The Arkansas Literary Festival took place last weekend and was great fun.

Literacy on the Lawn, Arkansas Governor’s Mansion

The festival began for me with the arrival of my friend, Dori Butler, who was staying at my house. She was supposed to arrive early on Thursday, so we could visit, but the flights were delayed and she arrived late. Too bad we didn’t have more time to talk!

On Friday, visiting authors visited schools as part of the WITS (Writers in the Schools) program of the Festival, with authors visiting about 20 schools. Meanwhile, Arkansas authors were featured at the Literacy on the Lawn program at the Governor’s Mansion, hosted by the gracious First Lady of Arkansas, Mrs. Ginger Beebe. Author Carla McClafferty, illustrator Rich Davis and I were joined by other celebrity readers. 240 kids arrived on school buses and were escorted by docents to assigned spots. In groups of 20, they either toured the grounds or were read to by an author, illustrator or celebrity. I read my books, 19 Girls and Me and The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman.

We especially appreciated Mrs. Beebe’s warm welcome to the Governor’s Mansion and her support of literacy in the state.

Arkansas Author, Carla McClafferty

Arkansas Illustrator, Rich Davis

Arkansas Author, Darcy Pattison

At the luncheon following the event, Rich Davis presented Mrs. Beebe with a framed piece of art for the collection at the Governor’s Mansion.

Illustrator Rich Davis donates artwork to Mrs. Ginger Beebe, First Lady of Arkansas for the Governor's Mansion collection.

Saturday Festival Events

On Saturday, the festival events were staged at venues in downtown Little Rock. Most children’s events were in the downtown library. Speakers included the fabulous Jerdine Nolen (who has a YA novel coming out!), the ever popular Trenton Lee Stewart and illustrator Rich Davis.

I was moderator of two sessions, introducing the authors and shepherding them to the signing table later. Here are tidbits from one of them.

Gwendolyn Hooks, Oklahoma Author

If you receive this by RSS, you can see the video here.

The Festival was lots of fun. We learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work at a Festival like this and expect next year’s children’s program to be even better.

It's Here.

I am going to concentrate on plot for a while; but for those interested in an author’s website, especially an author’s blog, here’s a great program.

Darren Rouse, of the ProBlogger.net site, has put together a series of 31 lessons on developing a better blog. He ran the series in 2007 (this is a good preview of what is covered) and it was a great hit. In 2009, he updated it and created an ebook and workbook, incorporating many of the tips from readers he received in 2007.

Anyone buying the 31DBBB workbook gets 3 exclusive and time limited bonuses:

• a report – 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year (which effectively makes the 31 day workbook a 40 day one)
• a 55 minute podcast with successful blogger Leo Babauta from Zenhabits.net
• a 45 minute podcast with successful blogger Neil Patel from Quicksprout

Interested? I’m going to send you over for a look at the program. ; the link is an affiliate link, which means I get a % of sales for referrals. I believe this is one of the best programs on blogging I’ve seen, or I wouldn’t send you there.

You’ll find more details on the 31 Days to a Better Blog here. OH, BTW, the sale, with all the extras, only lasts for another day or so, until January 19.

It's Here.

Lauren Bjorkman Debuts with MY INVENTED LIFE

Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the Class of 2k8 on Revision Notes, as they told the stories of how 2k8 Novels Were Revised.

Today, I’m glad to continue the 2k9 Series of revision stories.
Class of 2k9 with Lauren Bjorkman.

Critique: Noose or Lifeline? OR SOMEONE thinks I should change my story. Should I?

by Lauren Bjorkman

The Three Year Novel. My Invented Life is the second novel I both started and finished. At the time, my critique group consisted of four talented writers that I trusted. The first draft took me a year to complete, and the revisions another two.

Here are three examples of how my critique partners helped me in the early stages:

• Strengthen Shakespearean ties. One critique partner commented that my main plot about concealed identities and deception mirrored a Shakespeare comedy. After re-reading several Shakespeare plays, and contemplating this parallel, I changed my main character, Roz, into a theater geek, and set much of the action during rehearsals for As You Like It.
• Include action scenes. Another critique partner, a screenwriter, noticed that I used too many dinner table scenes to show family interactions. Low energy settings are the death knell of movie scripts. She gave me a few ideas on how to change this. In the end, I used one of her suggestions, a miniature golf course, for my opening scene. What an enormous improvement.
• Exaggerated character toned down, but not all the way. But sometimes critique must be considered and then rejected. One of my critique partners thought Roz was too shrill. I stewed for a few days before asking him to clarify. He gave me examples. From them, I figured out that he didn’t like the way Roz exaggerated her feelings. After much consideration, I left in many of these moments because they fit with Roz’s character. But I took some out, and toned some down.
• Give character a redeeming quality. Something an editor recommended at conference helped me with this. She advised us to study our main character’s first ten actions in the story. Was she whiny and self-absorbed, or otherwise annoying at the beginning? The reader could forgive some flaws if the character had a redeeming quality—say, bravery or thoughtfulness.
• Character becomes slightly more introspective. A later critique partner felt that Roz was not introspective enough. That had been my intention, so I chose not to make a big change in my novel. But I did allow myself to loosen up a little, and let Roz reflect more. I believe this made the story more compelling.

GIVE UP THE GHOST by Megan Crewe

Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the Class of 2k8 on Revision Notes, as they told the stories of how 2k8 Novels Were Revised.

Today, I’m glad to continue the 2k9 Series of novel revision stories.
Class of 2k9

The Joy of Revision

Believe it or not, revision is actually my favorite part of writing. I rarely enjoy first drafts. The whole time I’m working on them I’m looking forward to that point in the future when the whole story will be down on the page and I can start fixing everything that’s wrong with it.

Maybe it’s because I don’t feel totally comfortable with a story until I’ve written the whole thing out at least once. Maybe it’s because it can be such a thrill to find a way of handling a plot point or character development that’s ten times better than what’s already there. Whatever the case, I’m always happiest during the second and third drafts.

I don’t just revise, I rewrite. Open up the previous draft on one side of my computer screen for reference and a blank document on the other, and start the new draft from scratch. When I tell people this they often respond as if I’ve announced that I prefer Brussels sprouts to chocolate. But it’s actually not that much work. All the parts I want to keep the same, I just retype from the previous draft. And for all the parts that need revising, I find it much easier to make sure the changes fit the flow of the story when I’m writing the whole thing out rather than dipping in and shifting bits here and there.

Eight revisions. But even a revision-lover like me can get tired of tweaking a story after the seventh or eighth run-through. And when you reach the publishing stage, you can expect a lot of revising! GIVE UP THE GHOST went through three revisions (two rewrites and one line edit) before I submitted to agents, another revision for my agent before submitting to editors, a pre-offer revision, and then three revisions after the book sold. That’s eight revisions!

So how did I keep the love through all that time?

1. Choices strengthened story. I made sure that the things I changed strengthened the story. It’s a lot easier to feel enthusiastic about revising when you can see for yourself the voice getting clearer, the characters more relatable, the plot more intriguing.
2. Choose battles wisely. If my editor wanted a change that I wouldn’t necessarily have made on my own, but I didn’t have any reason *not* to make it, I trusted her judgment. It was only the few cases where I felt something would actually hurt the story that I mulled it over and discussed possible compromises. That helped keep stress levels down–for me, and probably for her, too!
3. Let go. I allowed myself to let go. If I’d read a certain scene ten times already, and not found anything that needed changing the last three times, and my editor didn’t think it needed any more tweaking, then I’d move on to the next scene that did still need work. There’s a point when you have to accept that while nothing’s perfect, you’ve done the best you can, and that’s enough.

For more, see Megan Crewe’s website at www.megancrewe.com

It's Here.

Random Acts of Publicity: Social Media

We’ve all heard about the social media and many are experimenting with doing book publicity via these channels. What is really possible?

Lots! At least for authors. There are Facebook Fan pages or Event pages and the equivalent on MySpace or other spaces; there are Twitter updates and YouTube videos. In fact, an author can get overwhelmed doing all of this. But it does no good at all, if someone isn’t watching and participating.

Join Anything You’re Invited to Join – and Then Participate

Getting engaged in a friend’s promotional efforts means to do something, to join an event or fan page. Attend a virtual book signing. (What if YOU gave a party and no one showed up?) Helping with these promotional efforts won’t be as fast or as easy as those listed earlier this week, but they might make a huge difference.

View a Book Trailer, Podcast

Watch a book trailer. Use the word-of-mouth or linking techniques from earlier this week to tell others about the trailer. As a related post, Lisa Gottfried of DigitalWeavers discusses 6 Criteria for a Great Book Trailer. And a video trailer for my Novel Revision Retreat is unveiled here today.

Another new trailer out is Arthur Slade’s The Hunchback Assignments, website and book trailer for his new steam-punk fantasy.

Volunteer Your Expertise

This is another of those extra-mile assignments: if you know how to edit video, volunteer to make a book trailer or podcast for a friend. Or just walk him/her through setting up a fan page for your book. Help him/her brainstorm jokes when s/he makes a special game designed for Facebook. Really – ASK what would be helpful! (WOW, what an awesome thing that would be!)

There are many, many social media sites. This isn’t a how-to on those sites, but an encouragment to celebrate what your friend does on those sites!

Your Random Act of Publicity Daily Task: Participate

Your task: Join. View. Comment. Participate. Just once.

Please post what you did today.
What are some of your favorite social media sites for books?
Any final comments on supporting your friend’s book?

It's Here.

Random Acts of Publicity: Links

Why should you care about linking to a friend’s book? Google. And other search engines. Ever wondered how to get your page to show up on the #1 position on a Google search query?

Link to Specific Webpages with Specific Terms

Google takes a number of factors into account when it ranks webpages and how those webpages come up as search results. The top three results for any particular search term garner the most clicks by far. At the very least, you want a webpage to be in the top 30 results, or your chances of clicks are virtually zero.

Think about how someone might search for your friend’s book. Yes, by his/her name; possibly by the title. But what about “teen vampire love story”? (Surprisingly, Twilight does NOT come up first on this search query!)

My friend, Carla McClafferty’s most recent book is In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry.

It’s a story about a Harvard-educator American journalist who goes to Nazi-occupied France and helps a thousand Jews escape. If I want to link to her book, the most helpful thing would be to use something like this: Holocaust Rescuer, including Marc Chagall.

In other words, the links help in and of themselves. But if you use descriptive words as the text for the link, it helps even more. She doesn’t need help in getting her book found by the title or by her name: she needs help getting it found by someone interested in Holocaust rescuers.

Add links to your friend’s book whenever, where ever you can; use keywords as the link text for extra credit.

Wikipedia Links

Wikipedia is the internet encyclopedia,which is edited by, well, by you. Put up a Wikipedia page for your friend. Wikipedia won’t allow you to put up one for yourself, but you can put up one for a friend. Be sure to read Wikipedia’s guidelines before doing this, as they are specific about how to add pages.

NONFICTION AUTHORS: Or, add your friend’s NF book as a reference for a Wikipedia page, but only if appropriate. (Again, please read Wikipedia’s guidelines carefully.)

Your Random Act of Publicity Task for Today

Link to a friend’s webpage or bookstore listing with specific keywords.

Please post what you’ve done today.

It's Here.

Random Acts of Publicity: Reviews

Reviews add credibility: they are the marketer’s tool of using a testimonial. The twist on Amazon and other sites is that celebrity testimonials don’t matter as much as just another reader’s comments. To be effective, though, the comment must ring true, they must be authentic and credible.

To go the extra mile, video testimonials are the most effective tool out there. Sure, it’s an act of love to record and post a testimonial about a friend’s book, but it would really make a difference! Or add a photo of a kid reading your friend’s book. Anything extra makes a difference.

The More Reviews the Better

I’ve looked for studies about the effect of reviews on sales, but haven’t found anything solid. But anecdotal information says that the more reviews the better. There seems to be break points at about 20-25 reviews and 100 reviews, at least. That is, over 25 reviews and there’s a bump in sales. Over 100 reviews and there’s a big bump in sales. (If anyone has seen a study to corroborate this, let me know!)

Bad reviews don’t necessarily hurt, as long as there are just a couple. In fact, I’ve seen information that says a few bad reviews make all the others seem more plausible. Too much good can be unbelievable: remember the keys are authentic and credible. No book will please everyone.

(All I know is those bad reviews still hurt! But since I read this information, I’m trying to ignore the few bad reviews that I’ve gotten.)

The More Recent the Reviews the Better

Should you review older books? Yes! The more recent the reviews the better the title does on searches.

So, here’s one strategy for reviews. Everyone knows that the best sales time is the Christmas holidays. Books are given as gifts, more books are sold in November & December than other months, etc. What you really want, then, is a concentration of reviews in September and October – recent reviews for the holiday season.

Good news: We’re just in time to help a friend’s book!

Your Random Act of Publicity Task for Today

Your task: Post at least one review of a book.

Places to post reviews:
Amazon
B&N.com
Library Thing
Good Reads
Shelfari

Any suggestions for other places to post reviews?
Please post about what you’ve done today.

It's Here.

ROAD TO TATER HILL by Edith Hemingway

Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the Class of 2k8 on Revision Notes, as they told the stories of how 2k8 Novels Were Revised.

Today, I’m glad to continue the 2k9 Series of novel revision stories.
Class of 2k9

“When your editor says your character isn’t stepping up to the plate…” by Edith M. Hemingway, author of ROAD TO TATER HILL (Delacorte Press, September 8, 2009)

Structural Changes?

I consider the process of revision to be the true meat of writing. In fact, I revised my middle grade novel, ROAD TO TATER HILL, for three years before I decided it was finished and polished enough to submit to an editor. So, when I heard from Michelle Poploff, VP and Executive Editor of Delacorte Press, that she was interested in talking to me about my manuscript, I was confident that if she wanted it, there would of course be changes, but surely not major structural revisions.

She was interested and wanted to set up a telephone conversation a week later. I asked if there was something I should be thinking about in terms of revision before we talked. She said, “My assistant and I think your character, Drew, isn’t stepping up to the plate. We’d like you to consider removing him entirely from the story.”

I was thankful this was communicated through email and not face to face or over the telephone because there would have been a groan, a gasp, or a fleeting look of panic. My immediate reaction was, “How on earth could I take my brother out of my book?”

What I neglected to say earlier is that the seed for ROAD TO TATER HILL was my own childhood experience of the premature birth and death of my baby sister. Since I started writing it as a memory of an emotional childhood incident for a creative writing assignment, of course I included my older brother in the story. He was a significant part of the whole experience within our family. As the story evolved into fiction and took on more characters and an actual plot and story arc, the brother in the story tagged along, too. We had always been close, and I could not imagine life without him for either my character, Annie Winters, or me. However, the student in me that constantly strives to improve my writing urged me to be open to all suggestions—especially those from an experienced editor.

Yes, to Editor’s Suggestions

By the time our telephone conversation rolled around, I had come to terms with the change and realized the loss of a longed-for baby sister would be all the more poignant if Annie were an only child. I had even taken the necessary steps to mark every point in the story where Drew had appeared physically, through dialogue with other characters, or by reference in Annie’s thoughts and memory—especially those scenes where he played a significant role in driving plot points. Drew had appeared in 81 pages out of the then 154 total. I had also figured out the perfect character to beef up and take over the plot points that Drew could no longer control—Bobby Miller, the neighbor boy, who not only now became Annie’s best friend, but also added an interesting boy/girl dimension to the story.

Michelle and I talked for nearly two hours—going over those ideas in addition to many other lesser points and clarifications she needed. She ended the conversation by saying she would mail back my manuscript with all her written comments and suggested I think it over for a couple of weeks to decide if I wanted to move forward with these revisions. I did not tell her then that I had already decided—of course I would make those changes and even take them a step further!

Taking Time to Plan Revision

Once I received the manuscript, I spent several days reading through and taking meticulous notes. Then I put together a 4-page revision strategy list which included 9 detailed character improvements, 17 other considerations based on Michelle’s questions, a clarification of the time span of the entire story, and a plan for resequencing some of the major scenes.

Before scheduling our next telephone conversation, I emailed this detailed revision plan to Michelle, so she had time to look it over first. When we talked, her first words were, “You’ve really stepped up to the plate.” I had demonstrated that I was ready, willing, and able to make the revisions they wanted, and they were ready to offer me a contract, even before I completed the revisions.

Yes, there were more revisions required after I finished the first round and even before we reached the copy-editing stage. I even rewrote the entire novel in the first person point of view in order to dig deeper into the emotional core. It sounds as if I made every single change my editor suggested, but no, I didn’t. There were a few ideas that just didn’t ring true to my characters, even though I tried. In those cases, I came up with alternative plans that worked as well or better. I also learned that revisions often need to be done in layers, rather than all at once. One change perhaps leads to another change, which in turn reveals another problem that must be fixed, and so on. The hardest thing for me is to know when to finally stop revising.

I firmly believe, however, that my willingness to trust my editor, listen to her suggestions, and follow through with revisions was critical in landing my first “solo” contract!

Edith M. Hemingway
mistylodge@verizon.net
Road to Tater Hill
Delacorte Press, Sept. 8, 2009
http://www.classof2k9.com

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Random Acts of Publicity: Word of Mouth

About a dozen times these past few weeks, I’ve found myself saying, “Have you seen ‘Julie and Julia’? It’s so funny. Meryl Streep just becomes Julia.”

Yes, word-of-mouth is still the best publicity.

A great source of information about kids and reading is the Consider this Scholastic study, the 2008 Kids and Family Reading Study (Download the entire pdf or watch a video clip. )

Word of Mouth: Talk to kids!

The Scholastic study on Kids and Reading says,:

• Kids overwhelming (89%) say “My favorite books are the ones I picked out myself.”
• Sixty-eight percent of kids say they love or like reading books for fun a lot (72% of girls/ 63% of boys).
• Half of all kids say there aren’t enough really good books for boys/girls their age.

What? Not enough really good books? Surely that’s partly because no one has told them about a special book – and you’re just the one to do that.

Word of Mouth: Talk to parents!

The Scholastic study also says that, “Parents are a key source of book suggestions for their children, but nearly half of all parents say they have a hard time finding information about books their child would enjoy reading, and especially parents of teens age 15-17 (62%).”

Wow! What an opportunity!

Word of Mouth: Talk to booksellers, librarians, teachers, or other professionals!

It’s called industry buzz. The more professionals talk about a book, the more it gets talked about and has a chance to break out into the general public.

Word of Mouth: Talk to anyone!

The last few weeks when I’ve been telling people about the movie, Julie and Julia, I haven’t confined myself to cooks or pretenders to the title of chef. Instead, I’ve found it coming up naturally in conversation. For a friend’s book, you may have to do a bit more explanation up front, since the book might not have the press coverage that the “J and J movie” has had. But a bit of explanation, followed by your enthusiasm – that’s what will help spread the word.

Your Random Acts of Publicity Task for Today

Your task: Tell one person about your friend’s book.

Please, post a comment about what you did today.

It's Here.

Random Acts of Publicity Week

Are you like me? I always promise myself that today I’ll write a review of my friends’ books and actually post them on Amazon or Library Thing or somewhere. But do I? No. That’s about to change!

I know how wonderful it is to see new reviews on Amazon of one of my books. I know that it’s better to give than to receive. This week, I vow to put these two things together and give friends some support for their books.

So, I’m declaring next week, September 7-11, as the RANDOM ACTS OF PUBLICITY WEEK, a week when you do something to promote a friend’s book, or to promote a recent book you’ve read. I’ll post an introduction on Monday, but because of the holiday we won’t get started with the ACTS until Tuesday.

Here’s how it works:

1. Post your intent to join. In the comments here, post that you intend to join in the fun.
2. Daily Acts of Publicity. Each day, do one Random Act of Publicity. You can choose to concentrate on one friend’s book; you can choose a different author/book each day; you can promote a book you like, even if you don’t know the author. Post a comment on that day’s suggested activities when you complete it.
3. Daily suggestions. Each day, I’ll suggest an activity. I’ll try to add links and info, so you’ll learn a bit more about promotion or have access to new resources. Try to complete the activity that day. I’ve tried to include both off-line and on-line activities. Here’s the schedule:
   • Tuesday: Word of Mouth
   • Wednesday: Reviews
   • Thursday: Links
   • Friday: Social Media

Four days of promoting others’ books should be great fun.

Get started today on the Random Acts of Publicity Week:

• Spread the word. Let others know about the Random Acts of Publicity Week. (Copy the banner if you want and post it on your site.)
• Read or re-read books. Plan the books you want to promote. Have you been waiting for a good time to read your friend’s book? This is that good time. Check it out; buy it; read it by next Tuesday.

It's Here.