I blogged parts of two books, and the posts serve to draw readers into my topic, and then point them to my books.
Some people turn blog posts into a book, while others blog parts of their book once they have written it, and a few people blog the book as they write it.
This works great with nonfiction and memoir, but it’s difficult to pull off for fiction. (See my post, “How to Blog Your Fiction Book.”)
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
To find an editor, your best option is to go with a freelancer. There are many qualified professionals available to edit your work. Here are some ways to find them:
Search Online
You can do an online search for editors and wade through the responses. This method is time-consuming.
Ask Other Writers
A better idea is to ask others in the writing community for recommendations. This approach will give you a vetted editor.
But many authors are reluctant to share the names of their publishing team for fear these independent contractors will become too busy with new business to continue to work for that author.
Editor Groups
Another good source is editor associations and groups. They can connect you with a good editor. Sometimes they’ll give you a list, and other times a real person will provide the names of editors who best meet your criteria.
Networking
Find an editor through networking. I’ve made many great contacts at writers’ conferences.
Online Resources
Finally, consider online resources.
I’ve used Reedsy to find relevant writing professionals.
I’ve also used Fiverr to locate freelancers.
Another option is Upwork (the merger of Elance and oDesk). I’ve not used them recently, but I did use eLance several years ago with good results.
And though I’ve never used it for this purpose, don’t dismiss LinkedIn.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
Consider These Five Downsides of Traditional Publishing:
1. It Takes Longer
Unless a book is “fast-tracked” it will typically take eighteen months to two years from your first pitch to it sitting on bookstore shelves. Smaller presses may be nimbler. While larger publishers seek to streamline their processes, but the bottom line is, traditional publishing takes a long time.
2. Agents Are Often Required
Increasingly, publishers will only deal with agents. It makes publishers’ jobs easier, as agents become the first level of screening. Unfortunately, finding an agent is challenging. Since agents are paid on commission they won’t take a project they don’t think they can sell.
3. Rejection is Likely
For those publishers who will talk directly to writers, the odds of them being accepted are small, sometimes less than one in a hundred. Even with an agent, rejection is expected.
4. Authors Must Market Their Own Book
Traditional publishers will do a small amount of promotion for all their authors, but the bulk of their attention and dollars go to the A-list authors. If a book is to sell, the author is the best person to make it happen.
5. Be Patient With Royalties
The process of publishers accounting for and paying royalties is confoundingly slow. Don’t rely on book royalties to pay bills; treat them as a bonus—if they occur. Since initial book sales are applied against the advance, some authors never sell enough copies to earn any royalties—ever.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
There are different types of writers. They have different motivations, are at different places in their writing journey, and have different goals. Here are five common scenarios:
1. The Aspiring Writer:I’ve heard many people refer to themselves as aspiring writers. But they’re misusing the label. They say aspiring because at this point in their journey they lack the confidence to say they’re a writer, so they qualify it by tacking on aspiring.
If this characterization describes you, I encourage you to take a deep breath, drop aspiring, and instead say, “I am a writer.” State it with boldness. It will take practice to say with confidence, but you can do it. You are a writer.
In truth, an aspiring writer is someone who doesn’t write; they aspire to write—someday. But they’ll never get around to it. Yes, they act as a writer. They read books on writing, go to writing conferences, and hang out with other writers. They talk a good game, but it’s just talking.
They want to have written, but they don’t want to put in the hard work, to sit down and write. They aspire to write, and it ends there.
Don’t be someone who aspires to write. Just write.
2. The Hobbyist Writer:Next, we have people who write for fun, write for therapy, or write for family and friends. They’re hobbyists. There’s nothing wrong with that.
So if a hobbyist writer accurately describes you, accept it. As a hobbyist, you may not publish much and certainly won’t make much money from your work, but you are writing. And that’s what’s important. Own that label, and celebrate it.
But if you want to realize more from your writing, consider moving beyond being a hobbyist.
3. The Passion Project Writer:Some writers have a book they must write. It’s a compulsion, a calling. They work hard to produce the best book they can. Then they indie publish it. Then they spend years promoting and marketing their book.
This book is their passion.
But it may be the only book they ever write. Or if they do write other books, these works may fall short because the passion isn’t there. And it shows.
There’s nothing wrong with having a passion project or being a one-book author. I know many people who wrote one book, and that’s it. That’s okay. But if you want more, consider the next two categories of writers.
4. The Artist Writer: I know many writers who view themselves as artists. They create wonderful work and produce it regularly. But they only write when the muse hits or when they have a deadline. If they don’t feel like writing, they don’t. They’re often discovery writers (pantsers). Writing speed and output frequency doesn’t matter. They’re artists, and producing art is all they care about.
If the phrase starving artist comes to mind, it could fit this category of writer. They may not make much from their art, and it’s doubtful they’ll earn enough to support themselves. That’s why the artist-writer needs another source of income. This supplemental money could be a day job or a side hustle. It may be a spouse, an inheritance, or a generous patron.
If this is your situation, that’s okay. Accept it for who you are, what you want to be, and what works for you.
5. The Career Author: The fifth category is a career author. Although their words may flow from many different motivations, they have one trait in common: writing is their job, and they strive to make money from it, either full-time or part-time.
They haven’t sold out. They’re being intentional. They value the craft and may even view it as art. They also write with passion. But, in addition to art and passion, they write with purpose. They want to share their words with others and earn money as they do. They have an entrepreneurial mindset. They’re an authorpreneur.
My Journey: At various times in my writing journey I have stopped at four of these five writing destinations. Some of my stops have been brief, and others longer, but where I am now—and where I want to remain—is as a career author.
Right now, I make some of my income as a book author, and my goal is to one day earn all my income through books. But money is not my motivator; it’s the outcome. My desire is to share my words with others. As I often say, my goal is to “change the world one word at a time.” And making money from doing so is a sweet result.
Discover what type of writer you are and embrace it. Don’t let anyone tell you your path is wrong or inconsequential. You are a writer.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
I’ve read many self-published books and looked at even more. Too many of them scream “Self-published!” This distresses me. I love self-publishing and the many options it offers, but I loathe seeing it done poorly. This begins a series of posts on the Errors of Self-Publishing.
The primary error of self-publishing is poor content
This is the quickest way to doom a book to failure. Doing everything else right cannot overcome inferior material, be it bad writing, a weak concept, or a flawed storyline or structure.
Bad Writing: Everyone can write, but not many can write well, and only a few can write great. And it takes great writing to succeed. Too many (perhaps most) self-published writers publish too soon. They need to hone their craft and polish their work first.
Weak Concept: Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, a shoddy premise won’t hold readers’ attention. A memoir detailing everything the author eats for a year won’t fly. A novel about a lazy dog that sleeps too much won’t garner attention. An academic treatise on the 97 reasons why people need to dream won’t gain traction.
Flawed Storyline or Structure: I’ve seen all kinds of errors in books. In novels, storyline flaws include impossible actions, unrealistic plot twists, unexplained character shifts, and conflicts that never existed or resolve themselves. In non-fiction, structure flaws include failing to follow the book’s stated premise, presenting fiction as fact, not fact-checking, logic errors, and inconsistent presentation.
Having great content is the first key to self-publishing success.
I encourage authors to consider self-publishing, while at the same time I beg them to do professionally. This starts with great content.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
Part 6 in the continuing series on using WordPress for blogging: a platform-building, book-selling tool.
Today we’ll cover plugins.
In many ways a WordPress plugin is similar to a WordPress widget: both enhance the functionality of a blog or website. Though widgets are visible to readers, plugins generally work behind the scenes. If a widget is like a smartphone app, a plugin might be akin to a computer software program. Here are eight essential plugins. These, by the way, are all free (though some have a paid premium version):
Akismet: Protects blogs from comment and trackback spam. If you have comments and trackbacks turned off, you don’t need this plugin, otherwise, it’s essential.
All in One SEO Pack: The plugin adds search engine optimization (SEO) options to your blog, allowing you to add a title tag and meta description and keywords. If you expect people to find your blog, you need a good SEO package. This is the one I use, but others are good, too.
Broken Link Checker: Broken links are a disservice to readers and are penalized by Google search. This link checker alerts you to broken and redirected links so you can fix them.
Google XML Sitemaps: You don’t need to understand sitemaps or even know what they are, but search engines expect you to have one. This plugin automatically adds an XML sitemap to your website.
Jetpack: Jetpack provides a slew of added functionality to WordPress, and it now comes with all new WordPress installations. You won’t need every feature, but some are indispensable. Just activate the ones you want, and leave the rest turned off.
Online Backup for WordPress: Your host company should backup your site and the WordPress export tool allows you to save all your posts, pages, and feedback, but you still need a complete backup of your entire website under your control. I like Online Backup for WordPress since backups are a breeze. However, restoring files is not as easy.
Wordfence Security: In addition to providing needed security protection for your websites, such as real-time blocking of attacks, a firewall, and the ability to scan for known malware, Wordfence Security also includes two caching options to speed up performance.
WP-Sweep: This plugin removes old and obsolete items from your WordPress database. The result is a reduced database size for quicker downloads, the need for fewer storage requirements, and a faster site. Some of the items it removes are post and page revisions, deleted, unapproved, and spam comments, and orphaned or duplicated information. It also optimizes database tables.
More: There are now 50,000 other plugins to consider, but these are the ones I think are essential. Just as it’s unwise to become carried away with widgets, be careful to not overuse plugins. Only install what you need and completely remove any you don’t use.
If you are just getting started with plugins, install one and learn how to sue it. Then pick a second one and work through the list.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
Here are the lessons learned from a computer fiasco I had:
Have a technology plan, but be flexible. [I had a plan but wasn’t flexible with it—until I was forced to. I doggedly stuck to the plan, even when it was inadvisable to do so]
Multiple data backups were imperative. I used three methods, and keep several historical versions, spanning six months.
Having backup hardware is essential. During this ordeal, I was using both my backup desktop computer and my laptop to handle critical items and not fall too far behind.
Having a help desk to call for emergencies is critical.
If a computer begins displaying flaky problems, it’s likely telling you something—make sure you are listening.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
In theory, my workload should proceed as a steady flow of predictable effort year round. In reality, it doesn’t happen that way.
It takes five weeks from start to finish to produce one issue of one magazine, and Connections Magazineis published six times a year. Medical Call Center News and Answer Stat releases every other month, while TAS Trader releases every month. This means I’m typically working on two or three issues of one publication or another at any given time.
This results in a steady, expected ebb and flow of activity. In addition, are blogs which are updated weekly, and scheduled monthly duties. It would seem that my work should smoothly move from one day to the next, evenly paced throughout the year.
The reality is that my effective workload is quite cyclical. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, things are slow. Between Christmas and New Year’s, it’s extremely slow. It’s also slow during the summer. After Memorial Day, things drop off. And after the Fourth of July, it’s as if someone turned off a switch; it stays that way until Labor Day.
The times between New Year’s Day and Memorial Day, as well as Labor Day to Thanksgiving Day are my “busy times.”
Ironically, I have the same amount of work to do throughout the year, but it takes twice as long to accomplish it during my “busy times.” The reason is that during my “busy times,” I receive more phone calls and email messages (mostly email). These communications don’t directly relate to my work of publishing magazines or websites, but they are tangential to it.
The flood of these secondary interactions is so much so that during my “slow times” I can generally do all required work in 3 to 6 hours a day, whereas during my “busy times” it takes 6 to 10 hours to accomplish the same amount of essential work. In fact, during my “busy times,” some Mondays are so bad, that all I do is respond to email messages. Some Friday afternoons are like that as well.
My conclusion is that these secondary email messages result in a huge productivity drain—in my case about 50 percent. If I can just curb non-essential email, I could reclaim a great deal of lost productivity.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
If a book needs references, I prefer footnotes to endnotes. However, with the font resizing aspect of e-book readers, displaying footnotes is challenging at best and impossible at worst.
Charts and Tables
Including a text-based graph, chart, or table in an e-book is problematic. When a reader changes the font size, these elements will also be adjusted. Once resized they can go from functional to unreadable. Compounding the problem is that each device will render them differently. Straight text just reflows; specially formatted words become convoluted.
Artwork and Graphics
Any non-text image, such as photos, pictures, line art, figures, or graphics solve the issues caused by changing the font size. But they create another problem. Their size is fixed, so if they are too small on a certain device, they cannot be enlarged. This makes their inclusion more frustrating than helpful.
Fixed Formatting
The PDF version of my book How Big Is Your Tent? , for example, contains special formatting to give readers a unique reading experience. Some text is left justified, other lines are centered, and, some words are to the far right. Other times, successive lines each contain one additional indent to present a staggered appearance. Also, by design, certain concepts are self-contained on one page. None of these formatting decisions can be retained in an e-book, as adjusting the font size messes up all of these layout choices.
Color or Not
E-books with color may disappoint readers using monochrome devices. Conversely, e-books in black and white will limit the experience of readers with color devices. These e-book challenges are a conundrum for e-book publishers.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
Participating in writing contests can offer 6 key benefits
I used to enter writing contests, but I haven’t done so lately. Writing contests are fun when you win, and I had a few wins early on. Interestingly, as I’ve improved as a writer, my success rate has dropped to zero. Hence I’m now less motivated. Plus, I’m now a lot busier writing other things.
Nevertheless, don’t automatically dismiss writing contests. Here are six reasons you should consider submitting content to a writing contest:
1) If Deadlines Help You Write: I always write with more intention when I have a due date. However, I’m also a disciplined writer and would be writing anyway, just perhaps not with as much purpose. However, other writers need a deadline to produce content. If submitting to a contest helps you write, then that presents a sufficient reason to do so.
2) If Your Submission Can be Repurposed: Everything I write nowadays can work in multiple situations. That way if the first contest or publication falls through, I have a second source to consider. That way none of my work is ever wasted.
3) If There is No Submission Fee: Some contests carry submission fees; others, don’t. Sometimes the fee is small; other times, not so small. I have submitted it to both kinds. Going forward I will never pay to enter a contest unless it meets the next criteria.
4) If the Pay-to-Play Contest Provides Value: I understand that some contests will give you feedback on your work. I’ve never encountered those contests, but I hear they exist. Receiving professional feedback may be worth the cost of submission, even if you don’t win. But you might be better off to skip the contest and just pay someone for his or her opinion.
5) If You Want to Expand Your Bio: Being able to say you won a contest looks impressive in your author’s bio. However, most people have never heard of that particular writing contest so winning it carries little prestige, even to people in the industry.
6) If You Need to Learn How to Deal with Rejection: Face it. Most people who enter writing contests don’t win. It hurts to hear “No,” but it’s a reality of being a writer. Each time we hear a “no” toughens us up a bit more and prepares us to do this writing thing for the long haul. Plus, as they say in sales, “Each ‘no’ brings you one step closer to ‘yes.’”
Writing contests have value, but only pursue them if they make sense for you and your situation.
Learn more about writing and publishing in Peter’s book: Successful Author FAQs: Discover the Art of Writing, the Business of Publishing, and the Joy of Wielding Words. Get your copy today.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is an author, blogger, and publisher with over 30 years of writing and publishing experience. Check out his book Successful Author FAQs for insider tips and insights.
