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Fiction Branding… Part 6
One More Preliminary Suggestion… Before getting into more details on branding in general. The suggestion: Have a Shopify store. Is it possible to build a brand with only books selling through Amazon and other bookstores world wide? Sure. My gut sense is that unless you have been living under a rock for the past 15 years or sticking your head in the traditional publishing cesspool, you have already been branding your own series. More than likely you have branded to genre. And your author name has a brand if you got out of your own way and didn’t hide your name in small print at the bottom of the cover.…
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Fiction Branding… Part 5
Not All Stories Are Created Equal… I hate to bring up this topic, but sort of needed for this series right about now. Why do I hate saying that not all stories are suited for branding? Because writers have the lowest opinions of their own work and will automatically take this as an excuse to not bother on some stories or series that could be branded. Here is the reality. Just because you can’t yet think of how a brand would even happen with a series of stories or novels does not mean it can’t happen. And the reverse is true. Just because you think a series of stories would…
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Fiction Branding… Part 4
Stories Don’t Spoil… But wow can authors kill them. I have to deal with this topic before I can move on into branding and how to do it and the reasons for it. Back in the day (say the 1960s through the 1990s), writers would sell a short story and then toss it into a file cabinet. A lucky few stories got reprinted, but the attitude was that once a story was published (no matter the market), it had spoiled and was no longer of value. Writers did this with books as well. I can’t begin to tell you about the hundreds of boxes of manuscripts, proofs, and spoiled matter…
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The Fndaway Stupidity…
Kris Took The Time To Really Explain What Happened… It is on her Patreon page, but she made it open to the public at my request. https://www.patreon.com/posts/fallacy-of-99566685 Kris and I for decades now have pushed writers to really understand business. What Findaway did was clear and obvious to anyone who understands business and negotiations. Sadly most writers thought this was a victory as they were being played. Read Kris’s post and then start the process of learning business and basic negotiations. And get out of Findaway at once.
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Fiction Branding… Part 3
Too Much of a Good Thing… Lots of varied kinds of branding that I’m going to talk about in this series. But for the moment I want to stay on the type of branding most indie writers do very well, and that is making their books look like they are in the same series. This kind of branding is a basic part of marketing and selling. So for the four books of Bryant Street ( the Kickstarter is over and thank you all), I thought it would be a cool idea for me to take the street sign that we had used to brand the Bryant Street books and recover…
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Fiction Branding… Part 2
When To Think About Branding… Being a fiction writer is a fine balance in your head of being completely creative and telling the best story you can while at the same time holding in check all the critical voice stuff that says everything you are writing is crap. Long-term professional fiction writers have this controlled completely in one way or another. Early stage and middle stage fiction writers fight the battle with every story or novel. The key early on is to clear out or hold back the critical voice while trying to stay out of the way of the creative voice. Most writers fail and thus have short careers.…
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Fiction Branding… Part 1…
Different Types of Branding… And you brand a fiction series for different reasons. So for a number of posts, I’ll talk about fiction branding and the known reasons to do it, and some reasons most fiction writers never once think about. And yes, at times I will talk value and trademark and so much more. But starting off, most indie writers understand the surface level of book or series branding. (I am not talking to traditionally published fiction writers because they do not own their own books with traditional contracts these days.) Making books in a series look like they belong together, and making books under an author’s name also…
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Editing and Reading Observations… Part 9…
Bad Choices by the Writer… In previous parts of this series, I have been talking about why I will stop reading a story. I have mostly focused on craft issues in the telling of the story. Craft issues can be solved with learning and study and putting a lot of words through your fingers (combined at the same time with the learning and study). But for this part, I want to talk about the lack of understanding by the reader of two major elements of commercial fiction… 1…THERE ARE READERS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORDS… In the early stages of writing, writers only focus on the words and…
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Introduction to A Class About Learning…
A FIFTY YEAR PERSPECTIVE OF LEARNING… As I said last night, this year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors (who also became friends.) Jack Williamson, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Algis Budrys, Harlan Ellison, Frederick Pohl, Julius Schwartz, and others. As I said, stunningly lucky. So I figured that since I am still around after 50 years of selling fiction and they all told me a lot of great stuff, I am going to do a nine-week class talking about and telling stories about…
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Lifetime Sale and New Class
All Lifetime Subscriptions Half Off… Just through the end of January. Only lifetime subscriptions. Not any of the bundles or anything else. Just the five lifetime subscriptions, because I got a few questions about them. Use the code: LIFETIMESALE At half price, they are very good deals, especially the Lifetime Everything. And if you have another lifetime subscription, I can take a little more off that Everything price. Write me for details. Fun New Class… This year marks 50 years since I sold my first two short stories (and started selling a lot of poetry as well.) Over those 50 years, I was stunningly lucky to have some amazing mentors…