eBook and Traditional Publishing

Spectacle Publishing Media Group, LLC

Monthly Archives: September 2011

For Writers: Marketing 101

One of the biggest advantages of working with a publisher is the company’s marketing resource. You have to ask yourself, are you a writer or a marketer? Do you want to spend all day Saturday writing, doing what you love, then all night doing something you don’t really understand?

The old ways of marketing are changing, evolving (mutating) at an incredible rate. What was “best practice” last week could be a no-no next week. It’s not rocket science, but it is a matter of time—how much do you have to spare not creating a product?

That said there are some basic tips and tools a writer must use to promote their work. Spectacle Publishing Media Group LLC utilizes a team of degreed, certified Internet marketing specialists to promote our author’s works. But we can’t do it all, as much as we’d like to.

Talk about your work

Our research indicates that there’s no better advertising that word-of-mouth recommendations. We all talk about the books we read, excitedly relaying the clever plots and witty prose of a new author we’ve discovered to our friends over dinner or drinks. So, tell people about your writing. Tell them they might be interested in your new short story, your novella or your epic swords and sorcery story. Tell them how to find the piece, online or otherwise. Be excited and they will be excited as well.

You need a website

You really, really do. This is place where you can talk about work some more! Since it’s your website and people are visiting to learn about you, that’s the place to be a braggart! Tell them you’ve been published and where! Tell people about your awards or decorations. Talk about your gritty urban style or your refined autumn prose. Tell them about your great professors in college or the first time you were published. Maybe don’t tell them about your cat’s bladder issues or post pictures of you in your favorite wig. Or maybe you should, who knows? The only thing that’s certain is that you need to have an easily accessible web presence for people who want to learn more about you.

Social Media

You’re Facebooking all day at work anyway. You’re tweeting and texting and Foursquaring already. Why not post a few items about your writing? Maybe offer a link to where your mom can buy a copy. I know my mom always buys a copy of my stories. Anyway, the tools are all right there and free to use. You can do your social media marketing on your smart phone while you’re on the train or the bus. You can’t do it while you’re driving, but you knew that. Encourage your friends to share you links with their circles. Go for the word-of-mouth recommendation.

Get in front of people

You’ve got to read to them. Most media types these days allow audiences to be passive—to sit and start or mash buttons. The closest you can come to that as a writer is reading to them. Read them a story. Find an open mic, bring some business cards and read your story. Then, mingle and hand out your card. The reading in front the audience is that hard part. First time I did, I puked up my lunch. But I got over it. With practice, you learn to ad-lib awkward phrasing so you don’t stumble. Get out there and share. Check out this post by our Executive Editor, Jared Saathoff for more writerly tips.

The Broken Hearts Club?

The romance genre is only for those in the Broken Hearts Club…right? Wrong! Romance is one of the largest and best-selling genres in North America.

The stereotype of the typical romance reader has been extremely distorted. You will not find us curled up on the couch, hair stuck in five different directions still in a week old gray sweatpants that used to be white, crying into a book because our own love life is in the pits. We are young adults still in high school trying to understand our own emotions. We are adults who are educated, sometimes with multiple post-educational degrees, just looking for a creative escape from our stressful daily lives. We are women and men (yes we know you are out there, your secret is safe with us). We are full-time workers, stay-at-home parents or just your everyday average Jane or Joe.

So where does the stereotype come from? It comes from those who don’t understand the genre. The romance genre is not all about sex, sex and sex. It can be said that it just as hard to make someone fall in love as it is to scare or shock someone. Think about it. We all know what the average person is scared of, right? But what can make someone fall in love? That is a hard question. Writing a best-selling romance novel is more than just writing about: boy meets girl, boy loses girl then gets her back and they live happily ever after. If it were just that easy then every romance novel would be a best-seller.

Those who criticize romance believe that every novel has two perfect people who fall in love—end of story. A good romance novel is more than that. A good romance has imperfect characters that are perfect for each other. A writer has to make their characters identifiable with the readers. Who can identify with someone who has everything going for them, never has any problems and has everything handed to them on a silver platter? Readers identify with the characters that have a struggle but work hard at whatever they do. The writer has to focus on who will be reading the novels and what is the perfect romance to them. It could be about two best friends, neighbors or just someone met at the rest stop on the Pennsylvania turnpike.

The best thing about the romance genre is that there are numerous sub-genres. As a writer, you can hand pick which sub-genre you would like to write in. Do you like writing about drama—you have suspense romance. Do you like writing about fantasy—you have paranormal romance. The possibilities are endless.

My challenge to you is this, try it. Look at your current writing style. Now think about a true romance (do some research on best-seller in the romance genre) and ask yourself how you can combine your genre into a love story? Who wouldn’t want to be a part of one of the largest and best-selling genres in North America? I know I do.

Opening Lines

I want the first line of your story to be the realization that you’ve just stepped between a grizzly bear and her cub.
The opening line of a story is the adventurous spring-board of creation or a dull ol’ coffin-nail. Stories precariously hang in the balance between that first capital letter and the final bit of punctuation. These lines, irksome and magical, come in all shapes and sizes and are the difference between the first chisel strike that will produce David or split the slab of marble in half.
Successful stories grab hold of a reader at the very beginning and don’t let go. Unsuccessful stories are those that fall prey to the fatal temptation of starting off slow and hiding the interesting parts under pages of why-am-I-reading-this text. A bad opening line is usually indicative of an author hiding from their story. Tension is not created by reading five boring pages of a six-page short story to then find out on the sixth page that the narrator is a ghost or the killer or a paraplegic. If something in your story stinks I want to catch a whiff of it in the first paragraph.
Even if your story doesn’t start with the stench of corpses, tone and the unexpected go a long way. It might lack the intensity of the grizzly bear or a hyena lock-jawing on your throat. The unexpected does a lot toward hooking your reader in for the long haul.
Some of my favorites:

 

“It was a pleasure to burn.” Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

 

“It was the fashion in cruelty to crucify not only men and women, but children and their small pets in the season which I first met the Devil.” Von Bek by Michael Moorcock

 

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

 

“His two girls are curled together like animals whose habit is to sleep underground, in the smallest space possible.” Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

 

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

 

‎“Marley was dead: to begin with.”A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

 

“It was a nice day.” Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

 

So, what can we do to produce amazing openings? My advice is to announce the point of your work like a chorus of trumpets welcoming back your king from his latest campaign. But. Keep it simple. Get straight to the point–give your reader a nibble and then let the appetite grow. If the action of your story is going to take a long time to grow then start in the middle and explain the back-story on your way to the ending. If a pithy line that sets the tone and pace for your story is out of reach consider starting with interesting dialog from your characters. And, if all else fails just start with, “Damn it!” 

 


For Writers

For Writers:

Your work is important to us. We want to see your writing and we want to give you the best opportunity for success. Our requirements are simple. Help us keep it simple and help yourself to a greater chance of Spectacle publishing your work. On most nights you will find us looking for three types of work: fiction novels, fiction short-stories, and non-fiction books.

Fiction Novels

In round numbers we’re talking about something of about 60,000 – 100,000 words. For works somewhere in this range contact us at queries@spectaclepmg.com

The one page query letter is your chance to dazzle us with your writing skill and convince us that we need your book. We want to know a little bit about you: where you’re from, what you like, what you do, and if such things are relevant to your writing.

We want to know about your book: what it’s about, what it means, how long is it, if it is finished and why it should be published.

All in one page – 300 words. Simply put: the easier it is for us to assess your writing the easier it is for you to have it published.

Next, we require an outline. Outline should dictate the general flow of your novel so that we can understand where you’re going with this story. Please attach your outline as a file to your query email. Acceptable file types for outlines are: .DOC, .RTF or .PDF. Please do not paste your outline into the email.

Also attached to the query email we want three sample chapters (or 5000 – 10,000 words worth of chapters). The sample chapters can be in .DOC or .RTF file types. Please do not send a .PDF of your chapters. Also, see below for what we expect to see when we open your file.

Fiction Short Stories

First important note is that we only accept short fiction when we specifically ask. Occasionally, we seek short fiction for various themed anthologies. This is a great way for us to get to know you and perhaps lead to greater things. But, only when we’re actually asking.

Short fiction is typically between 2500 and 5000 words. Now, some people don’t care for math, and we know that some stories only need a haiku in order to be told. The numbers are guidelines, nothing more. When we’re looking for short fiction please submit your work to submissions@spectaclepmg.com

Your email submission will include: your name, a brief biographic summary, and two to three sentences about your story. Attached to the email will be your story in .DOC or .RTF file type. DO NOT paste your story into the email. Please.

Non-Fiction Books

The guidelines are roughly the same as the guidelines for fiction books. The significant difference is that you need to convince us that you are an authority on the topic and thus capable of a flawlessly factual book. The editorial process for non-fiction is different than the process for fiction. Due to the wide range of non-fiction types and in the interest of brevity I will just say: send us your one-page query, outline, and a few sample chapters and then we’ll talk.

What We Expect To See

In the interest of simplicity and all that you hold holy please keep it simple. When we open up your work we’re interested in reading your work. We are not impressed by your formatting. All sample chapters and short story submissions must be attached as a .DOC or .RTF file.

DO NOT paste your story into the body of an email.

In your file we expect to see your work. Your words are pretty; word-processor formatting is not pretty.

Ideally, we would like a .DOC file with your name, email address, and story title at the top. Everything default (right justified) and without headers and footers.

Simplicity is the name of the game. Anything that distracts from being able to read your work is not cool.

Give me text; write me something amazing. Let our art department make it pretty.

Books go: queries@spectaclepmg.com

Stories go: submissions@spectaclepmg.com

Why Not Self Publish?

Writing. Editing. Publishing. Marketing.

It’s easy right? It’s easy to put together thousands of words into a coherent and compelling narrative. Easy. Like staring down Nolan Ryan and thwacking a fast-ball right over his head and into the upper deck. That looks easy too. Perhaps my reference is a bit dated or topically irrelevant for my intended audience–sounds like something an editor might comment about. The joke is often something along the lines of a writer spends months bleeding their soul onto the page and an editor comes along and fixes their spelling. Sure. I’ll fix your spelling. I’ll check your facts. I’ll even explain the difference between an em-dash and an en-dash. But, these things are just a part of the process–perhaps even an afterthought. The main task of an editor is to coax out the best possible version of your story all while keeping keeping the whole thing from jumping the rails and smashing into a propane-pipeline.

With self-publishing, vanity-press, a writer is at a fundamental and distinctive disadvantage. Lack of review. In every field, every profession, there is a peer-reviewed vetting process. A scientist’s ideas and conclusions constantly squirm within the crucible of scrutiny from one’s peers. Designers and advertising agencies produce hundreds of marketing ideas before just a single idea makes the cut and gets accepted by other marketers. Think of how athletes are constantly training and conditioning to be better, faster and stronger. The peer-review process, the editorial process, is basically the same as an athlete’s conditioning process. With a publishing company, with an editor, an author has the security of knowing their work is in peak form, and that ol’ aunt Agnes won’t be phoning up in a couple of days to report all manner amateur mistakes.

Why do we buy Cheerios? Nike? Coca-Cola? The reason is simple: marketing. Okay, so you’ve gone the vanity-press method: you have a link to your ebook and you paid a hefty sum of money for several dozen print copies, you have Agnes waiting on hold and now what? You’re already down perhaps thousands of dollars, not to mention the time it took you to write the book, and suddenly no one seems to have any interest. Well, the answer is simple: marketing isn’t as easy as it looks and ought to be left to those with experience. When buying a cut of beef I want the butcher’s opinion–not the cow’s opinion. Your book comes from you. No one is going to listen to you mooing all over the place talking about your tasty beef. That’s the butcher’s job, and it’s the job of professional marketing to spread the word about your delicious book.

Simply put, this is your work–your writing. It really doesn’t matter to me right now how good your book is or whether or not you have the potential to write ten more; it matters to me that your work gets the best treatment. You’re not going to find this treatment with a vanity-press. There are services out there that will edit your book, but for the cost of hundreds if not thousands of dollars. We’re not interested in your money. Only your words and your partnership. Our service is to make your book be its best.