Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 2

Chris P

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Morning, Uncle Jim. Question for you about Yog's Law ("Money always flows toward the author," for anyone new to the thread).

I've heard you say the only exception to Yog's Law is money spent for education. But what about marketing? Many authors talk about being involved in publicity and marketing, even with commercially published books, and I have no objection to this in principal. An opportunity to talk about myself? Sign me up! But many of these ideas require the author to spend his or her own money on fliers, tee-shirts, URL fees, etc. I saw your post on April 20, 2011 about self-publishing and having two pockets. What's your take on an author "investing" as it were in publicity and marketing for non-self-published books?
 

James D. Macdonald

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My take is this: If my publisher arranges an interview for me on NPR, hey, I'm right there for it (my good friends at Harper Collins did this, and I was). If a publisher wants me to spend my own money on flyers, they can take a hike.

If you feel like putting your book cover on a tee-shirt which you personally can wear, hey, listen: Back with our first novel we put the cover on a coffee mug (at one of those mall-kiosk Any Picture On A Coffee Mug places). That's okay, but be aware that it's going to have about 0.00000001% effect on your sales.

As far as printing tee-shirts for giveaways, it's a waste of your time and money. If your publisher asks you to do this, you're with the wrong publisher. Those tee-shirt giveaways will have about a 0.0000001% effect on your sales.


If you want to buy a URL, do it only if you would have done it anyway.
 

Chris P

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Thanks Jim!

For the record, my publisher has NOT asked me to do any of this, but a lot of people talk about doing it. I figure promotion is the publisher's job, and wondered how common the practice actually was outside of vanity/self publishing.
 

James D. Macdonald

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I think that authors do that sort of stuff because otherwise they'd be wringing their hands.

As far as boosting their books' sales, wringing their hands would be just as effective and cost a lot less.

What they should be doing is writing their next book.

Where this sort of promotional activity might make a difference is when your expected sales are on the order of 100-200 copies (i.e. most self-published books). There, boosting your sales by another 100 copies is a 100% gain. (Note that as a self-published author you are the publisher and publicity and marketing is the publisher's job.)

If you're expecting to sell 10,000-20,000 copies, boosting your sales by another 100 is a 1% gain, and ... probably not the best use of your time and money.
 

James D. Macdonald

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From Uncle Jim's Mailbag:

Dear Uncle Jim:

I recently got an email from FedEx ([email protected]), subject line "You Have A Package." The email had an attachment called Delivery.doc. All the letter said was "Open Attachment." But when I opened the attachment my computer froze up and I haven't been able to make it do anything. Even a cold restart didn't help. I can't get to my novel and both of my backup copies are on that computer! What can I do?

P.S. I'm writing this from a computer at the public library.

/signed/
Startled in Schenectady


Dear Startled:

How much of your novel can you retype by memory?

/signed/
Uncle Jim


Dear Uncle Jim:

A highly placed minister in the Nigerian Foreign Embassy heard that I had written a novel and wanted to help me get it published in Lagos. I had pay a small Foreign Rights tax and send him my bank account number, my PIN, my social security number, my mother's maiden name, and a copy of my passport along with the manuscript, which he said was standard for foreign sales. I sent him everything he asked for.

My author's copies should be here any day (I paid for expedited shipping). How soon can I expect my royalties to arrive?

/signed/
Eager in Idaho


Dear Eager,

I wouldn't hold my breath.

/signed/
Uncle Jim


Dear Uncle Jim,

I have a few copies of one of my out-of-print books in my basement which I've put up for sale on my webpage for $8.00 each (I pay shipping). I got a letter from a fellow who wanted to buy one, but he must have misread my page because he included a cashier's check for $800! I called him on the phone (he gave his number) and told him that the book was out of print, not rare, and he said no problem, just send the book and a money order for the difference.

That was two weeks ago, and today I got a call from my bank saying that I'd given them a bogus check and could I please come down to cover the amount, plus penalty, plus interest, plus a fee.

Can they really do that?

/signed/
Upset in Utica

Dear Upset,

Yes.

/signed/
Uncle Jim
 
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ShadowFox

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Dear Startled:

How much of your novel can you retype by memory?

/signed/
Uncle Jim

Obviously, you should always keep an off site backup, but these days a specialist can generally get your computer back after a virus infection, or you could go to malware bytes forum (google it) or bleeping computer forum and ask for free help. These forums do take time.
 

Silver-Midnight

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Uncle Jim,

Is it normal for a writer to go through a period(or rather periods) where they just get absolutely no ideas or plots? Typically when I start a story I like to go in with a plot summary or at least some kind of line describing the plot before I start writing. Just so I get some kind of small idea of what's going on. I can do a little writing "by the seat" of pants but I don't think I'm really good at just dropping into it. But I don't know entirely. It might just depend upon the situation. In any case, lately I just can't seem to get any ideas at all. Not even with the help of writing prompts or anything like that now I think. Before, I was getting some ideas, but a lot of them weren't well thought out or planned out. So, I ended up getting very stuck really quickly.

Is this just a sign I need to take a break for a bit, and try not to worry about it, or do you have some ideas to at least get my mind thinking back again? Also, do you have any advice for planning stuff out more and making sure it's a bit more well thought out?


Thanks.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Is this just a sign I need to take a break for a bit, and try not to worry about it, or do you have some ideas to at least get my mind thinking back again? Also, do you have any advice for planning stuff out more and making sure it's a bit more well thought out?

Taking a break might help, provided that break has an end-point. Take a month off to watch movies, maybe.

As for organizing, what I do is write flow charts. From the flowchart I write an outline.

BUT (important thing here) be aware that if the novel deviates from the outline, it's okay to change the outline.

You may be in a vicious circle here: Being stuck makes you worry. Being worried makes you stuck. Don't worry; the ideas will come.
 

Silver-Midnight

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Taking a break might help, provided that break has an end-point. Take a month off to watch movies, maybe.

As for organizing, what I do is write flow charts. From the flowchart I write an outline.

BUT (important thing here) be aware that if the novel deviates from the outline, it's okay to change the outline.

You may be in a vicious circle here: Being stuck makes you worry. Being worried makes you stuck. Don't worry; the ideas will come.

I've, technically, been a break for a bit. Although I did try some writing still then, but obviously, as you can tell by my post, it was unsuccessful. I'm already at the "being stuck makes you worry; being worried makes you stuck" phase right now, and I'm trying to get out of it. I don't know how though. :cry:

EDIT: Also I am terrible at making outlines. I usually end up deviating from them completely, thus making them useless, or "falling out of love" with the idea. Any idea how to work on that so, that way I can get a bit more help from outlines. Not necessarily strict ones but one that will help me whenever I do get stuck in my writing.
 
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bearilou

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EDIT: Also I am terrible at making outlines. I usually end up deviating from them completely, thus making them useless, or "falling out of love" with the idea. Any idea how to work on that so, that way I can get a bit more help from outlines. Not necessarily strict ones but one that will help me whenever I do get stuck in my writing.

If outlining doesn't work from you, maybe try the flowcharting suggestion. It never occurred to me to even try until Uncle Jim said something. Now I have to do it just to see what I can make of it.
 

Alexandra Little

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For me, flowcharting is one of two things: a) working out possibilities in characters and situations that don't necessarily make it into the final story, and b) character motivations, actions, etc. and other events that are not witnessed by or known to my POV character, but do occur in the story timeline and affect what happens.

Outlining, on the other hand, is about what is actually in a chapter/scene, or is about working out the sequence of events.
 

Calliopenjo

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Hi Silver,

I'm not Uncle Jim, but I'm going to thrown in my half a cent's worth. You can ignore it if you so choose.

Since you're familiar with the outline, I won't say anything about that. Out of curiosity I Googled Story Flowchart last night and came up with some interesting hits. Here's one flowchart that seemed to make the most sense.

If you're familiar with computer programming, it's the same sort of theory used there as a story flowchart.

Like I said, it's my half-a-cent's worth.
 

Paul

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I think that authors do that sort of stuff because otherwise they'd be wringing their hands.

As far as boosting their books' sales, wringing their hands would be just as effective and cost a lot less.

What they should be doing is writing their next book.

Where this sort of promotional activity might make a difference is when your expected sales are on the order of 100-200 copies (i.e. most self-published books). There, boosting your sales by another 100 copies is a 100% gain. (Note that as a self-published author you are the publisher and publicity and marketing is the publisher's job.)

If you're expecting to sell 10,000-20,000 copies, boosting your sales by another 100 is a 1% gain, and ... probably not the best use of your time and money.
Great to see this post.

Hear a lot of the 'the equally important job of marketing' and author must engage with.

Personally I'd rather fail than marketeer - except of course for the fully funded whirlwind tour ;).
 

James D. Macdonald

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I use actual computer-programming flowchart symbols and such (dating back to my time programming in FORTRAN). Works for me.

The flowchart tells me if I have a complete story and shows how the parts interrelate.

From there I write a "strong outline" (roughly 3/4 the length of the finished work), with some dialog and some description sketched in. This is very rough and doesn't pause for research, so you'll find lots of stuff set off in brackets like [look this up] or[something happens here] and [does this make sense?].
 

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Hi Silver,

I'm not Uncle Jim, but I'm going to thrown in my half a cent's worth. You can ignore it if you so choose.

Since you're familiar with the outline, I won't say anything about that. Out of curiosity I Googled Story Flowchart last night and came up with some interesting hits. Here's one flowchart that seemed to make the most sense.

If you're familiar with computer programming, it's the same sort of theory used there as a story flowchart.

Like I said, it's my half-a-cent's worth.

I use actual computer-programming flowchart symbols and such (dating back to my time programming in FORTRAN). Works for me.

The flowchart tells me if I have a complete story and shows how the parts interrelate.

From there I write a "strong outline" (roughly 3/4 the length of the finished work), with some dialog and some description sketched in. This is very rough and doesn't pause for research, so you'll find lots of stuff set off in brackets like [look this up] or[something happens here] and [does this make sense?].


Thanks guys. Thank you so much.

Uncle Jim, your example kind of makes sense. I think I get what you're saying. I mean I'm not fluent in computer programming. So, what some of those actually mean are over my head. But I think what you're saying is you state this happens which makes this happens, and therefore, one of two things can happen, etc., etc., right?
 

bearilou

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Mind mapping is a great brainstorming tool as well.

Freemind is the software I use because I like the way it looks. Plain ol' pen and paper works just as well.

You can use it for decision trees. Character A does XYZ. After that, she needs to go do PDQ and ABC. Which to do first? You can play around with it visually and like with the flowchart where you come to decision points (do they go to Place B (and what's the result) or go to Place H (and what's the result) and which do you as the author like as a story flow. To see the flow visually graphed out can sometimes help.
 

Silver-Midnight

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Mind mapping is a great brainstorming tool as well.

Freemind is the software I use because I like the way it looks. Plain ol' pen and paper works just as well.

You can use it for decision trees. Character A does XYZ. After that, she needs to go do PDQ and ABC. Which to do first? You can play around with it visually and like with the flowchart where you come to decision points (do they go to Place B (and what's the result) or go to Place H (and what's the result) and which do you as the author like as a story flow. To see the flow visually graphed out can sometimes help.

Oh cool.

So, mind mapping and flow charting are similar but not the same. Flow charting, like I said in a previous post, seems to do "A" happened, which made "B" happen, and from there either "C" or "D" can happened and so on.

Mind mapping, from what I can see, you start off with an image/word/phrase/etc., and you build off of that. It looks as though you take different directions with it (like in one of the images I saw different theme-like things) and then you build from that. You build on and on. I really want to try to find a better picture for a mind map before I consider it. And thanks for the program suggestion too.
 

Shirokirie

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Hello!~

I have a question about zooming out in omniscient narrartive. I know how to zoom in and how to transition, but I'm not sure how to go about zooming out without jarring the reader.

So I'm just wondering, how do you do that?