The Hungry, Hungry Indie Author/Publisher - What Sells Kindle Titles?

Since Feb. 1st of this year, I've been monitoring a thread on KDP which I put up as "What Mioves Kindle Bks. off Shelves" and the staggering numbers of views, comments, and pages has surprised me, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at I understand 20,000 new Kindle titles by new authors are being put up daily now.  I didn't verify that number but it would not surprise me either. But my thread numbers blow me away.

Recently, another person on the thread asked, "Rob, what do I make of the growth in this thread?"  And he listed the dates showing huge bumps in numbers.

The thread is a monster now, as big as the White Whale as it is now 24,200 plus views, 760 plus comments, 52 pages. But the question was, what do I make of it?  Aside from being totally and completely FLABERGASTED, Astonished, Amazed, left wanting to shout like the King of Siam, "Is a Wonderment!" -- I dunno!  How should I know what is stoking this? Perhaps it is due the fact the thread became a recommended Amazon.com/Kindle 101 class but frankly, I think it was going up and up and spiraling up long before it was given this great recommendation.  Something else is afoot here, I suspect, Mr. Watson.


I certainly can't explain it except to say that apparently people are starved for authentic, tried and true, proven advice on the subject of "iMoves" - a term that came of my error in the Title of the Thread, misspellx of Moves, which means moving books on the iNet (iMoves).


And we ain't charging anything for admission to the "writers conference" and no one has stolen the mic or gone off the deep end. I keep waiting for the shoe to fall and it still hasn't.

My only fear is that I will run out of rabbits to pull outta me hat, but if I do, I can count on hundreds if not thousands of smart other authors experimenting and learning their way; that  others can, will, and without reservation leap into the breach!

One thing I stress in the thread is to not get hung up on efforts that bear no fruit or such little fruit as to be a waste of time, energy, money, or all of the above. Currently, I am not going to waste a lot of time on the newly opened Germany Kindle Store. Why?  Because I tried and failed there, so 'iMove on' since I have sold NADA, ZIP, NINE in Germany Kindle Store, and I do not mean 9 but NINE as in nothing!!! Ugh and urrrrrrgh! I am going to keep my focus and concentration on Kindle US thank you where I am on at least two top ten Kindle lists if not more.

I just reviewed that first post I put up on this now humongous thread, and it is very simple and straightforward steps to take, tips to put to use. It certain touched a chord in ebook and kindle Indie authors and publishers. Here is where you can find the thread  on Kindle Community Forums:  https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/dashboard

Should you wish to look in on the thread, let me know! And please leave a comment here.

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

PS - iMove from #20 to #6 in Kindle Store Historical Fiction - Children of Salem!!!! Yah-Rah!! Witchcraft, the geography of it, the land grab, the prejudice that leads neighbor to hang neighbor. It is Gunsmoke in 1692 with Jere Wakely as Matt Dillon. A commercial retelling of the Salem Witchcraft episode. A lifelong project rejected by every publisher and agent I submitted to, yet soon to be #1.

And perhaps it is time YOUse GUYse give out with a few well-chosen sentences here about your books in our comments section. You have a huge audience here! Never miss an opportunity to talk premise and platform.

eDescript autopsies FIX your ebook DESCRIPT

I am contemplating starting an online business that would target ebook descriptions and charge a small fee to Fix 'em...left and right, up and down. There are soooooooo many ebook descriptions that are a turn off for one reason or another.

A bad book descript KILLS interest and any chance of purchase. In fact, the slighter the error in a book descript, particularly for a small press title or an Indie Author title, the less forgiving is the reader who assumes then that the book will have been poorly edited and thus a problem from page one till The End.

It is a HUGE  mistake to assume that eReaders will overlook even a slight, slight error:  a missing comma, a misplaced use of a semi-colon, a typo, or out of place adjective or adverb. True, yes, even for the cynical or the unconcerned and casual reader.

Picture this:  Stuart is fascinated with occult and paranormal mysteries, and so Amazon links send him to your paranormal thriller entitled Chills Galore. Stu loves the cover and title, so naturally he reads the descript wherein he finds a missuse of it's for its... He then lets it sink in and lets the one small error go, but then Stu stumbles onto another error of a misplaced modifier (the very definition of the unintended result), so he now distrusts the author's voice and credibility, the author'sability to pull off this great idea. Stuart is disappointed, but he knows there are hundreds of thousands of other paranormal mysteries in ebook format, so he iMoves On, going elsewhere, money intact, while you're left with No Sale.

So I am embarking on a company that repairs the damage.  The problem for me as I see it is the fact most Indie authors do not SEE there is a problem in their descripts, so how to do exactly that? I can advertise and spread the word about my cheap and dirty service but there may be no takers. If I build it, this company, will they come? I don't know, but I do know that there is a need and a void to fill in this emerging area of the ebook descript becoming the portal, the door to beckon others to open the book itself.

A great ebook may be on the other side of that description portal, but if readers dislike your descript, if unhappy with the color and texture of your door, they will not step inside your novel to give it a chance whatsoever. No shake and bake--not even an unfair shake.

So sign up and submit your ebook descript for my laser scalpel eyes.  And remember, it's a smart dog that scratches its own fleas, and an author who edits himself is a flawed character indeed.  This new company of mine will have a company motto: Spit & Polish Your Portal.

Sad that a would-be reader, possible big fan, gets a look at a bad descript after having found his/her way to your book title, attracted by cover art or platform (be it Salem Witchcraft or Fly Fishing), only to be turned off by a comma or a missing one. So contact me.

inkwalk@sbcglobal.net
Rob Walker, Titanic 2012

What Sells an eBook? Secrets are Simple, Easy!

If you are interested in increasing your sales of an ebook title such as a Kindle or a Smashwords title or titles, or if you are just putting one up for sale, there are some important steps you must take. This is hard-won truths via experience as I am dealing with some 44 titles on Kindle and many on Fictionwise, and one on Smashwords.  First off....if you want to begin selling a kindle title or to catch attention of ebook readers for Smashwords or FictionWise, it has to be priced lower than you can imagine!

This may sound crazy but you can make more on a 2.99 book than on a 25 dollar one, so do not balk as pricing it LOW. Kindle owners believe they have a right to cheap, cheap, and cheaper ebooks; in fact, they so want free books. However, if their curiosity over a title can be piqued, they're willing to go .99 cents, 1.99 or 2.99. Getting much above this is flirting with turning your ebook into a stone as it will just sit there.

It is the way of Kindlers in particular. The entitlement has a history begun at the inception so roll with that. All my titles are 2.99 now. I had some cheaper at one time but bumped them all up by a buck as of July 1st. I am selling just over a thousand books a month from the Kindle Store.


Kindlers also go by cover art, title, and description. These may sound like simple steps, too simple (it can't be this simple, Prof. Walker), but this is me paying atteniton to those who have sold in the thousands on Kindle BEFORE ME.

The description must be flawless, not a letter out of place. Rewrite it as many times as needed, and it must excite the imagination. Fire it up; make it the most exciting story you ever wrote--the story of your story. The character name(s) need be there, the main thrust or "platform" along with the setting and some idea of the time period. The basic five W's of journalism.

Next if you intend to follow it up with a sequel, this sells more books ONLY IF the ebook readers KNOW this fact. My series titles do ten times the number of my stand-a-lones. Book length is important to kindle readers. I have a three-volume in one title, and I make that clear, and they love it. I play up the fact it is a FAT book at 160,000 words rather than the typical 80-90 thousand words. Kindlers love this as with the idea of a series.

I hang out at www.kindlekorner@yahoo.com and they have embraced their kindle writers on board there and in fact highlight kindle titles each month from KK authors ala the moderator, Bob.

I put up notices about the books on facebook, twitter, elswhere but I try to relay "facts" from my research or on the platform of the book to chat groups to lead into the book title, pulling back on htting folks over the head with buy my books statements.

There are also Amazon discussion boards where I drop in and do what I do on Kindle but they are not as embracing of author BSP there.

I am seeking other venues all the time. Finding review sites for kindle books and not kindle devices is hard to find. There are some e-magazines out there, and I am sure I am overlooking some possibilites.

Finally anyone interested in ebook salesmanship should follow Joe Konrath's blog and in his footsteps. Every step I have taken, Joe put me onto (or up to)save kindlekorner which I discovered. You have no idea how important it is to set the price right and get the descript down perfectly. Great. Now you know all the steps I took but of all of these steps price, descript, professional cover art, and sending the message of series or multiple volumes are the most powerful steps to take.

Rob Walker
Titanic 2012 - sneak peek opening chapters FREE for asking

http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
http://www.makeminemyster.blogspot.com/
"Dead On takes the reader's capacity for the imagination of horror to stomach turning depths, and then gives it more twists than a Georgia backroad that paves an Indian trail." - Nash Black

Personality's Importance in Fiction Writing

Time for Psych 101 - Personality is important in Writing? You BET!

Q 4: How does 'personality' assist in the writing of fiction?

Answer: Personality...and this means A, B, C and all types, figure heavily in fiction and typically the author's own personality comes into play as does the readers for that matter!

A writer has to be somewhat driven and obsessive to stick with it for the duration of what is often called a "checkered" career in such a fickle business, such a roulette wheel business as publishing.

The Reader also must have the 'right stuff' to bring a book to completion--that is a personaltiy that sees a novel through. In other words: Writer endures to the end, flip-side that, reader hopefully endures to the end. I had a teacher who once asked me when I balked at War and Peace in its abridged form, "Are you going to beat that book, or are you going to let it beat you?"

In the depiction of character, personality is the culmination of conditioning, struggle against conditioning, or failure to make that struggle and accepting one's conditioning (we're all brain washed to something as it is the nature of nurture, right?). What motivates a person equals personality.

Comes of having personal goals, and every character, good, bad, ugly and in between must have goals and perhaps a super goal. Characters have run ins with themselves--memories, sensations, images. Flash backs or hallucinations, etc. These form layers in a character's personae.

A character is molded by circumstances or resists them. Either way tensions and conflict can come of a stubborn obsessive compulsive, and the most memorable characters have these traits when they set their eyes on the prize.

Ahab in Moby Dick had a wooden leg for a reason. If he was sound of leg and mind, if he still had both his legs, or if he had no legs and was confined to a wheel chair and could not act on his mad obsession over the whale, or didn't really care to be bothered, it wouldn't be quite the memorable saga it is. It'd be flatline story for sure, for sure....

Ahab would never walk the deck of a ship. Would not be motivated to do so. Would retire.

Nightmare, memory, learned experience, what's in the character's bedrock DNA is at the heart of personality and story. The best authors know how to create full-blown characters fully realized. Characters are multi-layered and complex as in life. Readers today demand far more complexity of character than complexity of storyline.

In other words a character-driven story is at least as important as a plot-driven story, and the best stories are characte fits plotline like a glove stories wherein both are equally important. If you exchanged Ahab's personality for instance for that of Sherlock Holmes, it would change the dynamic of the story as surely as chaning the plot line. Can you imagine Sherlock in Ahab's shoes...errr ahhh pegleg?

Do leave a comment; would love to hear your remarks on this area of Psych for Writers.

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/ FREE stuff
http://www.makeminemystery.blogspot.com/

Brave New World of Publishing Oneself - Indie Go! Revisit All Those Rejected Tiles w/an Eye to Publishing Them! by Rob Walker

In the past when an agent exhausted his or her avenues and contacts, a manuscript was put up on a shelf or in a drawer, and I would go onto another story. I have always come back to those orphaned tales, however—tales not altogether forgotten, tales that call out to find an audience, and I’d tinker and rewrite and re-submit, sure that someone somewhere would see the value in the story that I saw right along.

When I began writing at an early age, I wrote the kinds of books I liked, those boy’s adventure tales inspired by Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, stories set during historical moments with panoramic vistas as backdrop. But once turned down for the fiftieth or sixtieth time by editors, what happens to a good book shouldn’t happen to a good book. But as rejections pile up, you move from writing what does not appear to be profitable or marketable or currently in vogue or “does not fit our current publishing program” (designed to keep you out) –a program that would keep Mark Twain out if he were alive and writing today….

So I stopped doing YA books and moved into horror as everyone at the time had a program in search of the next Stephen King…and then I moved into mystery and suspense and police procedurals when I was not discovered to be the next Stephen King (aha, no one was ever destined to be the next King). Still on my shelves, always pleading with me to get back to them, were and are these many young adult historical novels as yet unpublished and UNread. And recently, I snatched an adult historical out of the mothballs, rewrote it again for the sixtieth time, and published Children of Salem myself after getting some tough love editing done on it from good readers. That book is my top grossing Kindle title today and has sold a total of 410 copies. That’s a LOT more readers of that not commercial enough manuscript than the number who were reading it when it slept in my desk.

So what to do with my YA historical novels calling out, yearning to be FREE…to find a readership? These titles listed in the order in which they were written are:

BattleStormer – a tale of a young Viking boy who must, when his father dies, become the navigator for the ship BattleStormer. It tells the tale of the first white men to set foot on the American continent and of a budding romance.

Animiki of the Fire Nation is a Pottowatomi Indian brave story. Young Animiki must use his head to outwit the ancient enemy of his people.

The Cannoneers is set at the time of the American Revolution and is in the tradition of Johnny Tremain, but it tells the tale of how America got its first artillery together and the man behind it.

Yukon Gold is set as the title suggest during the mad gold rush to Alaska. It is told through the eyes of a young boy.

Transcontinental is the tale of a young boy who helps build the first North American Transcontinental railroad and the obstacles he faces.

Will any of these titles do well as Kindle books? I dunno…but I do know that in the older world of publishing they were destined to be Oak Tree Publication hardcovers until shit happened. They would have been published by the San Diego publishers of YAs had the company not been run into the ground by a guy named “Lord” who bought it up for a write off? Well now with the Kindle books option, a new alternate book world/dimension has opened up, an alternate universe of publishing…and it gives me work to do that will fill my summer as I rewrite, polish, and Kindlize these titles. I also have plans to continue several series characters killed off in the other publishing universe, the one that killed off Dr. Jessica Coran, Detective Lucas Stonecoat, and Inspector Alastair Ransom. I am so sure that I can revive these characters cut off in their prime with hard work and determination in the Brave New World of the Indie Author, thanks to my blood, sweat, tears, and Amazon Kindle. No waiting for what a publisher suspects might be commercially viable. No publisher could ever keep up with me, but I can.

That’s all for now. Keep writing; do find me on Facebook where we have lively discussions and a lot of humor. And now all the titles are in for the Titanic book and you can vote for your choice by going to Google and searching out Dirty Deeds – Advice.

RoboWriter Rob
http://robertwalkerbooks.com/

eBook Wars - What They Portend For Writers by Robert W. Walker

With all the hoopla, smoke, and mirrors going on in the publishing world over ebook pricing or what they call the sales model for ebook pricing, there’s been a lot of confusion. Confusion is in fact the natural state of most authors in relation to their publishers. Publishers routinely keep writers in the dark about many aspects of their practices and why not on how they price a book? I don’t mean to sound as bitter as I actually am but there you have it. For when it comes to such matters as cover art, for instance, or the size type on your title or name or both, and when it comes to how a book is distributed, if the publisher uses or does not use jobbers, if the publisher has cut any sweetheart deals with big box stores like Costco or Wal-Mart, and if in such cases an author earns any royalties, and if a royalty statement ever comes to an author can it be read?

The long long history of writers and their publishers has not been a gentle, kind one but rather every horror story you have ever heard at the bar about a writer and his publisher is true, true, true. In the end, typically, the writer gets it in the end—and I mean that literally. Now comes an opportunity offered by Amazon.com for authors to go “Indie” – to become their own publishing concern in partnership with Amazon acting as bookstore and distributor in one, and for the first time in history authors are getting paid what their efforts are worth.

In the meantime, while many authors have been partnering via ebooks over the hard years when it was generally believed by print publishers that ebooks were a flash in the pan and would go the way of many another fad—authors and Amazon have been in the business of ebooks. Major publishers of the NYC variety have eschewed and seldom understood this area of book sales and in fact have not supported it. Until now. Until the day it appears ebooks can and do outsell paper books on occasion—as with this past Christmas. Now suddenly, Macmillan is decrying the situation as Amazon has defined it—that no Kindle book would cost more than ten bucks, because as Macmillan CEO says, authors can earn more money if their ebooks are priced higher, and so he flies to Seattle, meets with Amazon CEO and offers up an ultimatum when Mr. Bezos says no to 15 buck ebooks for Macmillan titles. Most Macmillan authors think that they won when Amazon backed down and accepted the price increase for Macmillan books, and the general consensus among Mac authors and many others is that the giant publishing firm struck a blow for writers.

Nothing further from the truth. Amazon knows its clientele better than anyone on the planet, and they know that few people believe that an ebook priced at above the 9.99 promised price for years now is going to earn out far more monies for authors than the higher prices—which will be boycotted in huge measure by readers of ebooks. Ebook readers are not interested in titles priced high whether they are bestsellers or not. Ebook readers love FREE books, public domain books are being gobbled up at an unprecedented rate! Followed by the .99 cent book and the 1.99 cent book. Ebook readers are voracious and most have enough reading piled up for the moment to last them months. They are not in the market for Dan Brown’s latest at paper price or ebook price if it is over 9.99.

Of these facts I am sure because I have been watching this trend for years, and I have had ebooks on FictionWise for years, and I have ten Kindle titles onboard with plans to add seventeen more, and the titles that are moving, selling, are not my 7 dollar titles priced by the publisher as the SAME price on the paperbacks, and not my 8.99 – half priced latest hardcover. My titles that are selling like hotcakes at a county fair are priced respectively at 2.99 and 1.99 – and as a result of volume sales, the Amazon model, like the Wal-Mart model, I have made more money in the past three years from ebook sales than I have made on paper sales. Writers pricing at bargain basement prices gain more readers who talk to other readers and fan the flames of word of mouth. This aside from the paradox of making more with smaller prices works in favor of the author, not against him or her.

The CEO of Macmillan had a major chip in his pocket—Apple’s IPad which wants to get into the ebook business too and they want to charge more for books, and they were talking to Macmillan about fifteen buck ebooks. So when Macmillan CEO states he is doing this for the benefit of his poor, put upon authors it is a croc and a major croc at that. A croc full of it. It also amounts to short-sightedness and not understanding the clientele—ebook readers, most of whom are assembled under a banner of boycotting any book priced above 9.99.

You don’t have to believe me about such matters but before you decide I am dead wrong check out JA Konrath’s recent blogs and articles on this exact subject. Joe is the man most in the know. See what he has to say on his platforms.

Meantime keep your ego up by placing a chapter or more up at http://www.authonomy.com/ where you can get feedback on your book and share feedback on my Children of Salem. The writing is the darling part of this business, and the rest can be an awful pain.

Rob
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

Dead On Writing - A Book for The Successfully Disorganized, Down & Dirty, Functionally Challenged Fiction Writer in You by Robert W. Walker

Can minor characters remain minor? What’s needed to craft a truly villainous villain? How much is too much detail? When is setting another character and should it be? How are characters created out of the blue? What is a fully-realized character, and what is the opposite – a not fully realized character? Is that like a cardboard character? How long should a writer work at his craft? What is meant by execution? How important is it to get the grammar right? Is spelling still such a big concern? What is an unofficial PhD in Writing and Letters?

And when you’re done with those questions of dialogue, the how and why of it…character building, motivation, use of the five senses, use of the sixth sense, the very metaphysics of writing, what do you do to sell the finished manuscript? How does one go about selling the idea to an agent, an editor, a publisher?

Once the manuscript is sold and a book is made, what can we do to market it to the public? What avenues doe we have online? What should our attitude be? Does anything work?

Up to this point all I have done is list questions. These are the questions that try writers’ souls. To help out best I can, I have “published” for the Kindle Reader at http://www.dtpamazon.com/ -- the Kindle method of publication my how-to on the subject of writing craft, execution, and more…much more. Some of it even funny. Some of it deep. Some of it light. Some of it “sacrilegious” and some of it just truly useful exercises—writing exercises that have been tested and that WORK.

For anyone who does not HAVE a Kindle reader, I understand there’s an option to have the book sent to your Iphone. For anyone who does not have either but would like to get the book, contact me and I’ll see what I can do. As the book is only 2 dollars from Kindle Store…not sure how you can pay me except to say TALK up the book and any of my other titles like my Five Star suspense novel DEAD ON.

DEAD ON WRITING is a compilation of useful and pointed advice on writing. I hope you will at very least go to the Kindle Books section on Amazon.com and search for my name to see all my Kindle titles and let me know what you think of the artwork on my DEJA BLUE (psychic detection novel with woo-wooo!), CUBA BLUE (a Qui Aguillar Havana Cuba suspense-thriller), and SNAKE FLESH WARS (science fiction suspense & horror – there’s a monster involved, and spontaneous human combustion is also involved!). I am hoping to put up a book of short stories here. Kind of cool to be my own publisher!

Rob Walker
http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

There Was an Old Man...When the Student is Ready...by Robert W. Walker

Anyone who has ever tried to learn something and has given up, has, at one time or another, blamed the textbook (too thick, too turgid, too thin, too simplistic), or the setting (too many distracting windows in the room, not enough windows in the room), or the teacher (monotone, cranky, doesn’t like me, talks another language) —and perhaps that is human nature at its willy-nilly-est. The last one to blame is oneself, right? But eventually, and especially looking back from the comfort of time, it becomes clear—if not downright apparent—that the student was simply not ready. Not in a “good place” either physically, emotionally, or psychologically, and so how could he be expected to GET IT—whatever that IT happens to be?

If I could have it to do over again, sitting here today and looking back on high school and my time at the university, I would have done a few things differently, as might anyone and not just academically! But at the time, I hadn’t the maturity and emotional stability and psychological cool and “moxie” to learn say Paradise Lost or the nuances of Physical Geography or Interpersonal Dynamics or whatever. From Hamlet to anthropological and sociological truths, I was lost (but it did help tremendously to discover that you check out a book on the subject written by an expert on the subject and you crack it).

As a teacher now, I see so very many students who are not prepared—and I don’t mean simply missing books or note-taking skills, No, I am speaking of their not having yet arrived at that mental station necessary. You know, the station wherein the “master” might actually be of use to him or her? The old Chinese proverb is what I am talking about, the one I suspect comes from Confucius that says: “The master will appear when the student is ready.”

Prior to the student being ready, the mentor or teacher or master is pretty much an idiot who is going about blathering to himself -- most of the time. It puts me in memory of Mark Twain’s remarks about his parents. To paraphrase: “When I was seventeen, my parents were the worst sort of backwater simpletons and fools, and yet how amazed I was when he turned twenty-four to discover how very much they had learned!” The parents had in fact miraculously become geniuses.

When the student is ready (mentally, emotionally, physically), the master appears. It’s so true. Currently, I am teaching writing classes at West Virginia State University, and perhaps seventy-five percent or more of my students are not prepared for college, let alone truly “ready” to drink of the trough. This for whatever reason has them unable or unwilling to pick up the “pearls” cast before them. Some are too young, too naïve; some are jaded from years of school and school rules; others are busy raising children of their own, and holding down jobs, and showing up at class without being ready in the sense I am speaking of here.

This holds true for writers and finding a mentor writer as well, and when I edit the works of others some are so, so, so very prepared and ready, and these drink it in and soak it up and move on to remarkable accomplishments, whereas others pout, scream, shout, and call me a butcher. These are not students prepared and ready.

Just an observation, and sorry if I sound pedantic, professorial, or worse—a pontificating old man, but then that’s who I am. If you are as ready as ready can be and are looking for a mentor to guide you through the turbulent writing waters, contact me via my website, via my Knife Services but only if you are ready to be sliced and diced—and to extrapolate and learn from the “butcher”.

Fast Writing is confident writing! Move it along!

Rob Walker
www.robertwalkerbooks.com
-- come for your free ebook ARC of Dead On; only a keystroke away!

Where Dead Authors Go by Robert W. Walker

Here it is Friday again, and I am stuck for something to blog about, but the entire week a chat group I am involved with has been talking about the passing of Tony Hillerman and another author, Elaine Flinn. I know both through their books but unfortunately did not know either personally. I will say, however, that at any time I hear of the passing of an artist, an actor, a muscian, a doer of good deeds, and a writer, I feel a deep personal loss, and I don't exaggerate the sense of loss I feel for the Earth...for the world...that disturbance in the universe that Obi Wan Kenobi of Star Wars fame speaks of.

Not that all life isn't important, but writers are purveyors of entertainment and enlightenment, and so often they are also purveyers of truth and like the best of our comedians in a sense, the voice of our consciience -- as most good stories are about doing the wrong thing and doing the right thing, good vs. evil, smart vs. dumb.

Most certainly Tony Hillerman was a storyteller first but I am willing to bet that his many millions of raders would agree that his stories depicted the consequences of our actions, the consequences of greed and theft and deviousness and the consequences of good-heartedness, a positive belief in right, and he sent these "messages" adroitly through his fiction. The irony of it is that people think fiction--at least many folks do--think it frivolous, when in fact it is about life and death and every huge and enormous passion in between--vengeance, love, hatred, wonder, you name it.

Elaine Flinn was about the same kind of work --entertaining and informing. Writers either have a special place in Heaven, in my book, or they "write" themselves a space. I recall as a child in junior high school deciding that being a writer was the most noble profession of all. I believed that then, perhaps naively, and you know what? I have not lost that naivete. Books inform us, stories tell us who we are at bottom. Novels and mysteries absolutely touch on our best and our worst qualities; they condemn and they uplift us, often in the same paragraph. Such men as Tony Hillerman and ladies as Elaine Flinn act as a gauge and a focus for all who pick up their books and read. Authors, so far as I am concerned, are the voice we give to reason, and the light we shine on insanity and obsession and the human condition.

Those who devote their lives and their waning years to such an effort we can only applaud, admire, and aspire to.

Robert W. Walker
eBookARC giveaway at http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/ - new site, new deals!
NetDrag indepth interview on ipodcast at http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/

PART 2: TALKING TO MY SELVES ABOUT OUTLINING VS. GOING WHERE NO PERSON HAS GONE BEFORE by ROBERT W. WALKER

Rob Walker continues to interview his four pen names – Stephen Robertson, Glenn Hale, Geoffrey Caine, and Evan Kingsbury.

Rob: Let’s throw this on the table for discussion. Do you gents prefer to outline or to work like some free range chicken clucking away irrationally for food? Okay, maybe that’s not the best metaphor. But I seriously want to know if any of you do outline more than the rest of us? Is it necessary to have the ending firmly in mind before you begin? Is it necessary to plot out the entire story before you put pen to paper? Is this an essential ingredient in controlling the plot dynamic?

Geoff: Whoa, how many questions is that? But I do like your term plot dynamic. I had to do outlines for my editor on the Stroud novels as he demanded them. However, he knew early on that it was just a blueprint, and he encouraged me to not be a slave to the outline—which I wasn’t . . . ever.

Glenn: I never met an outline I stuck to slavishly. In fact, writing outlines is a painful process in my opinion. Like Geoff, I had to submit one for my editor so she had something to work from. Editors like the brief, tidy tidiness of an outline. They can duplicate it and use it during an editorial meeting to determine if they will buy the book in question.

Evan: It’s the old three chapters and an outline; it’s standard in the industry with large publishers.

Stephen: Standard for smaller publishers seems to be the entire novel finished.

Rob: You’re all evading the damn question. Which do you do in practice, say when you are not courting an editor or trying to sell the work but during the crafting of the work, do you build it piece by piece on the basis of knowing where you’re going or exploring where no one has gone before? Do you prefer outlines to free form writing? Do you begin at the end or the opening chapter or scene?

Geoff: I write the first three chapters before I think of doing any sort of outline.

Glenn: Oddly enough, that’s my working habit as well.

Rob: So neither of you have ever begun a book by writing the last chapter first and working backward to create a tightly crafted outline of a novel that would lead you directly to the ending you had in mind in the first place?

Geoff/Glenn (simultaneously): NO, never!

Rob: What about you guys, Stephen? Wanna jump in here?”
Stephen: I did four novels, none of which I knew the end to until I got there or quite closet to there. I have never written to a preconceived ending. I have to admire those who can and do, but it’s never worked that way for me. I write chapter one and see where it leads. I do my best to open with something startling, something hair-raising, a scene or first chapter with a cliffhanger, plenty of conflict, tension and see where it leads on to.

Evan: What the others are saying, Rob, is that we may have alias but we’re a lot like you in the way that we work, and add me to the list of those who can’t abide telling the story from beginning to end in an outline as once it’s told a story can’t help but get old. I like the story to unfold in a fresh and even organic flow, from a stance that if I do not know what is coming on the next page, then I’m pretty sure it will come as a surprise and a twist to the reader as well.

Rob: Come on, not one of your books you’ve plotted to a preconceived ending? Not one?

Geoff: Following the dictates of editors, I’ve been forced to “plot” outlines, yes, so I have a beginning, middle, and end in said outline, but no, even in having to do a “forced on me” outline, I write it in the same manner. Opening chapter one dictates what comes next, and next, and so on. I have never written the Last Chapter of an outline or a novel first, no.

Rob: And that works for you?

Geoff: For three novels, yes. The thing of it is the novel structure is episodic, so I write in an episodic frame of mind.

Evan: The lad’s got it right. Imagine if you will a chapter one or scene one opening with four, five pages, maybe ten, during which 20 questions are raised by the circumstances, the setting, the characters, the props, the dialogue. This is how I do it. I create a moment of crisis—start in the middle of a highly charged emotional and physical moment in time for the characters on the page, and what they say and do raises eyebrows and questions.

Stephen: And the rest of the novel is spent answering and resolving those questions raised in the mind of the reader from the get-go. The most elemental being, “Do I want to spend time with this guy/gal/detective/shrink/maniac/lady-in-drag-doctor?

Rob: Careful now. So what I am hearing is that you all have pretty much stolen my working methods for yourselves?

Glenn: Stolen is such a harsh word. We took our lessons, did we not, at your feet, and your Modus Operandi in crafting the novel is shared by hundreds if not thousands of authors who’ve come before you. Thousands others plot first and ask questions later, so to speak. Or rather write to a puzzle ending or a surprise ending or a twist ending, or one that ties up every conceivable loose end before it can get loose.
Rob: But don’t you wind up sort of writing yourself into a corner when you have no notion of where you are going until you get there?

Geoff: What a hypocrite you are, Walker. You have written yourself into more corners than all of us combined.

Evan: Yes, but he always manages to write himself out of said corners, right, Rob?

Rob: I’ll ask the questions here.

Glenn: It’s rather simple for anyone who can picture a fat ball of twine and beside it a ring. A short story is a ring. Beginning of the story is as close to the end as the beginning and end of the ring. One geography, one tightly written character usually with ancillary characters of less consequence, one problem or question to resolve; whereas the novel is a winding ball of twine and at its core, deep are the revelations, the aha moments, the discoveries, but to get to the answers you have to pull the thread of chapter one, two, three, etc. And as others have said here, those curious questions are raised on the first pull and our hero doggedly seeks answers and resolution and often redemption by the end of the longer work with many settings, many important characters, and many questions to be resolved.

Rob: Nicely put, Glenn. You’ve been so coherent since you gave up the bottle.

Geoff: I look at it like the X-Files. We have to compete with visual effects, mood music, all of those green monsters, so our questions raised have to be extremely good, and they must fascinate us as authors. So this notion of devoting prologues and opening scenes to raising the hair on the back of the necks of readers is extremely helpful.

Evan: All the same, anyone who can create a novel by virtue of outlining and outlining heavily, and those blessed souls who see the LAST chapter full-blown in their heads FIRST, more power to them. This is their working method and it’s to be respected.

Rob: I think we can all agree to that. Many rivers to the ocean. Gotta respect anyone who can put together a moving, emotional, action-packed, fun to read novel anyway he or she can do it. What’s chiefly important is that a writer find his or her way, how her mind works, what makes him comfortable. If writing and pecking about like a loose goose over a patch of grass is not your style, if writing more like a calculating, determined

Stephen: Maybe we oughta to’ve discussed writing effective dialogue.

Glenn: Yeah, you can break any rule of writing within the confines of quotation marks.

Rob: Maybe we’ll save that for next time. Meanwhile, just want to add that whatever moves the action and story along, whatever reveals character, this runs the forward moving dynamic of the novel. Whether you write tight or loose, outline or write free form, the important thing is that the reader is swept up in a compelling tale. Whatever method, approach, how-to that works for you and makes the work compelling, that’s the ticket. The secret is to find the right voice for each story and one thing I urge younger or newer authors to do is to read as a writer reads. Most every how-to book on writing has a chapter on reading as a writer to learn from others who’ve come before you.

Evan: Sorry we collectively have so little to say on how to outline or how to organize a novel, but that’s just us now isn’t it? I know that if I plot too heavily—that is with heavy hand—then the story comes to a grinding halt for me. I draw up an outline for those who need it—agent or editor—then I go write the novel.

Rob: Perhaps an organized writer will guest blog here one day and tell us how it’s done. As to writing oneself into a corner, it the challenge of writing oneself out of dead ends that often result in the most original work.

Geoff: There’re no outlines in life, so why rely on one in fiction? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Rob: Sounds like you all like to work without a net; that you work passionately and dangerously and sloppily.

Evan: Correct.

Rob: Think we’ve exhausted this topic—at least among us. In the meantime, thank you all for again coming and for your time and input. Until next time.

At the next round table, Rob and his AKAs will discuss dialogue.

Meantime Happy Writing,

Rob Walker et al . . .

www.robertWWalkerbooks.com
www.myspace/robertwwalkerbooks.com

Subject: Re: Ghost Stories and Umbrellas - the Horror of It All at LIM & Beyond

Guess what -- Love is Murder (www.loveISmurder.net) has Mystery
Writers of America's Of Dark & Stormy Nights as a parter, which
means plenty of thriller, mystery, suspense, intrigue and romance
talk, but LIM also has the fearful Twilight Tales as a partner,
and Twilight Tales is about ghosts and goblins both horrendous
and slapstick. Horror and humor often combine with the
supernatural, and I'd like to go deep into the horror and the
humor of it all at LIM in its 10th year at Chicago, first weekend
of February, for Love is Murder is also presenting an Edgar Allan
Poe Book Discussion with excerpts read live (hopefully live)
authors William Kent Kruger, Tess Gerritsen, and Barry Eisler.
But there will be a lot of live authors on hand at LIM and LIM is
hosting the Horror Panel which I will be sharing with moderator
Scarlet Dean, Tracy Carbone, Marilyn Meredith, Wally Cwik, and
Michelle Gagnon--and we intend to blow open wide the preconceived
notions of what constitutes horror.

In addition at LIM there's a panel entitled Feel the Terror (JD
Webb, Darren Callahan, Wally Cwik, Sherry Scarpaci, moderated by
Jennifer Jordan of Crimespree Magazine. Another panel is on
Magic & Sex! This with Scarlet Dean again, Honora Finklestein,
Sue Smily, Rebecca Kholes, Jana Oliver and moderator Carren
Callahan. And interestingly enough one entited When You Know the
Moment is Right (I kid you not!) And of course Joe Konrath is a
one man "horror" show. Of course, Lee Child will be on hand for
the ladies who love suspense with a British accent. But you know
what? Not everyone understands the huge scope, sweep, and power
of ghost stories, supernatural tales of revenants, vaults,
disturbed graves, and horror or reality-based terror. Herein, I
hope to shed some light:

Ghost stories are a natural for the larger umbrella of horror.
Horror is not a genre first but first and foremost an emotiobn;
it is the only genre named for an emotion. Horror appeared on
stage in plays as far back as the Greeks, and I am sure it played
a large part in the gruntings of cavemen about the fire when they
retold the hunmt. It is not so much a category of fiction as it
is a fact of life and an emotion. The word romance is not an
emotion. Western is not an emotion, nor is mystery. Fear is
another word but so far we don't have a section in the bookstore
for Fear books. Under the large umbrella of what constitutes
fear and terror and horror in a reader\person certainly a serial
killer must fall, so the forensic-serial killer chase novel
certainly overlaps with horror. When I began writing the serial
killer series for Dr. Jessica Coran, my eleven book Instinct
series, it was a natural offshoot of having written books wherein
the central antagonist was a monster. It was not much of a
transition to work into human fiends.

The ghost road, ghost hotel, ghost house on haunted hill, the
modern day haunts like the underground parking lot, the
unfinished room, the local Starbucks, etc., all the supernatural
tales are, in my opinion, difficult to pull off. Creating this
niche of horror can go into what we call the psychological
chiller or the physiological chiller, that is a story hinges on
some psychological turn of the screw, or it can hinge upon an
actual, physical presence. There are legitimate ways to terrify
your reader, and there is "going for the gross out" to horrify
your reader. Or as in the best such horror, BOTH. It can be
taken on both levels, leaving it to the reader to decide how much
happened in the mind, how much in this world. And so often much
more reaction can be had from that which is offstage than on,
that which is subtle as opposed to a hammer over the head. Jay
Bonninsinga said of my City for Ransom that "this book will beat
the hell out of you." Music to my ears, and I trust he meant it
in the best most complimentary way but last time I saw Jay, he
was sporting a bandaged head (just kidding here).

When some of us horror authors insist that horror must have a
monster on stage, these folks are being narrow-minded and
somewhat bias as to what the category can and does aspire to in
its best moments. The Horror Writers of America not too many
years ago awarded their highest honor, the Stoker Award (Bram
Stoker, Dracula creator), to Thomas Harris for Silence of the
Lambs. Was that horror? In my and many an author's mind, the
answer must be a resounding yes. Horror is what makes the reader
jump and gasp and start and shakily go on to the next line. I
have had readers tell me they've thrown the book across the
room--my book! This delights me, and when the reader adds, "But
I crawled over there a little later and continued to read" --
well that is music to my ears. At an author's party in Chicago
an 8-year-old sauntered up to me and asked, "Are you the man who
scares my grandma?" I knew her grandma, wife to a writer friend
named Tom Keever, Aurelia. So I confessed up. Then the little
girl conspiratorially added, "And you know what, Mr. Walker?"
What? I asked. "Grandma, she reads your books, true, but each
night she puts them out on the porch. She can't sleep with them
in the house." More music to my ears. I created a sense of fear
and terror in the reader. No apologies.

A really truly wonderful ghost story can have that quality--that
it creates fear or a sense of wonder, or cause beads of sweat at
the back of the neck. Supernatural and ghost stories, I cut my
teeth on them with such shows as One Step Beyond, The Inner
Sanctum, Twilight Zone, and untold numbers of books, one fo the
best being the first Haunted Heartland. Ghost stories do indeed
fit snugly beneath the large, large umbrella of the horror
category in that they can and do induce terror from the reader.

Then again there are humorous ghost stories and inspirational
ghost stories that do not frighten but enlighten and touch upon
the endearing spirit of mankind and womankind. If you've ever
seen Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy in that wonderful Hallmark
tale wherein Hume's the ghost and Jessica can't leave the old
home because she fears he will really be gone and lost and unable
to find her...that is not terrifying yet it is about a ghost, and
of course you have the Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Disney's Bluebird
or was it Blackbird--comedy. These kinds of ghost stories fail
to horrify yet they do other things as important--maybe more
so--as in make us laugh. You might call these ghost stories
romances, or at east romantic and you could call this one
intrigue, and this one slapstick humor, and this other one
deviously clever literature.

Interestingly enough, just about every author considerd a classic
from Twain to the first novelist and back again has tried his
hand at the ghost story in one fashion or another. Frankenstein
began as telling tales in the dark, remember? So the ghost story
too is a large, large umbrella but most certainly the most
terrifying ghost stories fall into the horror category. In the
end, it is all to do with the author's skill and purpose.

For those looking for folks really into ghost stories go to
www.justghoststories@yahoogroups.com Tell 'em I sent ya!

Rob Walker
www.robertWWalkerBooks.com
Chicago Tribune calls Rob's Inspector Alastair Ransom Serues
"arguably the most underappreciated series in historical fiction."