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The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine

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Publisher:		Randy Ingermanson ("the Snowflake guy")

Motto:			"A Vision for Excellence"

Date:			December 6, 2005 
Issue:			Volume 1, Number 9 
Home Pages:		http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com
				http://www.RSIngermanson.com 
Circulation:	3479 writers, each of them creating a 
				Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

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What's in This Issue

1) Welcome to the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine! 
2) What? Another E-zine?
3) Should You Have a Web Site? 
4) Who's Afraid of Tiger Marketing?
5) PyroMarketing and a Free Audiobook
6) What's New At AdvancedFictionWriting.com 
7) Steal This E-zine!

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1) Welcome to the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine!

Those of you who have joined in the past month (about
340 of you are new since my last issue), welcome to my
e-zine! You can find all the previous issues on my web
site at:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/html/afwezine.html

I'm adjusting the publication schedule for this e-zine
slightly. You should expect it on the first Tuesday of
every month, rather than "around the 1st of the month."
The reason for this is that Tuesday is a great day of
the week to send out an e-zine. (Tuesday is NOT a
weekend and it's NOT Monday and it's NOT Friday. What
more can I say?)

In this issue, I'll tell you about a new e-zine I just
learned about that looks extremely promising.

I'm also going to talk a bit more in-depth about Tiger
Marketing. If you are cringing at the thought of Tiger
Marketing or ANY marketing, then this series is for
you. Because the "tiger" in Tiger Marketing isn't some
ferocious beast--he's more like Hobbes in the old comic
strip Calvin and Hobbes. The whole point of Tiger
Marketing is to market your material to people who are
interested in you and your stuff.

There are different ways to measure success, but
selling 26 million copies of a book is considered a
success just about anywhere. This happened recently for
a book published in a NICHE market. The marketing
director for that book has a website and he's written a
new book discussing how he did it--using a technique he
calls PyroMarketing. Sniff closely and you'll smell a
Tiger, methinks. A burning Tiger.

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2) What? Another E-zine?

I did a little investigating this past month to see
what other e-zines are out there that specialize in
writing fiction. There are a bunch, mostly small fry
with a few dozen or few hundred subscribers. I found
one e-zine that has several hundred more subscribers
than the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, but it's been
around for four years. At the rate we're growing, I'm
guessing we'll pass it before our first birthday.

But there's a new kid on the block, and I'd like to
recommend it right now. Heartily. But first, an aside:

Those of you who've been on my web site know that I
have a list of 8 books that I recommend for novelists.
One of those is a book on editing yourself, and it's
universally considered the best book on self-editing
out there. The book is called "Self Editing for Fiction
Writers" by Renni Browne and Dave King.

Renni Browne is a former editor for Scribners, William
Morrow, and Stein and Day. She's got an EXCELLENT
editorial services company, The Editorial Department,
with a web site at:
http://www.editorialdepartment.com/

The Editorial Department has just started a new e-zine
for writers of both fiction and nonfiction. It has the
high quality you'd expect from Renni Browne. I've
already subscribed, and I suspect that you'll want to
also. Just pop on over to the link listed above and
you'll find it.

Enjoy!

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3) Should You Have a Web Site? 

I hang out on a few writing email groups. Recently,
somebody posted a question on one of them that said, in
essence, "I don't have any books published yet, so what
would I have to offer on my web site that anyone would
care about?"

I thought that was an excellent question, so I posted
the following response:


The only thing you have to offer--ever--is yourself.
Your books will come and go and be out of print quicker
than you will ever imagine. Your ideas--and mine--are
not particularly original. Somebody else has said it
better, smarter, funnier. Sad but true.

But nobody else has ever been YOU. You are all you've
got. So your website should highlight you. Now forget
that I said that. If you make a website that's ABOUT
you, then you are going to get your mother and your
three best friends to visit. Once. After that, nada.

Your website should be ABOUT whatever interests you.
What makes you tick? Quilts? Treehouses? Antique cars?
Stuffed alligators?  Quilted antique alligator-flavored
treehouses?

Whatever it is, I guarantee that somebody else is
interested too. Put information about what you CARE
about on your website and people will come. Write about
it in a way that is genuinely YOU and they may decide
they like you. Then again, they may hate you. Tough
beans. That's the risk you take going public. If you
want everybody to like you, then be chocolate. If you
want people to know who you are, put your personality
into every page on your website, WHILE YOU'RE TALKING
ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. That's the key. Be yourself, but
write about something else.


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4) Who's Afraid of Tiger Marketing?

After the above post appeared on the email loop, I
received a personal email from a friend of mine who saw
it, asking me for some advice on her web site. She was
gut-level honest, a feature that marks out real writers
from amateurs. I realized that a LOT of people are
probably asking the same questions and would like to
hear the answers. So I asked if I could answer her
publicly in this e-zine.

Like anybody, she's a bit nervous to have her site and
her questions exposed to public view. However, I'm a
persuasive devil, and she's graciously given me
permission to quote her and to use her real name (so I
can give you her web site to look at as you read my
comments). So I'd like you to meet . . . Crystal Warren
Miller. Her web site is at:
http://www.crystal-miller.com

Crystal had several questions all tangled together, so
I'll shuffle them into the sequence that works best for
me and I'll also edit them slightly:


Crystal asks: "So, there are a bunch of Crystal Millers
out there--no joke! One is the mother of 8, homeschools
and has a web site of domestic bliss and advice (yeah,
well, obviously that one is NOT me.) Another Crystal
Miller is a survivor of Columbine, a Christian and goes
around speaking. Another Crystal Miller is a singer. I
went by Cris Warren in high school, but then married
Chris Miller, so I had to use my given name to avoid
confusion. I would use a pen name if I need to. I never
liked my name. Should I have a pen name?"

Randy sez: I like the name Crystal and I don't see any
reason for you to go by a pen name. Honestly, I don't
think you'll ever achieve total name-uniqueness unless
you changed your name to something horrible and
impossible to remember, like . . . Ingermanson. Ick,
who wants to do that?

It's not like you're named Jane Smith. Now if your name
was Anne Rice or Danielle Steel, then you'd have a
problem. But as long as you're the only Crystal Miller
who writes fiction, you should be fine with your real
name. It's easy to remember and that's important for
your future word-of-mouth hopes.


Crystal asks: "I really don't know what to do about my
lame web site and how I should revamp it if my novel
gets sold? Should I start gearing my web site to my
WIP? Should it reflect the romantic comedy I'm working
on?"

Randy sez: You have a reasonable web site address:
http://www.crystal-miller.com/ 

It would have been better if you could have got
www.crystalmiller.com, but somebody beat you to it. But
look! It's for sale for $388. You might consider
grabbing it now. I have a writer friend who has the
same name as a porn star. Unfortunately, Little Miss
Porno grabbed the web site name first, leaving my
friend forever after to make red-faced explanations.

The broader question is how should you revamp your web
site? I would suggest that you have several main
sections to it. You could have one section that is
mainly about you--your personal page, your books
(eventually when they get published), and whatever else
that the usual "brochure web site" has. Nobody reads
brochure web sites, by the way, and yet most writers
have exactly that and nothing more. It's like walking
down the street yelling, "Hey, look at me, look at ME!"
Sure, people might look. But unless you're famous or
gorgeous or naked, nobody's going to look for very long.

So I would also suggest that you pick something you
love and add a LOT of content to your web site on that.
It should be related as closely as possible to the
content of your books.

You're a Hoosier, Crystal. If your books are strongly
Hoosier-centric, then add content to your site on life
in Indiana. Make it unique. Give it your special voice.
Make it interesting. A blog might be appropriate here,
but be aware that there may already be a zillion
Hoosier blogs, so who needs another one?

You're also a blonde, Crystal, and proud of it. You
even collect blonde jokes! Maybe you could have a
collection of "The World's Funniest Clean Blonde
Jokes." (Might be a short list.)

It would not take a lot of effort to make Google notice
a site like that. You could even start a "Blonde Joke
of the Week" email newsletter. The question is: should
you? That would take some effort. If your novels are
strongly related to blondes, then it would make sense,
because then people who come to your web site would
also be interested in your books. You would want to
redo your web site to highlight your blonde hair--put
your picture on every page, add pictures of famous
blondes, make the color scheme of the site match it
all.

You're also a book reviewer. You could post book
reviews on your site, specializing in one niche market
of books. (No, don't review everything under the sun
there. Review one type of book ONLY, and do a good job.
Then Google will find you. Writing reviews may be
hazardous for you, because you intend to publish
novels. There's an inherent conflict of interest for a
novelist who writes reviews of other people's fiction.
So I wouldn't recommend it for you. I mention this
because some of my e-zine readers might find the idea
tempting. If you're a novelist, don't make a career of
writing reviews! Glass houses and thrown stones and all
that.

Finally, Crystal, you write humorous stuff. If you
wanted to work hard at that, you might start a blog
focusing on Erma Bombeck type humor. That would take
some work too, but it would put you right out there,
front and center, where the market could decide just
how good you are. A blogger with 100,000 readers has an
amazing marketing platform for a book on a subject
related to her blog. Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, has
a hilarious email newsletter with over 400,000 readers.
You can bet a lot of them buy his business humor books.

Crystal, you sent me a summary of the novel you're
working on. It's about a youngish widow who lives in a
small town in Indiana. I guess the category for this is
hen-lit or wid-lit or something. Is your heroine
blonde, by any chance? Maybe you should dye her hair if
she's not. And you tell me that one of your test
readers said, "I laughed so hard, I wet my pants." See
now, there's a great marketing hook: "Overly continent?
Read Crystal Miller!"

So here's what I'd do if I were you, Crystal. I'd start
a blog that plays to your strengths. Make it
pants-wetting funny. Make it cater to women. Maybe make
it focus on your blondeness. (Hey, Blondie made a
career out of being a ditzy blonde, so why can't you?")

It's a pity you don't live in Mississippi. Then you
could be the "Blonde Bombshell Biloxi Blogger." But
you're a Hoosier, so you'll just have to deal with
that. Maybe you could move to Bloomington? 

All of this leads into your next question . . .


Crystal asks: "When you all have conversations about
this web site/Tiger Marketing, I break out in a cold
sweat and get a little nauseated."

Randy sez:  Hey, I'm sorry about that! Tiger Marketing
is supposed to be fun, not make you nauseated. The idea
is that you pour your own personality into your web
site, e-zine, blog, or whatever. You make it easy for
people to find you. Then, when you have a book that
delivers the same kind of stuff that's on your site,
e-zine, blog, or whatever, you let those people know.
And they either buy it or they don't, but at least they
know you're there and they won't get mad at you for
sending them unwanted ads.


Crystal asks:  "Can you come up with a formula to
somehow help writers to figure out who they should be
as writers and on their web site? Something we could
plug and chug. Something to give us a starting (or
starting all over) point?"

Randy sez:  I'm still trying to figure that out for
myself! I don't think there's a simple formula. I think
it's easier to figure it out for others than for
yourself. 

The only thing I can say is, be yourself, or some
reasonable approximation to yourself. Don't choose some
new persona based on what's marketable. Decide based on
who you are and what you enjoy doing. Because if you go
with some phony baloney persona just to make money,
then you're a ho. And nobody wants to be a ho.


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5) PyroMarketing and a Free Audiobook

Niches can be profitable. Which is a good thing,
because EVERYBODY writes for a niche. Tom Clancy's
niche is technothrillers. The majority of Americans
don't read technothrillers. John Grisham writes legal
thrillers. The majority of Americans don't read legal
thrillers.

Every book ever written falls into some niche category
that most people don't read. What's a Tiger Marketer to
do?

Well, see, that's the whole idea of Tiger Marketing
--you only market to your niche. And that, if I've
understood it correctly, is also the point of
PyroMarketing.

What is PyroMarketing? It's the marketing method used
to take Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, to
sales of 26 million copies. And climbing.

You may be saying right now, "Who the heck is Rick
Warren? And what is The Purpose Driven Life?"

That's my point. The hottest selling book in the world
for the last couple of years is a book that a LOT of
people have never seen, and it's written by an author a
lot of people have never heard of. It's in a niche.

Rick Warren is a Baptist minister. No kidding, a
Baptist minister. The Purpose Driven Life is his book
on finding your purpose in life. The book was published
by Zondervan, a Christian publishing company. Its
marketing director was a guy named Greg Stielstra. The
method he used is what Greg calls PyroMarketing.

You may not care a fig for Rick or Greg or the book or
Zondervan or any of that. But I suggest that you ought
to care about PyroMarketing, because it apparently
works.

There are four steps to PyroMarketing. I won't steal
Greg's thunder. Check out his web site at:
http://www.pyromarketing.com

There, you'll find info on Greg's marketing methods,
and you'll be able to download an audio version of his
latest book, innovatively titled PyroMarketing. Giving
away free samples of your goods is one part of
PyroMarketing. 

Another part of PyroMarketing is keeping records of who
you've given stuff to. As you can imagine, you'll have
to give Greg your email address to get the free
download. Greg's no dummy. He's using PyroMarketing
methods to sell his book.

And I, for one am interested in his book, because . . .
I'm interested in marketing. Here's the thing--Greg
didn't find me. I found him. That's one of the other
aspects of PyroMarketing.

And how did I find out about it? From a friend of mine,
who posted info about it on an email loop yesterday.
And that's another aspect of PyroMarketing--giving
people an easy way to tell others about your product.

Doggone it! I wasn't going to steal Greg's thunder, but
I've gone and told you all four steps in PyroMarketing.
But I bet you'll go check his site anyway, because all
I've done is whet your appetite and now you wanna know
more.

Or not. If you don't care, then you don't care and you
won't go. It's no skin off Greg's nose. And that's the
beauty of PyroMarketing. Greg's not doing the work of
advertising his book. Other people are. Because people
talk about what they're interested in.

Sounds a whole lot like Tiger Marketing, doesn't it?


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6) What's New At AdvancedFictionWriting.com

I've spent my first month of full-time unemployment
getting caught up with life. I had a great time at a
mentoring-only writing conference in early November.
Then I came home and tried to catch up on my
accounting. Gack! My checkbook is ALMOST up to date (by
which I mean, it's now got some checks recorded for
2005). And I've got some special projects going.

One of them is the Tiger Marketing plan for my next
book, the one I just finished at the end of October.
More on that next month, when I'm closer to rolling it
out. 

The other thing I've been working on is a project to
make my Fiction 101 course much more widely available.
I've now taught this course to hundreds of novelists at
five different conferences across the country. The
course is roughly 6 or 8 hours of instruction, and I
also give out my 200-odd pages of notes. I've had a
great time teaching it, but it struck me that if I
could deliver the whole course over the web, it would
save a lot of wear and tear on me. I had hoped to have
Fiction 101 ready to roll out by now, but I'm a
hopeless perfectionist, and I'm not done yet. When it's
ready, I'll let you know. You'll hear it here first.

Meanwhile, a whole round of holidays is coming up. Take
your pick of all those that apply: Merry Christmas!
Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy Boxing Day! Happy
New Year!

See ya next year with more stuff on the craft and
marketing of your fiction!


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7) Steal This E-zine!

This E-zine is free, and I personally guarantee it's
worth 2.71 times what you paid for it.  I invite you
to "steal" it, but only if you do it nicely . . .

Distasteful legal babble:  This E-zine is copyright
Randall Ingermanson, 2005. Thhhpppttt! Pardon me while
I spit out that lawyer-talk!

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 email the
whole thing, not bits and pieces. That way, they'll
know where to go to get their own free subscription, if
they want one.

If you email it to them, remind them tactfully that
they should name YOU as the person who referred them,
if they sign up. When my subscriber count reaches 5000,
I'll hold a drawing for a brand-new iPod Nano. Your
name will be entered once for each subscriber you
referred. Subscribers who name themselves as referrers
unfortunately don't get credit, so they might as well
be honest and admit it was you!

At the moment, there are two places to subscribe: 
My personal web site: http://www.RSIngermanson.com 
My new web site: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com


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Randy Ingermanson
Publisher, Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine

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