you’d like to write about.

If you’re not thinking about a SuperArticle yet, leave a comment and tell us what sort of novel you’re working on, and the rest of us can help you brainstorm some ideas. SuperArticles are a proven way to build that pesky platform that your publisher says you should have.

Start your engines!

Just a quick housekeeping note to those of you who like to read your blogs using RSS feeds: I’ve now got hooked up with FeedBurner. I hope I did it correctly. If not, I’m sure all 7 billion of you will tell me and I’ll get it squared away. The link is in the sidebar at right. Have at it!

Thanks to all of you who made comments to yesterday’s post on dealing with email. Let me note that I already have my email organized in folders. Hundreds of ‘em. And I use filters. Hundreds of ‘em. Anyone I write to regularly has their own folder. Every conference I teach at has its own folder. All my email newsletters are subscribed to in digest form and they get filtered into a catchall folder for newsletters which I read at my leisure. Whenever someone buys something on my site, my system sends me several emails to let me know that each step in the process went through. All those get automatically filtered into their appropriate folders and they open up automatically for me to oversee. But a lot of email still comes into the general in-box, much of it from perfect strangers.

My policy is to answer all first-timer email that isn’t spam. So anyone who writes to me should get an answer at least once. However, a guy’s gotta have boundaries, and my boundaries are set so that if people respond to my response, I don’t feel obligated to continue the conversation. After all, I hear from hundreds of friends and thousands of strangers every year.

I do feel bad, though, when I run through the old email files and see requests for me to come speak at a conference and I never responded. Or requests from a friend to do a critique and I never answered. Those sorts of things happened last year a couple of times when I was in the middle of moving out of the old house or when I was moving into the new one. They just fell through the cracks, and because my in-box had a couple thousand emails in it, I didn’t notice them. So my new procedure is designed to prevent that in the future.

That’s all for today! Tomorrow, I think maybe we’ll switch gears and talk some about the M-word: “marketing”. If you’re a writer, you need to market yourself, and the sooner you start, the better. So I’ll want to talk about how you can do that. See ya then!

I spent a few icky hours this weekend going through my email in-box, trying to sort through all the stuff that came in since early 2006 that I never dealt with.

Yikes! It’s embarrassing how many emails just fell through the cracks and I never responded to. In my defense, I do answer 98% or 99% of my email quickly. But I get an enormous amount–hundreds per day, if you count all the separate emails in the digests of the numerous email loops I subscribe to.

What goes wrong sometimes is that somebody will email me with a request that takes more than a minute or two to answer. So I move on to the next one, fully intending to answer it later “when I have more time”. Often, I do get back to it.

But sometimes, I don’t. What happens is that more email comes in, and the one I intended to answer drifts up past the top of my in-box.

When that happens, it’s trouble, because if it’s out of sight, it’s out of my mind, probably forever. As I sorted through the email from the last 18 months, I came across any number of old requests that I had lost track of. A lot of people must think I’m too snooty to answer my email.

I’m embarrassed. But I’m also human.

My goal is to get better at dealing with email this year. One way to deal with the problem I described above is that I’ve created another email folder labeled “Answer Today”. My plan is to never leave email in my in-box. As it comes in, I’ll either deal with it immediately or move it to the “Answer Today” folder. Then when the daily work is over, I can get to those things and answer them. Hopefully today. So nothing should get lost in a bulging in-box with thousands of items in it.

That’s the theory anyway. I’ll let you know how it works.

That raises a question for you all. What tricks do you use to tame the email monster? How do you handle the flood?

A couple of days ago, I posted Barbara’s one-sentence summary of her novel and asked you all to see if you could improve on my best attempt to revise it. Thanks to all of you who responded!

Barbara has picked a winner and has asked me to post this message:

“All you people are, (pick one) awesome, wonderful, fantastic, awe-inspiring. There were a lot of great entries and I narrowed it down to two:

“J.R. Turner submitted:

This is 15 words:

Three scientists unwittingly give a clandestine government agency the power to alter the human genome.

“While this was very good, an even better entry and the winner was supplied by Caprice Hokstad, who submitted:

A secret government agency manipulates unsuspecting biotechnologists into altering human DNA.

“This was the best short entry. I would change only one word giving:

“A clandestine government agency manipulates unsuspecting biotechnologists into altering human DNA.

“In my original version I used disgruntled but unsuspecting also works for the story. And I like the use of manipulates.

“The first draft of this story is done. I wrote it during NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) which takes place every November. During the month of November you have to write a novel of at least 50,000 words. You’re allowed to have an outline and character sketches beforehand. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. The down side is when the first draft is done then you must edit, and edit, and…

“I’d like to thank you all for your responses. Sometimes I get too close to the problem to see the best answer.

“Take care, Barbara”

Randy sez: As you can see, less is more in this game. Barbara’s original version was 36 words. I cut it down to 20 words. Caprice chopped it all the way down to 11, and it’s clearly stronger than mine or Barbara’s original.

Caprice, you won! Go ahead and email me with a one-page Word excerpt from your novel and I’ll critique it.

Thanks to all of you who participated! This was fun!