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15 Habits of Successful Writers

15 Habits of Successful Writers

  1. Write something EVERY day
  2. Read (a little) every day
  3. Watch a little TV or movies weekly
  4. Eliminate distractions, but write when and where it works best for you
  5. Observe and experience, actively
  6. Plan your writing (yep, I mean storyboard and outline)
  7. Make notes or a journal of observations, anecdotes, and experiences
  8. Set up an editorial calendar of the things you’d like to write
  9. Blog, submit for contests, submit for publication, tell people you write
  10. Work with and support writers better than you are
  11. Help and encourage writers that aren’t as good as you yet
  12. Attend and teach conferences and workshops
  13. Write until the end before you edit
  14. Read your work aloud
  15. Write outside your comfort zone, in different genres and formats

One to grow on:

16. Revise in one comprehensive pass, with discipline and attention to detail.

Additional Resources:

Ava Jae, Five Good Habits for Writers, http://avajae.blogspot.com/2013/09/5-good-habits-for-writers.html

Charlotte Frost, Forming Good Writing Habits, http://www.phd2published.com/2013/11/13/forming-good-writing-habits-by-charlotte-frost/

Leo Babauta, Learn From the Greats: 7 Writing Habits of Amazing Writers, http://writetodone.com/learn-from-the-greats-7-writing-habits-of-amazing-writers/

Joe Bunting, Five Smarter Habits of Great Writers, http://writetodone.com/five-smarter-habits-of-great-writers/

Hamilton College, Habits of Effective Writers, http://www.hamilton.edu/writing/writing-resources/habits-of-effective-writers

Melissa Donovan, How to Develop Better Writing Habits, http://www.writingforward.com/better-writing/writing-habits

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).

 

Career Strategy: When to take and when to tank well-meaning advice.

Here’s a blast from the past from Pamela Fagan Hutchins, who has since published ten novels and a novella and one more nonfiction book, quit her day job, and is writing novel number twelve and novella two as we speak.

Catch her brand new show, Wine Women & Writing Radio, debuting Friday May 4 at 10 am CT with guest C.C. Hunter aka Chrstie Craig, HERE!

The question is when to take and when to tank well-meaning advice.

Her vote? Go with the gut/heart connection:

When I informed my traditionally-published friends that I was indie-publishing my first five books at one time, they thought I was crazy. Maybe I am. The lead time was certainly lengthy. The work was intense, the learning curve and frustration immense. I had five books to write, consult on, get edited, make covers for, enter into contests (which some of them won), format and publish, and promote. Promote. Promote. Promote. Promote. Promote.

I had a plan, though. My plan was this: I would capitalize immediately on the online phenomenom of sales to happy buyers from my back list, while paving the way for my debut novel.

Pamela’s 2018 writers retreat is happening during Craig Johnson’s LONGMIRE days in nearby Buffalo, WY, so attendees are going to meet him and hear him speak! She’s had a cancellation, so she has a room left!! More information, HERE.

“But how can you focus on successfully marketing each book to ensure its success? You’ve got a lot of energy, but you still need time,” a friend asked.

“You need to slowly milk each book for all its worth to get any traction,” another advised.

A third said, “But there’s no crossover between fiction and nonfiction.”

I don’t disagree with them, for their marketing plans. But I had my own plan to develop, for my own books, and my own career. If I felt that these first five nonfiction books I published were my whole career, I’d follow the advice I was given. But they’re not. They’re awesome books, don’t get me wrong, and I have sold a lot of them and expect to sell tons more, for years. They’re just not the end-all-be-all focus of my writing. They are instead the back list and the entree into public (semi-public) consciousness for my jewels: my novels. The novels that I plan to roll out one by one and promote in a more “traditional” and focused manner.

And I don’t have to worry about the sales projections of a publishing executive who peers down her nose and through her half glasses at me as she pronounces my nonfiction too paltry for them to dabble with. It’s not too paltry for ME to dabble with. I don’t even need much crossover saleability to make this effort worth it. Hell, I’d written the content for these five books over five years of blogging anyway, so why let it go to waste when it could do some good, for me, and for those that bought it (because they are very helpful books)?

All of this — all of this effort, all of this promotion (radio, print, video, and in-person appearances), all of this nerve-wracking exposure — is to build the base at the bottom of the pyramid to support my novels. My plan as I developed and executed it was to learn the business and make my mistakes on these five narrative nonfiction books. For each book I sold, hopefully I gained name recognition and a reader of my future books. With each reviewer I wooed, I built a lasting relationship. With each store that held a signing event, I secured a future signing venue.

And thus for the launch of my first novel in November (yay! so excited!), I have a broader platform to market to, and a backlist of additional titles to sell to new readers. And so on. And so on, for all my future books.

“But Pamela, the average book — traditional or indie published — sells less than 100 copies per year. Aren’t you afraid yours will ‘fail’ if you do them all at once?”

Here’s my dirty little secret: I’ve already sold more than that of each of them, in two months. Lots more. And I know why, too. It’s because when someone stops by to buy one, they think, ah heck, why not, and they grab 1, 2, 3, or even 4 more. And they sometimes come back and buy them as gifts for other people, too.

This works especially well at book signings. I sold 57 books at my last signing. The owner of River Oaks Bookstore, a woman with 37+ years in the business, was astounded when we told her this. She said that 20 books at a signing for a traditionally published and well promoted author is a really, really good signing in her experience. My husband used to own a bookstore. He said the most he ever saw an author do was 10, and many authors went away selling zero after sitting for two hours twiddling their thumbs and trying to hide their embarrassment. What makes my signings different? Because it isn’t that I’m special.

Given our mutual success, the stores I have sold from have all invited me back. Begged me to come back, really. Because they did humongous business during my signings, which were EVENTS that the store could promote without sounding self-serving, events that generated energy and excitement, that drew in new customers who bought far more than my books while they were there. The stores made money, beautiful, sexy money.

Is this (sales) all because I published five books at once? Well, it’s at least in part due to that. In large part. But it’s also because I did not ignore the opportunity in print-on-demand books (I went with CreateSpace), which cost me nothing more than the time to format them, and a smidge extra to convert my covers to wrap-around. The margin on print books is larger than ebooks, for me. Only 1/3 of my sales so far are ebooks. Because my books are available in print, I can HAVE books signings, which we frontload  for success, the mutual success of ourselves and the host-store. (See “Indie Writer Book Signing Success“)

But it’s also because these five print books make consignment deals for bookstores more appealing. The bookstores like working with multi-title authors. Think “economies of scale” in relationships. If I provide five books to a store that sell, isn’t it more worth their time to deal with me than an author with one book that sells, if those sales per book are roughly equal?

With the expanded distribution opportunities provided by CreateSpace, and with my husband/manager’s incredible energy and faith, we have my books in a long list of stores and growing. He plans to ask several of these chains to order nationwide, soon, to prime the pumps for distribution of (did you forget the master plan???) THE DEBUT NOVEL.

I love it when a plan works.

And I haven’t even published my novel, yet. Just these five books that I was told not to publish together. I don’t listen very well.

Which brings up the most important point of this post. This blog and the bazillion others out there provide you with information. Lots of it. Some of it is mundane and repetitive. Some of it is groundbreaking and exciting. Some of it is wrong, or simply wrong for you. My goal in sharing my journey with you through this blog is not to tell you what you must do to succeed. Far from it. For starters, your definition of success is unique to you, as is mine to me. I can’t tell you what you need to do to achieve that which I am unfamiliar with. I can, though, provide you with information. It’s up to you to decide how or whether to use it. Listen, don’t listen. Listen and agree, listen and disagree. That’s your part in this process.

Up for grabs!!! 2 tickets to Wild Deadwood Reads on June 9th in gorgeous, historic Deadwood, SD (info about the event HERE). Enter by leaving a comment telling Pamela why you want to go to Wild Deadwood Reads. Drawing May 3rd.

Now this plan may not result in me becoming the next Dan Brown, in fact, I know it won’t. But I won’t be moaning on my deathbed that I never went for the brass ring, full-out, leaping from my painted, polished pony with arm outstretched and hand grasping. I’m going for it, y’all, the fun, the excitement, and the potential of selling books.

And it has started with five, damn the naysayers, and damn the torpedoes.

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).

Creating Drama, Without Being Overly Dramatic

2016PFHWebHeader

Caveat: this may not be what you learned in your MFA program or from your writing instructor, but writing is about looking at a variety of methods and finding what fits your style. My approach is one to consider, and one that has worked for me in writing the romantic mysteries that enabled me to quit my day job. I hope considering it is useful to you in your journey. ~ Pamela

Once upon a time, a guy I dated in college told me I was addicted to drama.

Who, me? Gasp, snort, cough.

Maybe he was right. Not the two-girls-fighting-over-a-baby-daddy type of drama. Not the hater-trolls leaving stark raving mad comments on HuffPost drama. But the kind of drama in everyday life that keeps your blood flowing. I’ve always enjoyed re-imagining life, complete with amped-up emotion and breath taking tension. In fact, that’s really all I do when I write: I re-imagine life, only better. More dramatic. More suspenseful. More awesome. I don’t need alternate universes or mythical beings. I just want to tweak what I’ve already got for more tension and, yes, drama.

I think there are a lot of people like me. Case in point: ten years ago, my then-41-year-old husband was cast in a commercial for a women’s drug. I recall it was something to do with urological issues. Anyway, his job was to frolic on the beach, shirtless, in a bathing suit, with a woman and two children. The pharmaceutical company was marketing to women, and their ploy was this: Honey, you may have some really embarrassing issues down there, but if you take our drug your husband will suddenly become better looking and your children, too. Because that’s how they cast this commercial: a slightly more attractive than average woman who had married WAY UP in the looks department, and two exceptionally perfect young kids. Said husband and kids younger than the ones she had in real life. (And this is every beer commercial from the 1980s, from the male point of view.)

Was it possible that this woman could have the husband and kids in that commercial. Yes. Was it likely? No, but she sure would like to imagine them that way. That, my friends, is life re-imaginined. It’s what we’ve got, only a little bit more exciting. [Note to husband: see, I don’t have to re-imagine, because I got the guy in the commercial, honey. Love you. Mwah.]

I write mysteries and the occasional nonfiction book. Stylistically, people describe my mysteries as heartfelt, fast-paced, tense and highly suspenseful, and high in drama without being overly dramatic. I like these descriptions. I am actually trying to write in a way that achieves these elements. I am trying to capture life the way we want to re-imaginine it.

Creating drama without being overly dramatic requires courage with a delicate touch. The courage to go deep with a character, to let your characterization “all hang out.” To put pressure on your protagonist in every element of his or her life. The pressure that you create has to be something that your readers will find compelling, and your character’s reactions to this pressure have to be believable within their characters, although they can “go big” within those confines. (Melodrama occurs when they act outside the boundaries of character. We don’t want that. That’s not a delicate touch.) In my humble opinion, many readers like characters they can relate to, but most of them want those characters’ trials and tribulations to be just a little bit worse than what we will ever go through in real-life. Many readers want those characters to act/react the way the reader wants to act/react, but can’t. Most of us are seeking peace, joy, and love in our personal lives. If the story/plot centers around events that are just like our everyday lives (peaceful, joyful, and loving), they will be boring.

I mean, really, who wants to read about every day life? Well, some people do, but they’re not my readers. Or at least they’re not readers of my fiction. [They would enjoy my nonfiction, however, and I encourage them to do so. :-)]

In any given situation, I want the events to be possible, yet strain the bounds of credulity, then strain them even further with my character’s reactions/actions. The “big” events in the book need to be unlikely, they need to be the most improbable culmination of events. Like the woman in that commercial taking a pill and suddenly having a younger and better looking husband (and disposing of the old one’s body with nobody the wiser, I guess???).

Let me give you some examples.

In my novel, Heaven to Betsy, my protagonist is pregnant. It’s a tubal pregnancy and ends in miscarriage. The character had lost a fallopian tube to a benign tumor earlier in her life. The tube in which her pregnancy has now occurred is her one remaining fallopian tube. While it doesn’t usually happen in real life (but it’s possible), she ends up hemorrhaging when she miscarries and most of the rest of that one remaining fallopian tube must be removed, rendering her unlikely to have children in the future. As a result, she’s depressed and self-destructive. Her husband has left her, following in the footsteps of her father who left her in her early 20s, and now the potential of having children has left her, too. She doesn’t really care if she lives her dies. So her reactions are big, but within believability for her character: She self medicates with alcohol and Vicodin. (Which is not recommended by doctors, so don’t try that at home, kids, but it’s how she feels, so it’s how she acts.) After a couple days in bed, she ignores her doctor’s advice and flies to New Mexico where she attends a work party with her boss. Desperate circumstances force her to ride a horse for hours that night. Remember, this is a mystery, which means bad things happen.

Is this what most people do after having part of a fallopian tube removed? No, it is not. Is it possible? Why, yes, yes it is, at least according to the medical expert I consulted when I wrote the book. He said she could be up and about, and she could ride that horse, but she’d really hurt the next day. Some of my readers have probably experienced miscarriage and some of them have had laparoscopic removal of their fallopian tubes. I sincerely hope they didn’t ride a horse all night three days after surgery, but medically, most of them could have, if they had to. If their life or the life of someone they cared about was on the line.

Drama. Using that which is implausible or improbable but still possible, and more exciting than real life, with believable yet “big” character reactions.

One more example from Heaven to Betsy: on the same night my character takes her ill-advised horse ride, she needs to enter a plane on a dirt runway, to escape the bad guys, who are shooting at her. The plane is already running; in fact, it’s moving. It’s a Cessna 182, known as a Skyhawk, which is a single-engine plane with the propeller on its nose. It’s not advisable to enter the plane while the propeller’s running, for a variety of reasons. One is that a spinning propeller is nearly invisible. Recently, a Dallas woman was permanently disfigured because she accidentally walked into a moving propeller. Another is that propellers can come off. This is how my father-in-law lost a leg and eye. So I know that bad things can happen with moving propellers. It’s also possible to enter a Skyhawk by approaching it wide from the rear while the propeller is running, at least according to the aviation expert I consulted when writing the book. So that’s what my character does, which is “going big” but within the bounds of believability for her characterization, because otherwise she and someone she loves are going to die.

Is this the recommended way to enter a plane? Does it follow safety guidelines and procedures? No and no. But I don’t write books about every day safety procedures. I’m looking for drama without melodrama, I’m looking for possible even if improbable.

Would Heaven to Betsy have the same impact if my character hadn’t had a medical condition that made it really hard for her to do things she had to do in the most exciting, most desperate scenes of the book? Would her escape have been as dramatic if she simply walked up to a plane that was turned off, entered it, and then the pilot went through his safety checklist before turning it on, instead of leaping in under a hail of bullets? I don’t think so. We need the stakes to be high for the tension to be high.

Show us who your character is way down deep inside so we’ll know why every punch you throw at her hurts, then put every obstacle you can in her way, and, finally, go for the unlikely-but-possible instead of the humdrum-everyday as you ramp up your plot tension, all the time staying within the bounds of believability for the character you created, even as she acts/reacts “bigger” than most of us would have the luxury of doing in real life. p.s. There’s a lot of potential for humor when you write this way, as well, if you care to develop it.

Yes, you could stick with the most likely and the most safe. I could, too. But that’s not the book that I want to write. I want to write the book that reviewers say creates tension and drama without being overly dramatic.

How about you?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).

Voices in My Head: Thoughts on Craft and Characters from Ken Oder

oldwounds ebook

I hear voices. My characters talk to me – Billy, Eva, and Jolene in Old Wounds to the Heart, Nate and Christine in The Closing, and a host of characters you will never meet because they’re confined in the jail cells of my aborted novels. They all spoke to me. In their own voices.

In Old Wounds, Eva Gitlow sprang into existence almost fully formed. I tweaked aspects of her persona as I wrote, but the essence of her character came over me in a rush, and she took off with my story. For three chapters the words ran across the computer screen like they knew where they were going, even if I didn’t. She said and did things that seemed not to come out of me, but out of her, as though she existed independently from my imagination. She, rather than I, seemed to control the interplay between her and Billy Kirby. Billy was proud that he looked much younger than his years. Eva asked him how old he was. “I’m eighty,” he said, and I heard her deep voice reply, “Isn’t that amazing, Mister Kirby? You don’t look a day over seventy-nine.” Billy flinched. I did, too, and then I laughed out loud. Later in that scene, Billy and Eva stood on her front porch, talking. Out of the blue she grabbed him and kissed him full on the lips. Billy was shocked. I was too. I didn’t see it coming, and yet I know it came from me. Everything Eva said and did in those chapters fascinated me, and I don’t know where most of it came from.

To keep reading, click HERE.

By Ken Oder

Ken Oder was born in Virginia in the coastal tidewater area near the York and James Rivers, where military installations during ken-oderWorld Wars I and II fueled the growth of urban centers like Norfolk, Hampton, and Newport News. His father worked for the Navy Mine Depot in Yorktown and later as a Hudson dealer until he heard his calling and became the minister at Mount Moriah Methodist Church in 1960. The family moved to White Hall, Virginia, a farm town of about fifty people at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The mountains and the rural culture were a jarring contrast to the busy coastal plains, but once the shock wore off, Ken came to love it there. He found the mountains and hollows spectacularly beautiful and the people thoughtful, friendly, and quietly courageous. White Hall became Ken’s home, and his affection and respect for the area and its people have never left him.

Ken and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where he practiced law and served as an executive until he retired. They still live near their children and grandchildren in California, but a piece of Ken’s heart never left White Hall. That place and time come out in his stories.

Dear Hootsuite… Where Have You Been All My Life?

By Candi Fite, SkipJack Publishing Assistant

As a publishing assistant—whose main focus is publicity, promotions and marketing, a mother, wife, writer, artist, part-time yoga instructor, and volunteer, a busy girl’s gotta do, what a busy girl’s gotta do. Anything to simplify my life. Enter Hootsuite, aka an assistant’s assistant.

Let me give you a brief explanation of what Hootsuite is and the benefits of using it.

Hootsuite is referred to as a social media management tool. It allows you and/or your team member(s) the luxury of scheduling, posting, managing, and monitoring your many social media platforms all at once, and from one location. Yes, it’s that simple. Trust me when I say this, if I can learn to use Hootsuite, anyone can. And I’m quite certain, I’ve only begun to discover and tap into its social media posting power.

Hootsuite’s 50/50 Intellect Requirement: For me, using Hootsuite is a 50/50 mix of left-brain/right brain tasks. For those who know me and my highly artistic way of thinking, this presented a challenge. Naturally, I’m 75% right brain and 25% left brain. But alas, Google and YouTube are my new BFFs. We chat over lunch. We cry together. We laugh together. And along with Hootsuite, we’ve learned together.

To Hoot or Not to Hoot: It’s all a personal preference.

  • Are you a busy person?
  • Do you post on social media?
  • More than 1 social media platform?
  • Are you bogged down with keeping up with monitoring your social media?
  • Do you want to save time for little or no money?
  • Do you want to free up your schedule to work on other tasks? Writing?

If the answer to each of the questions above is yes, keep reading. If the answer is no, you can skip down to the bottom and read my quirky bio. J

Free Plan or Professional Plan:

  • Free Plan is perfect for individuals who want to start managing multiple networks, schedule content, and engage with their audience—all in one place. https://hootsuite.com/plans/free

-Keep in mind, the free plan only allows up to 3 social media profiles.

-And you do not have the bulk scheduler tool as described below. You can still schedule future posts, but not in a bulk format.

  • Professional Plan is for individuals who manage multiple social media platforms and want more options than the free plan allows, or entrepreneurs / small business owners. Cost starts at 9.99/month. https://hootsuite.com/plans/professional

-This plan has all the same perks as the free plan, but allows you to have up to 10 social media platforms + a few other options.

-Keep in mind, the more team members you have with this plan, the more it costs.

-The best feature is the bulk scheduler tool, as I describe below.

How to send out bulk Hoots: Here are simple steps to creating your CSV file for the bulk scheduling tool in Hootsuite.

  • If you work in Google Drive, it’s easy. Open a new spreadsheet. After creating, you’ll download as a CSV file. *Make sure NOT to open the file. Just download, and then upload to Hootsuite. Opening the CSV file changes the format. If working on your desktop, create as spreadsheet and “save as” a CSV file, but again, don’t open it once saved to your desktop.
  • Column A: Date and time (required) I write mine like this: 1/25/2017 11:00 AM (but you can use any of the formats below), then if I want to post every day @11:00 am, I click on the corner of the A1 box and drag down for every day I want to post. I like to keep my bulk uploads to around 7-10 days. I find it easier to manage.

Both date and time in one of these formats:

-Day/Month/Year Hour:Minute

-Month/Day/Year Hour:Minute

-Year/Month/Day Hour:Minute

-Year/Day/Month Hour:Minute

 

Also:

-Date and time must be in the future, at least 10 minutes from upload time

-The time should end with a 5 or a 0. For example, 09:15 or 09:20.

  • Column B: Message / Post

-Duplicate messages are not allowed. Change at least one word.

-Twitter: There is a limit of 140 characters. Using a link will limit the message to 116 characters.

-There is a limit of 350 messages across all social networks per bulk upload.

-Choosing more than 1 social network will reduce the number of rows allowed in your CSV. For example, choosing 5 social networks will reduce the maximum CSV rows to 70.

  • Column C: Link (optional)

After you’ve created your CSV file and opened the bulk scheduler in Hootsuite, you’ll upload the file from your computer, select which social media platforms you want it to post to, review your messages—checking for errors, and schedule. Then, if you want images attached, you’ll need to go back in and edit each message individually. If you’ve used a link, it’ll pull up an image from the link, so you can delete it and add your own image to the post. Make sure to save your edit after you’ve added your images. J

So, if you need assistance in managing your social media, you might check out Hootsuite.

Candi Fite, SkipJack Publishing Assistant


As there are two sides to every story, there are two sides of Candi’s creativity. Over the years, she’s crafted poetry, short stories, a children’s picture book, and her most recent work, is a humorous Cozy Mystery. She wrote her first poem when she was ten about her baby sister who was fascinated by her own toes.

As a self-taught mixed media & abstract expressionist artist, Candi relies on her free spirit and her passion to express herself to guide her through the intuitive process of creating art. Inspired by the beauty and architecture of nature, she uses her hands, brushes, and her beloved metal pie server, as she layers, textures, builds, paints, and allows each piece to happen organically.

Her hopes are that her artwork connects viewers with their own emotions and provokes deep feelings, and her stories not only entertain, but also make her readers laugh.

Follow her: @gypsychickart on Facebook and Instagram, Candilynn Fite-Writer on Facebook. 

You can pick up a copy of Little Acorn’s Big Fall, a Children’s Picture Book, on Amazon. How to Leash a Thief (A Steely & Cuff Mystery #1) is due out in early 2017.

Author Facebook Ads for Dummies (Part Two)

Before we dive into this excellent “part two” on Facebook Ads, do you ever wonder about our contributors and their “day jobs?” Here’s your chance to look behind the curtain with Pamela Fagan Hutchins, in her collaborative article on the state of #respect. (For an extra special look at the formation of concepts in a novelist’s mind, hit the link in footnote 10) http://www.epspros.com/news-resources/whitepapers/2018/twenty-year-sexual-harassment-retrospective.html

By Bobbye Marrs

Click here to read Author Facebook Ads for Dummies (Part One)

Now that you’ve got a few (or at least one) Ad Creative, it’s time to set that baby free. I’m assuming that you have a Facebook Business Account and you’re ready to begin with creating ads.

Let’s start with a basic understanding of how Ads work. This is the hierarchy to keep in mind:

So start out by clicking that little white drop down arrow on the blue bar across the top of your page. There you’ll see Create Ads. Once you’ve got some going you can pick Manage Ads. This opens up the Ads Manager and a page that says CAMPAIGN: Choose your objective. This is already enough to make a grown man cry so let me break it down for you. Here’s a handy infographic to break down the 3 types of Facebook Campaigns.

Authors can find uses for each of these but for our purpose we’ll focus on Lead Generation under Consideration. The main idea of Lead Gen Ads is for you to find people interested in your product – for an author that might be people who read romantic mysteries or cozy dinosaur mysteries. You could have multiple campaigns – maybe one for promoting a new release, one for creating leads with your permafree book, and one for getting people to buy a product you sell. But if you’re new, just take this little baby step with one campaign.

Once you chose Lead Generation it will ask you to name it and then continue. I suggest putting helpful information in the name and not just “lead generation” which is what populates.

Here’s an example of how my campaign hierarchy starts with one of Pamela’s campaigns. I’m using her permafree book (Saving Grace) to generate leads and build her mailing list. The name of this campaign is “Saving Grace Lead Gen Ads”.

The next page is Create Ad Sets. This is the next level of the hierarchy (pink in the picture above). You can have multiple Ad Sets within a campaign. Each Ad Set contains the same budget, targeting, and scheduling. You could have one Ad Set that targeted your local community, one for people who like dinosaurs, and one for people who like cozy mysteries. I’m going to take you step by step.

If you have multiple Facebook pages, make sure to choose the right one in the pull down menu in the first section. For example, I have a personal page, I manage one for SkipJack author Ken Oder, I have one for my business, GreetingsFromMarrs.com, and I help manage SkipJack author Pamela Fagan Hutchins, and Pamela’s Knights of Pamelot. I speak from negative experience when I say, “make sure to choose the right one.”

The next section is Audience and there are 2 options: Create New and Use a Saved Audience. This is where you choose who you want to target. For example, if your last name is Snigglefritz and one day a sweater ad comes across your newsfeed and sweater is magically personalized to say “Snigglefritz Family Reunion”, the sweater company probably targeted people with the last name Snigglefritz.

You can do the same thing, but let me make a tiny suggestion. You can use the Audience Manager. You may be thinking we put the cart before the horse and you’d be right, but blame Zuckerberg, not me. You can specify your audience at this point in Create New, but if you go up to the top where it says Ads Manager and click it you see several columns. Under Assets you will see Audience. If you choose that it will take you to the Audience Manager. Obviously, it’s better to do this ahead of time.

You can create as many audiences as you want. For example, if you have a cozy mystery series, you may want to gear your audience in that direction. But, you may be like SkipJack author, Rebecca Nolen, who has 2 books in 2 different genres. Or maybe you want to target something to a specific age group or location. The possibilities here are endless. I’ve seen different recommendations for audience sizes. But keep in mind that bigger isn’t necessarily better here. In the example above you’ll see Pamela Look Alike Audience. This is an audience that Facebook has helped me create based on people similar to the people who have liked Pamela’s page. We’ve had lots of good luck with this.

When I first started working on Pamela’s Facebook Ads, I had six different audiences with a variety of sizes. I used each of these Audiences as a separate Ad Set under the Campaign. So if you decided to use Audience Manager then head on back over to Create Ads and get back to where we left off. Now if you pull down the Saved Audiences you can choose it here.

The next section is Placement and Facebook recommends Automatic. This basically means that Facebook’s robots and algorithms probably know more than me about where to put my ads. I’m good with that.

The next section is Budget and Schedule. This is a little scary, but remember you can always stop the ad if things are going south. A good way to figure this out is by reverse engineering your budget. For example, you may decide to start with $100 in a one-month time period. This is about $3.35 a day. You could put $3.35 daily budget, but the ad will continue to run non-stop even after your $100. Or you could choose Lifetime Budget and set a start and end date. Remember though that this is for this Ad Set which could contain multiple Ads and if you have more Ad Sets, you’ll need to spread the budget among them. The numbers can always be tweaked as you go so don’t feel too nervous.

In case that was super-confusing, here’s a picture. Remember when you’re setting your budget it’s for the Ad Set. Let’s say you’re doing a Lead Generation campaign and you’ve set aside $100. You could split that evenly (or whatever) between 2 Ad Sets. $50.00 is the number you’re actually working with. If you’re running 2 ads in each Ad Set that’s $25 each. What you need to keep in mind is the time frame in which you’re going to use this money up. If you decide to spread this out over 25 days, that’s $1.00 a day on each ad, $2.00 per Ad Set, $4.00 a day on the Campaign.

 

The next section looks like this:

As you’re starting out I think it’s fine to go with the recommendations. As you become an expert on these ads you can tweak them to your heart’s content.

At the very bottom, you’ll need to give your Ad Set a name. This is a good place to specify the details in your targeting. For example, Cozy Mystery/Dinosaur/Over 50. This is just for you so do what works for you.

Once you click Continue, you come to actual page to put in your Ad. Your first choice is what format you want your ad: Carousel, Single Image, Single Video, or Slideshow. If you’re a beginner, then you’re probably going to choose Single Image. Click Add More Images and then upload the awesome graphic you created. Be sure to X out the one that’s already there when the page opened.

The next section is Text and here’s where you input your Ad’s copy. Writing Ad Copy is an entire science all on its own. Seriously, the psychology behind what you say and how you say it is fascinating. Writing great ad copy deserves a post all on its own. May I suggest researching this topic to get ideas for how to write creative headlines, clickable Calls to Action, and interesting descriptions.

Be sure to notice that Facebook is not OCD in the Text area and chose to put everything out of order. The Headline is actually the larger text that appears underneath your graphic. In the example below the headline is “Want a Free book?”

The next section is Text and this appears above your graphic. In the example it’s “Cuddle up with voodoo ~ laughs ~ suspense!”

The next thing is a drop down box with your Call to Action button. This is the response you want to happen. In the example, it’s Download.

The next section is the News Feed Link Description. Here you’ll add additional information to get readers to be interested in what you have to offer. The example starts with “Download a FREE” and ends with “puppy not included.”

The Display Link would typically be your website. Below this section is where you’ll choose the Lead Form you created waaaay back when. Once you get here it’s all over but the shouting. Just click Review Order and wait for Facebook to approve it.

When your ad it up and running check it regularly to make sure it’s performing well. Mark Dawson, the authority for Facebook Ads for authors, suggests paying attention to cost and relevance. Cost is the average amount it actually cost you to get that lead. At SkipJack we’re trying to keep that number below $1.00. Where else can you get a lead for that price? Around 50¢ is even better. The Relevance rates how well your audience is responding to your ad on a scale of 1 to 10. If you’re showing a Zombie Apocalypse ad to people who like Quilting Cozy Mysteries your Relevance score will be low. But putting the right ad in front of the right people increases your Relevance. At SkipJack we aim for 7 or above.

Remember all Facebook is doing is gathering these leads. They’re not actually DOING whatever it is you’ve promised. When you’re in Ads Manager you can look at the Ad Set and look at Results. You’ll see a link to download your leads. You’ll need to do this regularly – as in daily – or even more often. If people are expecting a free book, they generally expect it quickly.

At SkipJack we use a 3rd party program called Zapier which integrates Facebook and MailChimp. It automatically take the leads generated from Facebook and puts them MailChimp which automatically sends out a welcome email with the links to the free book. It has a monthly fee, but it pays for itself in that awesome word “automatically.”

Once you’ve mastered Facebook Ads, you can move on to other sites like Instagram and Pinterest (the fastest growing social media site), and start using products like Hootsuite, Thunderclap and Zapier. And I can guarantee just when you figure those out, something new will come along.

~ Bobbye

Bobbye Marrs is a supermom extraordinaire with currently 5 jobs, 4 teenagers, 2 dogs, and a husband crazy enough to be a pastor.  When she’s not working or Bobbyelearning some new hobby like the HAM radio, she is trying to be a romantic mystery writer.  Look for her book, I Am My Beloved’s to debut this spring.  In the meantime, she started a t-shirt business to support her writing habit at www.greetingsfrommarrs.com.

Author Facebook Ads for Dummies (Part One)

Before we dive into Facebook Ads, we want to show and tell a wonderful way to promote your books, get reviews, gain readers, and grow your subscriber list: Bookfunnel giveaways and bundles. You have to curate them yourself (or join someone else’s group), and use an application like Rafflecopter to manage the entries, but it’s a cross promotion tool that helps authors with similar readers share those connections and help their readers find their next great read. Here’s an example of a group curated by Margaret Daly for the Love Under Fire Romantic Suspense Box Set authors (and why not enter to win,while you’re at it–these are wonderful books by a talented, hand-picked group):

Margaret created the graphic (reduced in size here to fit your phone/email), recruited the authors, and provided the text:

3 CHANCES TO WIN!
ENTER TO WIN THE BOOK BUNDLE GIVEAWAY FROM THE Love Under Fire Romantic Suspense Boxed Set authors.

ENDS APRIL 8, 2018
ENTER HERE>>> http://gvwy.io/psr1s9x

#Giveaway #EnterToWin #books #ebooks #thrillers #Mystery #suspense #romance

It’s a good way to stay away from people who are solely in contests on big advertisers for free books, and to find serious readers.

By Bobbye Marrs

According to Statista.com, Facebook has 1.79 billion monthly active users. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/)  Dollars to donuts you’re probably one of those users. Chances are you pull out your phone while waiting on the doctor, or on your lunch break, or when you’re hiding from your kids in the closet. You might mindlessly scroll through your newsfeed checking out your Facebook friends’ status updates. And in between pictures of your sister’s dinner and your crazy uncle’s zealous political rant, you’re processing ads targeted specifically to you. Have you ever gone on Amazon and looked for a backpack and then seen that same backpack come across your newsfeed? Or seen a t-shirt with your family’s last name. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the scary reality where Big Brother is named Mark Zuckerberg. But on the flip side, wouldn’t it be awesome if you write cozy dinosaur mysteries, and you could target the readers who like exactly that kind of thing? Enter Facebook Ads. Shortly after that, enter sheer panic at potentially embarrassing yourself in front of those 1.79 billion monthly active users.

Don’t sweat it. I’ve got you covered. The world of marketing and specifically social media marketing is rapidly changing. Facebook’s only been around for 12 years, but it’s now considered the old person social media. Let that sink in. Facebook is also the gold standard and a good place to cut your social media marketing teeth and you can start out with an itty bitty budget. When you set out to be an author you probably didn’t realize you were also going to have to be a marketing guru. But whether your traditionally published or indie published (or not yet published), being your own publicist and marketer is a reality.

So let’s start out with the fun stuff. This is the actual Ad Creative which is fancy talk for your picture. If you’re using a graphic designer they’re going to know the details most likely, but if you’re trying it out for yourself keep 2 important things in mind:

  • First, your image should be 1200 X 628 pixels.
  • Facebook has a 20% rule which means you can’t have more than 20% of your image with text on it. Your ad will not be approved. Mastering this wasn’t as easy as I thought. My first Facebook Ad was covered in text. I’m a writer – text is my thing. If you’re doing your own design the best way to figure this out is to download a Facebook grid overlay. It looks like this:

You can just put this right on top of your picture while you’re editing it (then remove it when you’re done). If you have text in more than 5 boxes, you need to reduce it. (Hint: Your book cover doesn’t count.)  The idea is that people are NOT stopping to read your ad. You’ve got to catch their attention in the time it takes their index finger to scroll from the bottom of their screen to the top.

Here’s an ad I’ve used for Pamela. Because I’d used all my creative energy up making my fancy picture, I simply named it “Cat Lady.”  Cat Lady has performed great for us. And, Look Ma, No Words.

If you’re completely befuddled about where to begin and you don’t have a clue about creating graphics, Canva.com is a great place to start. It’s very easy to use and you can just jump right in and create something cool in minutes. Also, here’s a fantastic blog about things to include in your ad: https://adespresso.com/academy/blog/9-tips-perfect-facebook-ad-design/

Certain types of images work well in different demographics. People’s faces and pictures of dogs tend to do well. But keep your audience in mind. If you’re writing about the Zombie Apocalypse, your audience may not be attracted to a basketful of puppies.

The next thing you need to do before you ever start creating the Ad within Facebook is to create a Lead Form. This is so NOT intuitive. Go to your Facebook page (your business page) and along the top you’ll see a menu. Choose Publishing Tools. On the left sidebar choose Lead Ad Forms, then choose +Create. Then just work your way through the questions to set up the information that you will be gathering from people.

Are you overwhelmed yet? It gets easier as you do it more. We’re going to take a time out for about….oh, say, 7 days. Work on creating some pretty pictures and a lead form and come back next week ready to put them out there for the world to see.

~ Bobbye

Bobbye Marrs is a supermom extraordinaire with currently 5 jobs, 4 teenagers, 2 dogs, and a husband crazy enough to be a pastor.  When she’s not working or Bobbyelearning some new hobby like the HAM radio, she is trying to be a romantic mystery writer.  Look for her book, I Am My Beloved’s to debut this spring.  In the meantime, she started a t-shirt business to support her writing habit at www.greetingsfrommarrs.com.

Pop-up Writers Retreat

Ok, writer friends. I have a free Nowheresville weekend, April 13-15. It’s a gorgeous time of year here, very peaceful, wildflowers, baby goats, not too hot. I’m doing a personal writing retreat to jump start a novella, writing six to eight hours a day, then doing my usual things to recharge (play with animals, ride horses, look for bluebonnets and paintbrushes, walk, get in hot and cool tubs in the swim spa, cook dinner).

We’re opening up space to other writers then. We have 4 rooms available for writers who’d like to do this with Eric and me. Depending on room type and whether you choose single or double occupancy, it will be between $350 and $500 to attend, Friday noon through Sunday afternoon.

This will be a no frills, no workshops, no facilitation retreat. Eric will serve us simple meals, and we will have valuable, meaningful writing/publishing conversations during meal and down times. You enjoy our gorgeous place and activities, in a writing environment, with indoor and outdoor writing spaces, and enforced SILENT hours (nobody better mess with me on that ) in the house: four hours on Friday, eight hours on Saturday, and four hours on Sunday.

This is very different from my facilitated retreats where I critique, coach, workshop, and teach. The only one like that I currently have scheduled this year is August 5-11 in Wyoming. (You can learn more about it here: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com/writing-retreats/)

This one in April in Nowheresville is “spontaneous.”  and it ain’t on the website. Write to me — pamela at pamelafaganhutchins dot com — if you’re interested.

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).

Stealing Magic From the Sky: What Inspires Your Best Writing?

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SkipJack congratulates Pamela Fagan Hutchins for winning the 2017 Silver Falchion for Best Adult Mystery with her heartfelt and suspenseful Fighting for Anna. We hope you enjoy this inspirational post from Pamela.

Writers often get asked where they write and what inspires them. My answer has always been that I like to write outside. Pedantic, though true enough. But that isn’t the complete answer. As writers, becoming really clear about what results in the creation of your best work requires inner transparency, clarity, and honesty. It begs experimentation. It demands you listen.

I write “outside” in a variety of spaces because in order for me to release—or even find—the words from inside me, I need inner space, away from my Type A self and the myriad reasons/stressors that I can find, gather, or manufacture as an excuse not to write. So the question of where and how I am most creative, and its honest answer, is important.

I’m going to try to answer it.

Today I am awake in a completely dark house. It’s 10 degrees outside and snowy. With the windows around me, curtains back, and no houses in my vantage point, I feel as though I am out there, even though I am toasty warm inside on the couch by an old stove.

The sun is about to rise.

The badlands to the east are a dark heartline against the lightening sky. There’s an ohm-like hum as pink and orange seep upward, infusing the underbelly of barely blue clouds and splashing out over the snow-swept slopes of the Bighorns. The hum rises in pitch and intensity. Slowly, the Big Sky catches fire in a ring around the Earth. Deer rise in a graceful dance, tails and ears twitching as they listen, button noses high, seeking messages from the Wind. The hum reaches its crescendo, a hallelujah chorus to the morning, and the colors thin out, melting into a liquid gold that trickles overhead. The Fireball rises over the horizon, and the grateful world kneels at its feet. A chimera shimmers and I catch it in my startled chest. The exultant chorus gives over to the sweet morning song of the prairie birds. The day has begun.

Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 8.59.50 AM

My day has begun, and by participating in this timeless ritual, my heart has been laid open, my mind cleared, and my core exposed to the essence of Place. In the span of this sunrise, the chimera—the collective histories of all that was before me—has seeped into me. Because of this place and its miracle, what was empty in me is filled. I’ve stolen a piece of magic from the sky.

So it turns out that I need the outdoors for my writing because it fills me with iridescent magic before the everyday can mire me down. That magic becomes words on a page if I move quickly enough to capture it before it fades away. I may be writing about Texas or the Virgin Islands or New Mexico, but this time spent in the great outdoors of Wyoming will move through me long after I leave.

And that is my answer. That is where I write, how, and why. What’s yours?

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).

Sweet Cross Promo Opportunity for You Guys

Hey, SkipJack blog subscribers! Pamela Fagan Hutchins here.

I’m looking for people who want to do “newsletter swaps.” I have 14,000 subscribers to my newsletter and about 1,000 to my blog. I write romantic mystery. I have a few new releases coming out this summer. Two of my upcoming releases are R rated, one is PG 13.

What I’m looking for:
* Books with at least 25 reviews and a 3.8-star rating or higher on Amazon.
* That appeal to a core audience of female readers 45-75 suspense, thriller, mystery, women’s fiction; nothing erotic, no horror,

What I’m offering:
A write up under a “recommended reads” section of my monthly newsletter and/or weekly blog with the image of your choice (cover, marketing graphics, whatever), sales link, and any special deal, i.e. subscribe to this author’s newsletter for exclusive content at (link). I may profile more than one book for newsletter.

What I’m asking for:
Something similar in return, and I’m offering up the first-in-series novels in the two different trilogies with the upcoming releases, and, for those who have already reviewed those or want to keep going, the new releases themselves.

I can give more info to anyone who is interested. If this sounds good to you Sign up HERE on this Google Form. I’m hoping for swaps between now through October.

… Because my readers are looking for good book recommendations <3! And because some of my past recommendations have led to my readers become super fans of new authors.

 

Pamela

Pamela Fagan Hutchins, winner of the 2017 Silver Falchion award for Best Mystery (Fighting for Anna), writes overly long e-mails, hilarious nonfiction (What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?), and series mysteries, like those in her What Doesn’t Kill You world, which includes the bestselling Saving Grace and the 2015 and 2016 WINNERS of the USA Best Book Award for Cross Genre Fiction, Heaven to Betsy and Hell to Pay. You can snag her newest release, Bombshell, if you’ve already run the rest of the table. She teaches writing, publishing, and promotion at the SkipJack Publishing Online School (where you can take How to Sell a Ton of Books, FREE) and writes about it here on the SkipJack Publishing blog.

Pamela resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes and trail rides with her hunky husband, giant horses, and pack of rescue dogs, donkeys, and goats. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start).