The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Publisher: Randy Ingermanson ("the Snowflake guy") Motto: "A Vision for Excellence" Date: July 5, 2011 Issue: Volume 7, Number 7 Home Pages: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com http://www.Ingermanson.com Circulation: 26525 writers, each of them creating a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ "Fiction Writing = Organizing + Creating + Marketing" _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ What's in This Issue 1) Welcome to the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine! 2) Organizing: Conquering E-mail 3) Creating: Making Your Reader Love Backstory 4) Marketing: The Secret of John Locke's Success 5) What's New At AdvancedFictionWriting.com 6) Randy Recommends . . . 7) Steal This E-zine! 8) Reprint Rights _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 1) Welcome to the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine! Those of you who have joined in the past month (more than 500 of you signed up in June), welcome to my e-zine! You should be on this list only if you signed up for it on my web site. If you no longer wish to hear from me, don't be shy -- there's a link at the bottom of this e-mail that will put you out of your misery. If you need to change your e-mail address, there's a different link at the bottom to help you do that. If you missed a back issue, remember that all previous issues are archived on my web site at: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/ezine What's in this issue: The successful novelist needs good organization, good craft, and good marketing. In this issue, we'll talk about each of these in turn. * Are you overwhelmed by e-mail? Want to know 7 tips that will help you take charge of your life again? Read Mary DeMuth's guest article, "Conquering E-mail." * Backstory is the biggest story-killer ever devised by writers intent on wrecking their novels. Backstory is absolutely required in order to give your reader a deep, rich, satisfying story. Want to learn how to reconcile those two facts? Check out my column on craft, "Making Your Reader Love Backstory." * Whether you self-publish or work with a traditional publisher, the onus for marketing your novel is on you. If you'd like to learn from one of the best, check out this month's marketing column, "The Secret of John Locke's Success." Are you reading my blog? Check out the massively popular "Ask A Question For My Blog" feature on my web site. In each blog post, I answer one question in detail from my loyal blog readers. Are you missing out? Join the fun here: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blog _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 2) Organizing: Conquering E-mail Most writers struggle with e-mail. Some of us often feel overwhelmed by it. Don't get me wrong. I love e-mail. I love ketchup too, but three gallons on one sandwich is too much of a great thing. And three hours of e-mail per day is too much of a really great thing. Recently my friend Mary DeMuth wrote a Star Wars themed post on her blog that seemed so outrageously sensible that I begged her for permission to run it here in my e-zine. A few of you are so organized that you won't need this. If that's the case, skip on to the next column. But I'm betting about 90% of my readers will find something useful here. Here's Mary's article, which you can find online here: http://www.marydemuth.com/2011/06/become-an-email-jedi-in-7-steps/ BECOME AN E-MAIL JEDI IN 7 STEPS by Mary DeMuth I used to have tons of emails loitering in my inbox. They lurked there, making me feel guilty and stressed out. I don't think they meant to, but by simply sitting there, they Darth Vader-ed me, heavy breathing and all. Certainly they were in cahoots with the Dark Side, and me, being a mere Padawan, felt helpless against their might. Sometimes they grew as lumborious (yep, made up that word) as slug-like slimeball Jabba the Hut -- unwieldy and bothersome. That is until I read this amazing post by Michael Hyatt, who I would call an Email Jedi of the Highest Order. http://michaelhyatt.com/yes-you-can-stay-on-top-of-email.html He cuts away email with the Light Saber of Email Folders. He plays Jedi mind tricks on overwrought emails, responding to them nimbly and with courage. Because of that post, I daresay I've graduated to Email Jedi of the Second Order. I'll joyfully sift through my correspondence saying, "These are not the emails you're looking for." Here are 7 things that helped me achieve Jedi status. * Unsubscribe from loops and lists and advertising of any kind. Choose the very best ones (the most important) and delete the rest. A good Jedi understands the power of focus. I used to subscribe to so many that they choked my inbox. Now when I receive unwanted ads or ezines, I hurry to the bottom of the email and quickly unsubscribe. If I did not subscribe, but someone has "kindly" subscribed me without my permission, I send them a form email that I've created in conjunction with a guest post by Laura Christianson of Blogging Bistro about the CAN SPAM laws. http://www.marydemuth.com/2011/06/have-an-email-newsletter-a-must-read/ She gave me permission to use her well-written instructions. Most people who have received this email have thanked me. They simply didn't know they were breaking the law by arbitrarily signing people up for their newsletters. * Create compelling form replies for the most common questions you receive. I created several, including the CAN SPAM email. Others include my answers to: How can I become a published author? What's the difference between self publishing and traditional publishing? What is your mailing address? (I have one for my PO Box and home address.) Will you read and endorse the book I haven't yet finished? Will you endorse my soon-to-be published book? Can you meet with me so I can pick your brain? Will you please write my book? Would you please critique my manuscript for free? What new author advice do you have? I use Entourage and create this under the Signatures file. I typically personalize my reply, but having the bulk of what I say over and over and over again really helps cut back on my time. Another way to work through your pile of emails is to hire a Padawan, an assistant. A good assistant can sort through for you and forward your form replies. * As often as you can, zero out your inbox. If you have 1000 emails in there, be a gutsy Jedi and declare an email holiday, then delete them all. Seriously, let the fully armed and operational Death Star decimate them. Start fresh. Chances are those people won't even remember emailing you. From time to time you'll see me tweet about making my inbox zero. Why? Because it feels awesome! To me it's like operating with a clean desk. (And I do this without using email filters, as I haven't figured them out yet!) * Use folders, but don't become a folder junkie. Let the Folders be with you, but not so much that they're multiplying like midichlorians. Yes, delegate your emails into folders so you don't lose track, or you know where they are logically, but don't create 38 folders. Use just a few. Some of mine include: contact information, tasks, bills, article assignments, receipts, passwords and websites, interviews, speaking, and folders for my latest publishing projects. Keep it simple. Your system must make sense to you, and be a natural extension of your organizational style. * Give yourself grace to respond to emails how you're wired. Yoda, not everyone is. Nor should you try to be someone that you're not. Some people set aside three times a day (or four or two or one) to check and respond to email. This works beautifully for them. But me? It doesn't work. I'm better if I check them throughout the day. I have this strange, clutter-ability brain that thrives on variety. Find what fits you. * Train yourself to make quick decisions. What wasted the most time for me was reading an email, then thinking about it, then not responding and keeping it there several days, then finally writing back with two sentences. I should've just responded in the moment. Much like a Jedi wielding a light saber, we must be quick to respond and confident in our choices. I think that's the key is learning confidence. It's insecurity that keeps us wavering. In the infamous words of Yoda, "Try? There is no try." Just do it. Michael Hyatt gives three easy steps in this stage: Do, Delegate, and Defer. And don't forget the elegant, yet powerful button DELETE. * Keep the human perspective in mind. Even Jedis have friends and relationships. Instead of dreading opening up your inbox in the morning, anticipate it. Wonder afresh who will be contacting you and how you can serve them best. Email is a sweet opportunity to stop a moment and connect with another human being. It's also one of the best things you do as a business to show respect and care to your customers. Recently I sent an email inquiry to Amazon. The person who received the email responded directly to my request, then alerted another person in the company to respond directly to me. You can bet I felt valued by them. Let's not forget that all this typing and organizing actually boils down to people connecting with people. * I hope this post frees you up to take control of your inbox. I've been so thankful for Michael Hyatt's post, but learned to reorient his tips to make sense to me. Perhaps soon you'll become an email Jedi, maybe even this week! May the force be with you. Randy sez: Thanks, Mary, for giving me permission to run this article. Readers, if you want to learn more about Mary, visit her web site and check out her latest book on how to get published: http://www.marydemuth.com/store/the-11-secrets-of-getting-published-2-99-ebook/ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 3) Creating: Making Your Reader Love Backstory If you want to kill your novel, the quickest, surest way to do it is to throw in a big lump of backstory on your first page. Or in your first chapter. Yes, sure, I've seen published novelists start off with a boatload of backstory. I've seen jugglers juggling burning torches. I've seen an archer shoot an arrow through the balloon atop his wife's head. Blindfolded. But all of these are risky behaviors. If you want to take risks, there needs to be a payoff somewhere. If you don't know the payoff, then you have no business taking risks. Backstory, by the way is good. If you don't know your characters' backstory -- all the stuff that happened in their lives up till the time your story started, then odds are good that your story is going to be pretty shallow. You want to know the backstory of your novel. The trick here is to make your reader want to know that backstory too. The real trick is to make your reader beg for it. You don't do that by piling it on in the first chapter, before your reader cares about your characters. How do you make your reader beg? There are several ways, but they all come down to the same thing. You write a compelling story with strong characters and sharp plot twists. A plot twist is an unexpected change in the story direction. Your reader thought she knew your character, thought she could predict what would happen next, and was delighted to learn she was wrong. That darned character zigged when he should have zagged. Why? Most of the time, it's because of something in his past. There's a reason. And now your reader wants to know that reason. Now she's ready for backstory. The rules for backstory are really pretty simple: * Just in time. * Just enough. "Just in time" means only when the reader needs it and only when the reader wants it. "Just enough" means that the reader doesn't need to know everything you do. Leave the reader wanting more, not wanting less. Remember that at least one major category of fiction is all about discovering the backstory -- the mystery. Once you've got a corpse in the picture, the whole story is about figuring out who did it, why he did it, and how he did it. That's backstory, pure and simple. But until you've got a corpse, none of that is of any interest. You have at least six good ways to give your reader backstory, when the time is ripe. Here they are: * Interior monologue * Dialogue * Narrative summary * Flashback * A nonlinear timeline * Research Let's talk about each of these in turn. Interior Monologue __________________ Interior monologue is the sequence of thoughts that pass through a viewpoint character's mind. The reader can hear these, either as word-for-word thoughts or else as the gist of what the character is thinking. Either way, this is a fine way to give your reader little snippets about your character's backstory. The key thing here is to treat interior monologue backstory like salt. A little is good -- it makes you thirsty. A lot makes you gag. If you're going to use interior monologue this way, make the backstory references necessary to the character's line of thinking, and keep them short. Dialogue ________ Inexperienced writers often launch a long stretch of backstory in dialogue by having one character begin, "As you know..." The problem is that nobody in real life ever tells somebody else what they both know. This kind of backstory stops your story cold. The reason is that there's no conflict. They both already know everything. If you want to tell some of your backstory using dialogue, drive it with conflict. Maybe one of the characters knows and doesn't want to tell, whereas the other character doesn't know and desperately needs to. Or maybe one character is about to do something stupid, and the other one can only prevent it by giving up some backstory. There are plenty of ways to play out some backstory through dialogue so that you maintain a high level of conflict. Remember: no conflict, no story. So your dialogue must have conflict. If you keep the conflict high, you can give your reader unlimited amounts of backstory in dialogue. A cross-examination of a witness in a courtroom is a classic powerful way to use dialogue to reveal backstory. The dialogue itself is frontstory. The information revealed in the dialogue is mostly backstory. But naturally, it has a huge impact on the frontstory. Narrative summary _________________ Sometimes the most efficient way to give the reader some backstory is just to tell her. Narrative summary is efficient. It's also boring. If you're going to tell the backstory this way, keep it as short as possible and put some effort into making it as interesting as possible, because this is where you're most likely to lose your reader. Tom Clancy is famous for giving the reader large doses of backstory early in his books. His novel THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER has 12 pages of solid backstory in narrative summary, beginning on page 30. Did Tom make a mistake? His millions of fans will tell you he got it right. The backstory begins after a very strong start, in which a Soviet submarine commander kills his own political officer at the beginning of a cruise, and then announces a bold and daring mission to his crew. The commander is committing treason, and the reader needs a spectacularly good reason why. The backstory provides that reason. Now the reader is on the commander's side. If you're going to use narrative summary, do it after a strong action scene, when the reader needs a bit of a break anyway. Use it to explain some of the questions the reader might have. Flashback _________ Flashbacks are often vilified by writing teachers. I don't see any good reason to avoid flashbacks, so long as the reader feels the need for some backstory. A flashback is, in fact, a great way to show the reader some backstory using all the techniques of frontstory. My favorite example of flashback is the series of memories that Professor Snape gives Harry Potter in the 7th and final book of the Harry Potter series. Here at last, after thousands of pages, we learn the real secrets of Snape's past, why he hates Harry, and . . . why he loves him. A flashback has an entry point (where the viewpoint character flashes back to the past) and an exit point (where the character returns to the present). Generally, these are tied together by some object that somehow triggers the memory of the past. In the case of the Potter flashbacks, the triggering object is the "Pensieve" which acts as a portal into other people's memories. A Nonlinear Timeline ____________________ Sometimes you simply tell the story out of order. This is different than a flashback, which always has an entry point and an exit point. When you use a nonlinear timeline, you can insert a time-stamp to indicate the date. Audrey Niffenegger uses a nice twist on this technique in THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, where the dates aren't that important, but the characters' ages are. You can also use a header that says something like, "Six weeks earlier." John Locke uses this technique in his novel SAVING RACHEL, at the point where he switches protagonists. The first two-thirds of Locke's book features Sam Case, who is having a very bizarre day -- he's forced to choose whether his wife or his new mistress is going to die. The final third of the book features a different protagonist, and begins with the words, "Two days earlier, 9:30 am..." The book then replays things and fills in some essential backstory that Sam Case doesn't know. In some cases, you can simply jump back a number of years without any warning at all. Mario Puzo does this in Part 3 of THE GODFATHER, which takes Don Corleone back to the age of 12 and replays in fast-forward his life for several decades to show how he became the Godfather. Modern readers are smart and don't mind this kind of leaping around through time, as long as they care about the story, and as long as they know where they are on the time-line. Research ________ In some stories, the plot revolves around figuring out what happened in the past. This is obviously true for mysteries, where the detective is looking for clues. It's also true in some kinds of thrillers. An example is THE DAVINCI CODE, where the protagonist must learn the secrets of the holy grail in order to stay alive. The key thing is to make the research essential to the frontstory. Then success means learning the backstory. So what do you do if your story has too much backstory up front? That's not so hard. Follow these steps: * Make a fresh working copy of your manuscript (so you don't lose what you've got right now). * Read through your manuscript and mark every piece of backstory. You can do this easily in Word by highlighting it and then inserting a comment that says, "Backstory." * Now go through your story and interrogate every single piece of backstory to figure out if it's both necessary and minimal. If it isn't, snip it out and save it to a different file -- a "backstory file." * Read through your story one more time looking for places that are confusing because of missing backstory. Clear up the confusion by inserting the minimal necessary backstory. You can either write it fresh or copy in a piece from your backstory file. You can use any of the six techniques we discussed above. Choose the one that meets your strategic goals for the story best. When you finish, you'll have a leaner, more robust story in which every single piece of backstory is just what your reader needs in order to enjoy the frontstory. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 4) Marketing: The Secret of John Locke's Success John Locke is a self-published novelist who has sold over a million copies of his e-books so far this year. That's rather amazing. He's had as many as 8 of his novels on the Kindle Top 100 list at one time, all priced at $.99. There are people who think Locke got lucky. I've been told that Locke sells well because he produces short novels, writes decently well, prices his books low, releases new ones frequently, promotes them hard, and has the same name as a popular character on the TV series LOST. All that may be true, but it doesn't explain why Locke's books were selling only a few dozen copies per month until last October, and then suddenly began selling hundreds (and now thousands) of copies per day, starting in November. How does Locke explain his change in luck? He says that he changed his marketing strategy at the end of October. He says that he began doing things differently in early November, and he saw good results right away. You can read all about it in Locke's latest $4.99 e-book, HOW I SOLD 1 MILLION EBOOKS IN 5 MONTHS. Here's a short link to the description page on Amazon: http://amzn.to/ndd258 I recently read this book and it's radically changed my thinking in a couple of key areas. I consider it the best marketing book I've read in the last year, and it's the best fiction-marketing book that I've EVER read. (To be fair, there aren't many books on how to market fiction.) Locke's book is a very quick read. It's thin, and it's even thinner if you consider that the first half is obvious stuff that "everybody knows," along with a discussion of all the things Locke tried that didn't work. If you already know all the things that "everybody knows" and you don't care about the things that don't work, you might decide to skip Parts 1 and 2. On the other hand, since some of the things that "everybody knows" don't actually work very well, I suggest you read Parts 1 and 2 anyway. It's not until Part 3, halfway into the book, that Locke unveils his marketing plan. If you don't look closely, you might imagine that it's all the same stuff you've heard before. Most of the elements of Locke's plan are things we've all heard about: web sites, blogging, Twitter, e-mail, etc. Locke only does a very few things differently than most people. That should be reassuring. He's using the same tools as most authors. He just uses them differently. I've read through Locke's book twice now, taking it apart to figure out what the pieces are. There are four major tasks you must complete and there are two ongoing projects that you will keep doing indefinitely. Locke doesn't list these in so many words anywhere in his book, nor does he give you any estimates of how much calendar time most of them normally require, so I'll do that here. The first four tasks have a definite end-point. The last two are open-ended: * Define your General Target Audience (days of work) * Create your book (months of work) * Create your platform (weeks of work) * Launch your book (one day of work) * Grow your platform (ongoing effort for years) * Market your book (ongoing effort for months) Over the next few months, I'll talk about these in more detail in this column. For today, I'll focus on the first step, defining your General Target Audience. All the other steps depend on this one. If you haven't done this, or if you haven't done it well, all your other efforts are going to be out of focus. And what is a General Target Audience? It's the group of people who love the kind of books you write, or who would love your books if they knew about them. Not just LIKE your books. LOVE your books. The people who, once they find out what you write, will buy anything you write. Don't confuse your General Target Audience with the set of all people who have ever bought one of your books. Some people in your General Target Audience may never have heard of you, much less bought one of your books. Your goal in marketing is to help them discover you. And some people who've bought one of your books may not much like your writing. Your goal in marketing is to prevent similar people from buying your books because they probably won't enjoy them. Your General Target Audience is crucial to get right. The reason is that the other five steps in producing and marketing books depends on them: * When you create your book, you should do everything in your power to produce a a book that is perfectly targeted for your General Target Audience. You should be desperately trying to make this core niche group as happy as possible. * When you create your platform (including a web site, blog, Facebook page, etc., you should do everything in your power to make it as appealing as possible to your General Target Audience. You really don't care about anyone except them. These are your people. * When you launch your book, you should do everything in your power to reach those people in your General Target Audience. If you accidentally reach other people too who somewhat like your book, that's fine, but your General Target Audience will be the ones who love your book and spread the word. * As you grow your platform over the years, you'll continue to focus on building an online presence that makes your General Target Audience happy. You'll focus on adding them to your e-mail database, and they'll be delighted to be there, because there's nothing they want more than to hear when your next book comes out. * As you market each book over a period of months, you'll focus on crafting a message designed to appeal to people in your General Target Audience. These are your evangelists. You reach them; they'll reach everybody else. You may be surprised to hear that John Locke prefers a small, sharply defined target audience. This is why he doesn't want to work with a major publisher, who would try to force him to have wider appeal and would thereby destroy the amazing loyalty of his actual readers. This may sound like you're asking for a disaster -- consciously trying to appeal to fewer readers. But it makes great marketing sense to focus on making one small niche exceptionally happy. Because that's how word-of-mouth gets going. Small fires burn hot. Next month we'll look at some of the methods Locke uses to reach his target audience, using such ideas as the "Friendship Circle," the "Viral Circle," the "Loyalty Transfer Blog, and the "Guaranteed Buyer" e-mail list. All of these are powerful tools, and if you can't wait to hear about them, go ahead and grab Locke's book and read it. Once again, a link to his Amazon page is here: http://amzn.to/ndd258 If you get his book, read his description of his target audience. It runs on for about a page and a half. Some parts of it are rather dull demographic stuff, which your publisher has probably already asked you to define. In my view, the demographic stuff -- age, gender, and socioeconomic status of Locke's reader (or your readers) are the least important part. The real gold comes from knowing what emotive buttons your target audience wants pushed. Locke knows that his readers want a quick read but not a deep read. They aren't a bit worried that Locke's signature character, Donovan Creed, is an amoral bed-hopping assassin, because it's all just good clean sex and violence. Locke's men readers would like to be Donovan Creed. His women readers would like to date Creed -- but not to marry him, because he's a lousy marriage risk. They like that he has potential. Locke has plenty more info on his target audience, but you get the point. Locke knows exactly who he's writing for, and everything he does is aimed at pleasing those people. Nobody else. Just them. Most people are not in John Locke's target audience. I'm not. You might or might be. You might find his books outrageous or offensive. Or you may find them hilarious and relaxing. This is, I believe, a major part of Locke's secret. He writes so consciously and so specifically for one small class of people. He doesn't care about any other readers. What that means is that there are plenty of people who don't fit in Locke's target audience -- but they might in yours or mine. But they'll never know, and you'll never know, unless you first figure out exactly who YOU write for. So let's get practical. You will probably never have much success in publishing unless you clearly define your General Target Audience. Let's take a first cut at it right now. It won't be perfect, but it's a start. You can polish it later. Think about the following kinds of questions for a few minutes. This is not an exhaustive list. It's intended to get your mental juices flowing so you can ask the right questions about your particular General Target Audience: * Who are you writing for? (No, no, no, the answer is not "everybody.") * What are your readers looking for? Do they want to laugh? Cry? Think? Avoid thinking? Have a romance? An adventure? Both? Neither? * Do your readers suffer from low self-esteem? Sneer at the "little" people? Don't care what anybody else thinks? * What kinds of hero will make your reader cheer? A tough guy? Tough girl? A patriot? One with a soft side? * What are the powerful forces in your reader's life? Religion? Politics? Science? Gaming? Exercise? Give yourself 5 minutes to think about the above questions. Then give yourself 15 minutes to finish this sentence: "My ideal reader..." Don't stop and think. Just type. Shoot for 500 words in 15 minutes. Drill out the words. You can edit them later. Just blast out thoughts. Now save the results in a document named "My General Target Audience." You'll come back to this again and again over the years, and you'll refine it as you get more information from actual readers. But for now, you've got a target to shoot at. Next month, we'll look at some of the other steps in the process of writing books for your General Target Audience and helping your General Target Audience discover you. (Full disclosure on those pesky Amazon links: When I recommend a book, I generally include in it my Amazon affiliate code. If that offends you, then go to Amazon and search for "John Locke" and you'll find his book and I'll earn no referral fee if you buy it. Won't bother me a bit.) _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 5) What's New At AdvancedFictionWriting.com My book, WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, has been selling well since it began shipping more than a year ago and is one of the most popular fiction writing books on Amazon. You can find out all about WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES here: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/info/wffd If you've already bought the book and like it, I'd be delighted if you wrote an Amazon review. Thanks to those of you who already have! I appreciate you! I've also been gratified at the response to my latest software product, "Snowflake Pro," which makes it fast, easy, and fun to work through the steps of my well-known Snowflake method for designing a novel. You can find out more about Snowflake Pro at: http://www.SnowflakeProSoftware.com Currently, my co-author John Olson and I are preparing our back list of novels for publication as e-books. John and I are also creating some powerful online tools to make it easy for us to market our work effectively and easily. In due time, we'll make those tools available to other authors. More info on that when the opportune moment arrives. I normally teach at roughly 4 to 6 writing conferences per year, depending on my schedule. For 2011, I have decided to cut back on my teaching so I can focus on a major project I'm working on. My schedule for 2011 is now all filled in. I will be teaching at these conferences in 2011: Oregon Christian Writers Conference, (August) 6 hours teaching a lecture series named "Fiction 101" http://www.oregonchristianwriters.com/summer-conference/ American Christian Fiction Writers, (September, St. Louis) 4 hours teaching a lecture series on the Snowflake method http://www.acfw.com/conference/ Novel Writing Boot Camp, (November, Chicago) 2 intense days with 4 drill sergeants and 40 tough recruits http://www.christianwritersguild.com/novel-writing-boot-camp/ If you'd like me to teach at your conference in 2012 or beyond, email me to find out how outrageously expensive I am. If you'd just like to hear me teach, I have a number of recordings and e-books that are outrageously cheap. Details here: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/info _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 6) Randy Recommends . . . I don't take paid ads for this e-zine. I do, however, recommend people I like. I'm a huge fan of Margie Lawson's courses, both the ones she teaches in person and the ones she sells on her web site at http://www.MargieLawson.com Margie is a psychologist who applies what she knows about human psychology to writing fiction. I believe her material is brilliant. Check her out on her web site! I've also become a fan of Thomas Umstattd's terrific uncommon-sense thoughts on internet marketing. You can read Thomas's blog at: http://www.AuthorTechTips.com Thomas is especially skilled at helping authors create an inexpensive but powerful web site using WordPress blogs. I am a huge fan of this approach, since it gives the most bang for the buck in an author site. Find out more about this at: http://www.UmstattdMedia.com _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 7) Steal This E-zine! This E-zine is free, and I personally guarantee it's worth at least 7734 times the price. I invite you to "steal" it, but only if you do it nicely . . . Distasteful legal babble: This E-zine is copyright Randall Ingermanson, 2011. Extremely tasteful postscript: I encourage you to email this E-zine to any writer friends of yours who might benefit from it. I only ask that you e-mail the whole thing, not bits and pieces. Otherwise, you'll be getting desperate calls at midnight from your friends asking where they can get their own free subscription. Of course you should not forward this e-mail to people who don't write fiction. They won't care about it. At the moment, there is one place to subscribe: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 8) Reprint Rights Permission is granted to use any of the articles in this e-zine written by Randy Ingermanson in your own e-zine or web site, as long as you include the following 2-paragraph blurb with it: Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 26,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com. Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel. The above permission does not apply to Mary DeMuth's guest article on "Conquering E-mail." If you want permission to reprint that, then you'll have to ask Mary directly. See the link in her article. _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ Randy Ingermanson Publisher, Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/ezine _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________