Tuesday Takeover: Do you need to hire a copy editor? by Vikki Becker

Enchanted - Vikki

Do you need to hire a copy editor?

The short answer to this question is yes. There will be some who will disagree with me. And that’s ok. Everyone has their own views on this subject. Am I biased because I’m a copy editor? Possibly. I really think my opinion comes from being an obsessive lover of books. Words excite me. Improperly used words annoy me. When I begin reading a new book I feel a sense of wonder. It’s like I’m that little kid with her first library card all over again, anticipating the magical worlds about to unfold as I open the first page to a newly discovered book. Every now and then that excitement is quickly diminished by errors, many errors. If there are just a few? That’s fine, we’re all humans who make mistakes. No one is perfect, not even copy editors. *gasp* (There is a strong possibility there are small errors in this article. Because, although I have excellent reviews for my editing, I am a mere woman.)

If I’m seeing errors on nearly every page I’m going to set a book down. I just can’t allow the magic of the story to take hold amidst the chaos of poor editing. My brain should be drifting off into a beautiful, or not so beautiful, new world. Learning, hoping, loving, hating, and fighting with all of the characters. But I can’t focus on the story! There is the inevitable eye roll while I am contemplating sending an anonymous letter to the author, begging them to hire a professional editor. I haven’t actually done this. Just like I don’t “actually” punch people in the face who chew with their mouth open. I do, however, fantasize about both. More frequently than is normal for a sane person.

Editing our own work is difficult at best. Part of that comes from the fact that when we put the story down, it’s as we saw it, dreamed of it. When we go back to read it again, attempting to self-edit, we still see what we had “intended”, not what we actually wrote. Our minds are tricky little boogers. Someone else, however, can step in with fresh eyes, a new perspective, and the skills to polish the manuscript, in a way that the writer, often, cannot. A good editor will make you comfortable with allowing them to work with you on your baby. He/she will also be true to your voice and vision in the work. Yes, an editor makes corrections. But don’t take that to mean that they can completely butcher and reimagine your work, You are the author, it is your story. So make sure you are a part of the process, that you have an open line of communication, feedback, and that you are very clear about what you do and don’t want from the editing job. It won’t be cheap to hire a professional editor. But what quality services are cheap? It’s important to feel confident before you push that publish button on Amazon or elsewhere. You don’t want to look back a year from now, thinking “if only I’d hired an editor, my book would be more polished, more professional”.

I speak from experience. Yes, I’m an editor. However, I was part of a writing project that others had control over. I only submitted a story, that was the end of my involvement. I had assumed proper editing would be done. The publisher didn’t want anyone who was part of the writing to be the one who edited the book. Unfortunately it wasn’t handled well by the editor who was hired. I no longer promote or associate myself with this book, as it’s an embarrassment. It’s a lesson learned, one I won’t soon forget. Having my first published work turn into an embarrassment was quite disheartening. My hope is that those reading this will be able to avoid this mistake. But I won’t give up. I’m pressing on, chasing the dream! And you should too! I’m sure my fellow editors will agree with this last statement. Please, for the love of the written word, stop having your Mom’s best bud’s neighbor edit for you because she got A’s in English. Just stop.

 

Vikki

Vikki lives in Northern Alabama with her hunky husband, the youngest of their six children, three dogs, and a cat who thinks she’s a dog. She’s recently started writing again, after setting it aside to raise and homeschool her kids. She’s been editing for several years now, with rave reviews from clients, and is thrilled to be able to work from home at a job that she adores. When not curled up in the recliner with the laptop and her ShihTzu, Rebel, you’ll find her camping in the woods, drifting on the four wheeler, slinging mud.

You can find Vikki here: www.enchantedediting.com ~  vikkibecker@gmail.com ~ www.facebook.com/enchantedediting ~ @EnchantedEdit

Jun 14, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tuesday Takeover: Do you need to hire a copy editor? by Vikki Becker

Tuesday Takeover: Mark Coker Interview by Amos Cassidy

Hello, Folks!

Hope you’re all good. Well, after a week of gorgeous weather here in the UK, the rain is now back to do its thing. Oh, well. But never mind the weather…

Today we welcome Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, to the blog. Mark has kindly popped over here to answer some questions from us and from other indie authors. So grab a coffee, or a tea, or even a beer if you fancy one, and join us for this interview…

Over to you, Mark…

One of the questions many authors planning on going wide are asking is ‘Smashwords or another aggregator? What would you say to those authors? What sets Smashwords apart from the dozens of other aggregators?

There are several competent distributors out there, and I would hope that if an author doesn’t work with us they work with another.  Distributors such as Smashwords provide authors a lot of advantages they can’t get simply by uploading direct to each retailer.  The primary advantages are time-savings, simplicity and control.  We allow authors to reach multiple global retailers with a single upload, and then we provide centralized control via the Smashwords Dashboard that helps expedite price updates, metatadata changes and sales reporting.  And, of course, we help authors reach retailers and libraries than can’t be reached without a distributor.

Although authors have many choices, some of which charge fees and others of which are free such as Smahwords, I think authors who work with us will enjoy more tools and broader reach.  With tools and broader reach come more sales opportunities.  And authors who are chose to work with any distributor should also still work with us because we’ll enhance their reach.

I’m happy to share a few features and benefits of Smashwords, several of which are unique to Smashwords when comparing us against the many different distribution options out there.

  1. We’re the original ebook publishing platform for indie authors, and the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks.  We’re currently publishing over 375,000 books from over 100,000 indie authors and small independent presses.  We were among the first to open up mainstream retailers to indie ebooks, and we’ve negotiated great terms for our authors across our distribution partners.  We’re constantly innovating new tools designed to give our authors advantages in the marketplace.
  2. We make ebook publishing incredibly quick and easy. Authors can upload a Word .doc or a professionally designed epub.  Our Smashwords Style Guide teaches authors how to create professionally formatted and styled ebooks using a word processor.
  3. Rapid distribution to retailers.  For most of our retailers, we’re delivering new titles and metadata updates around the clock.  It’s not unusual for an author to upload a new book or a preorder and see that book appear at iBooks a couple hours later (or sooner).  All of our author retailers have also significantly improved the speed of their listings.  Most of our delivering are processed and up at our retailers within a couple business days.
  4. Broadest distribution network across retailers and libraries, including iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, OverDrive (serves over 20,000 public libraries), Baker & Taylor Axis 360 (serves hundreds of libraries), Inktera (formerly PageFoundry, powers about a dozen small ebook app stores), Oyster and Scribd.  We even distribute a small number of titles to Amazon for a small subset of our better selling authors who request it.  More retailers and library partners are on the way.
  5. We operate our own store atwww.smashwords.com offering exclusive sales and merchandising tools.  For readers, a single purchase at the Smashwords Store enables them to enjoy your book in multiple formats, assuming the author uploaded their manuscript as a Word .doc which is what most authors do.  For authors, even if an author is using another distributor, they should still list their book in our store.  Some of the exclusive tools we offer include Smashwords Coupons (custom coupon codes for percentage-off, dollars/cents off, and free copies for fans and reviewers), free author pages, Smashwords Interviews (self-serve interviews –https://www.smashwords.com/interviews), enhanced series discovery with custom series pages, customizable widgets for off-site marketing and more.  Our store pays the highest royalty rates, up to 80% list depending on the price of the book or the size of the customer’s shopping cart (Books at $.99 often earn 80% list if they’re in a shopping cart with a checkout total over about $8.00).
  6. Preorders – we do regular preorders and “assetless” (meta-only preorders).  We and our authors pioneered many of the best practices associated with ebook preorders, and we share these tips and tricks with our authors.  Learn more athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/smashwords-introduces-assetless.htmlandhttp://smashwords.com/preorder where you’ll find links to several strategy articles
  7. We provide the industry’s best indie author training materials, and all these resources are free.  Our mission is to help teach indie authors how publish with pride, professionalism and success, and these resources are useful to every author even if they don’t utilize our services.  My three ebooks on ebook publishing best practices have been downloaded almost 750,000 times –The Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and publish an ebook), The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book for free) and The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (over 30 best practices of the bestselling indie ebook authors).  Also check out my training videos athttp://youtube.com/user/smashwords or my recently uploaded 6-hour presentation deck at http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/07/how-to-publish-ebooks-ebook-publishing.html
  8. Our Daily Sales report provides attractive same-day and next day aggregated sales charts from iBooks, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive and the Smashwords Store.  Provides instant feedback on how books are performing across multiple retailers, with tools to drill down by books, channels and more. Charts go back 180 days. Learn more athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2014/06/smashwords-adds-daily-sales-reporting.html .  We of course also provide complete historical sales data than can be viewed online or downloaded as a spreadsheet.
  9. Learn more athttps://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords

Selling on platforms such as iBooks and Nook through Smashwords can limit merchandising opportunities, is that true? If so, is there a way around it? Can Smashwords help authors snag those merchandising opportunities with iBooks and Nook?

Definitely not true.  Thousands of our authors have achieved special merchandising and promotion opportunities by distributing with Smashwords.  In fact, I’d argue that Smashwords authors gain tremendous merchandising advantage by distributing with Smashwords.  Each week we’re in direct communication with the merchandising teams at all three retailers, highlighting for them our best performing and most promising titles.  The retailers know our recommendations are based on merit, and merit is based on the author’s actual sales performance across the Smashwords distribution network.  If the author isn’t distributing with us, we can’t count their sales and can’t recommend them for merchandising.  In the interest of full disclosure, authors should understand that we can’t promise merchandising love.  But we will coach our authors on how to maximize their chances.  The retailers make the final decisions.  But they do know that our recommendations are based on actual sales results.

We hear you have recently launched something called Assetless pre-orders. I’m not sure that many authors are aware of this feature, or whether other aggregators are offering it yet. Can you tell us a little about Assetless pre-orders and how they can benefit an author?

We’ve been distributing ebook preorders for nearly three years.  We’ve assembled strong data proving without a doubt that books born as preorders sell more copies than books that are simply uploaded the day of release.

An ebook preorder makes it possible for an author to start capturing orders weeks or months in advance of the book’s onsale date.  For example, many authors are on Facebook or Twitter, telling their fans about the next book they’re writing, and generating demand for that book.  A preorder allows the author to capture the reader’s order at the moment they have the reader’s greatest attention and interest.  Preorders can also improve the book’s chancing of hitting both retailer and national bestseller lists.  Up until recently, we required authors to upload a completed manuscript to establish a preorder listing.  The downside of this restriction was that it meant authors were unable to get their preorders up until just a few days or weeks before their release date.

In June 2015 we announced support for assetless preorders, also known as “metadata-only” preorders.  An assetless preorder allows the author to establish their preorder listing up to 12 months in advance, even if they haven’t started writing the book yet.  No manuscript or cover image is required (this can be added later).  This longer preorder runway allows authors to better exploit the full benefits of a preorder.

Preorders are probably the single most important new book marketing tool to come along for indies in the last five years.  Most indies don’t yet know how to leverage preorders (they can check out my preorder strategy posts to learn how!), which means that the indies who do release with preorders have a significant sales and discovery advantage.

You can learn more about this incredible new tool in the announcement at our blog post titled,Smashwords Introduces Assetless (“metadata only”) Preorders.

Any tips on getting those sales up on the actual Smashwords site? Are there any paid promotion sites that focus particularly on Smashwords as a vendor? If not, do you think we can set something up?

The Smashwords Store doesn’t provide any paid advertising opportunities.  The merchandising on the store is completely automated, and it’s designed to leverage our knowledge of what readers are buying, what they’re considering buying as well as the contextual relationships between what they’re looking at and what they and others have purchased.

To take full advantage of what our store has to offer, here are some quick tips:

Upload your manuscript as a Word .doc file, because this allows us to convert your book into multiple ebook formats so you book is readable by readers on any device. We convert to epub, mobi, PDF, plain text and others.

On your blog and in social media, promote direct hyperlinks to your book pages at Smashwords. If you simply say “find my book on Smashwords,” there’s a good chance the reader will get distracted by all the other great books. A direct hyperlink puts the reader one click away from adding your book to their shopping cart.  At the Smashwords store you’ll earn the industry’s highest royalty rates (up to 80% list), so definitely make sure you’ve got links to your books on your blog, website and in social media.  If enough customers purchase your book, your book will get caught up in our automated merchandising systems where you can appear on our store-wide bestsellers lists, genre bestsellers lists, and even bestseller lists by filtered by genre and word count!  Your book can also start appearing in our new “Also

recommended” merchandising which appears on each book page.  It’s like “Also boughts,” but with additional intelligence that goes far beyond just purchase data.

Write a compelling description. A lot of authors make the mistake of not providing a compelling description.  “This is my fourth book of poetry,” for example, is a horrible description yet we see that a lot!

Don’t skimp on the cover image. Readers judge books by the cover.  A great cover makes an aspirational promise to the target reader.  Most home made cover images look just like that – home made.  Rather than creating your own ebook cover image, hire a professional.  There are hundreds of high-quality cover designers who will create covers for under $300.  Carefully study their online porfolios before you select an artist.  We also have  a list of low-cost cover designers and formatters you can use athttp://smashwords.com/list  These freelancers work for you, not us, and we don’t take a commission if you hire them (this helps them keep their costs to lower).

Take advantage of our new Smashwords widgets. Below the shopping cart on every Smashwords book page you’ll find a link to create a widget.  You and your fans can use this tool to create attractive widgets that will dynamically update over time when you change your price or book details.  Encourage your fans to install these widgets on their blogs and web sites!  Here’s an example of the Widget page for my free ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success.

Create a Smashwords Interview. This is a fun self-interviewing tool that allows you to publish an interview of yourself directly onto your Smashwords author profile page.  We’ll present you with a series of questions, and you have the ability to modify the questions or create your own questions.  It’s a great chance for you to let your readers learn the story behind the author.  Here’s a link to my Smashwords interview: https://www.smashwords.com/interview/mc

Create a compelling author profile page. The author profile page allows you to upload a headshot, publish your bio, and provide direct hyperlinks to your social media pages at Facebook, Twitter, Wattpad, your blog and your website.  You can even add a link to your Amazon author page where readers can purchase your print books (assuming you have print books up at Amazon).  Here’s a link to my profile page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mc

If you write series, connect your series books with our cool Series Manager tool. Series Manager increases the discoverability of your series books at Smashwords (and at our retailers too!).  You can even upload a custom image to represent your series, along with a special series description.  Also if you write series, be sure to price your series starter at FREE.  We’ve found that series with free series starters earn more sales than series without free series starters.  Here’s a sample link to the series page for my Smashwords Guides:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/1

Watch my YouTube videos at http://youtube.com/user where you’ll find best practices information for all skill levels from novice to expert.

Last but not least, write a super-awesome book! This should go without saying but it needs to be said:  There’s a glut of low-cost high-quality books out there.  Most of the major retailers are offering over 2 million ebooks.  In the Smashwords Store, we have nearly 400,000 books (not as bad as 2 million, but still a lot of books!).  Books sell based on word of mouth, and word of mouth is manifested via online reviews, recommendations over social media, and in actual real-world recommendations you might make to friends and family.  To turn a reader into an evangelist, your book needs to take them to an emotionally satisfying extreme.  You need to make the reader go, “WOW!”  As every writer can appreciate, it’s not easy to write a WOW book.  Encourage your Smashwords Store customers to leave you an honest review in our store.  If you want them to leave a review but they purchased the book elsewhere, offer them a free Smashwords Coupon code because once they redeem the code, they can leave a review.

Questions from other indie authors:

I have four eBooks on Smashwords, none of which sell, even though the same eBooks are selling on Amazon. My books have been on Smashwords for over two years. My promotions always result in sales from Amazon, but never Smashwords. Is it my fault?

It’s not your fault, even assuming you’re providing direct links to your books at Smashwords.  Keep in mind that Amazon is the world’s largest ebook retailer and the Smashwords Store is a much much smaller store.  Consider the sales you get at Smashwords as icing on your cake.  Your sales at our larger retailers –iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, for example – will almost always be higher than what you earn in our store.  That said, from time to time I’ll hear about authors who sell more at Smashwords than at other stores.  I think that’s more of a rare exception than a rule, but possibly these authors are promoting their titles at the Smashwords store more aggressively, or they’ve been with us enough years to develop a large and loyal following.

Do you have any tips on getting iBooks features?

Yes.  First, remember their decisions are merit based.  They’re looking for titles that have either already been endorsed by their customers (as measured by sales, ratings and reviews) or endorsed by readers elsewhere (as measured by your aggregates Smashwords sales across our retailer network).  I created a video about 18 months ago that talks about iBooks merchandising tips.  The tips I share there are also applicable to the merchandising decisions of most other retailers.  Merit merit merit.  View the video athttp://www.youtube.com/user/Smashwords  You’ll also find a more updated and downloadable presentation on iBooks merchandising strategies here in my post, How to Publish Ebooks – An Ebook Publishing Intensive.

Will you distribute to German online-shops any time soon (or any other international online shop)?

Yes, you will see us do more in internationally in the months ahead.

I’m super-disappointed about the loss of FlipKart in India as it’s a mega emerging English-speaking market. I realize you pulled the plug on FlipKart because they were slow to get books in and out and do price changes for authors who like to flit in and out of Kindle Unlimited like the wind, but what about writers like ME who’ve gone wide since the beginning? Why are we being penalized for the actions of a flaky few?

I’m disappointed too.  I wrote a lengthy blog post about the issue athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2015/08/smashwords-and-flipkart-to-end.html and there was also a great discussion in the comments.  We didn’t pull the plug on FlipKart, though it is true we threatened to do so if they didn’t improve their ability to honor the copyrights and takedown wishes of our authors.  We couldn’t allow the situation to persist because too many author were being punished by Amazon.  I completely agree it totally sucks that all our authors got thrown out with the bath water, but as it worked out, FlipKart decided to exit the ebook business according to recent media reports.  I can only speculate, but my guess is that the likelihood of eventual lawsuits from indie authors probably helped them decide it’s not a game worth playing for them.

Flipkart continued. And ditto for a lot of the other smaller distributors who can’t shift with the wind, but might net us all a few local sales. I’d just begun experimenting with an advertising campaign in India of direct-downloads-for-email with great effect when you pulled the plug on one of my primary non-Amazon distributors. I still have GooglePlay and Pothi, but nobody ever BUYS ebooks on Pothi (sadly), just downloads the free ones. The worst thing is, I’ve gathered some raving fans from these experiments; people hungry for new books and eager to tell their friends.  Couldn’t Smashwords create a special opt-in category for these lesser distributors with a big fat warning like ‘warning, B-tier distributors only update their data monthly’ or something? I mean, you say that authors who cater to d’zon are killing all these tiny g-local contenders in their cradle, but then didn’t you just feed the machine by being inflexible?  I mean, if you can do that for some of the obscure library-lending programs, why not for tiny g-local distributors?

If a retailer is unable to respect our authors’ rights, we’re unwilling to work with them.  Our authors trust us to work with quality, capable retailers so we tend to say no to more retailers than we say yes to.  Every major retailer has, at times, struggled with the enormous scale of our catalogue.  We’re publishing nearly 400,000 titles, and these titles are constantly changing with new pricing, updated descriptions, updated books, takedowns, republishings and more.  We’ve build incredibly robust and reliable distribution systems to bring order to this chaos, but we rely on our retailer partners to build robust systems on their end.  FlipKart decided they weren’t able to keep up.

In the age of Amazon and its predatory practices which place indies in the crosshairs if a small retailer like FlipKart can’t keep up, it’s all the more reason we owe it to our authors to carefully choose our partners.  In the case of Amazon they were threatening to disrupt the worldwide sales of these authors simply because a small little retailer – one that probably hadn’t ever sold a copy of the book – was having difficulty removing the book quickly from their shelves.

The good news is that we’ll continue to add retail partners that are capable and that will continue to expand the reach and availability of our books.

Authors who want to directly support our continued efforts to open up new worldwide markets can help by distributing their books with Smashwords, and by opting in to all our distribution channels.  We work for our authors and appreciate your support!

MARK COKER BIO:

Mark Coker founded Smashwords in 2008 to make it fast, free and easy for writers to self-publish an ebook.  Today, Smashwords has grown to become the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks.  100,000 authors and small independent presses around the world publish and distribute nearly 400,000 books with Smashwords.  Smashwords provides authors and publishers a robust suite of professional publishing tools that improve the discoverability and sales of their titles.  Smashwords distributes globally to Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive, Kobo, Scribd, Oyster, Baker & Taylor Axis 360 and others.  Follow Mark on Twitter@markcoker.  Mark blogs at http://blog.smashwords.com

Thanks for stopping by, Mark!

Amos Cassidy Bio:
Amos Cassidy is the pen name for Richard Amos and Debbie Cassidy. Amos is a 31 year old Diva and Cassidy a 39 year old mother of three; well, four if you include the husband. A common love of all things Joss Whedon, Urban Fantasy, and a tug of war over Jensen Ackles, brought them together, and one cold February afternoon, over nibbles and coffee, their partnership was born.

You can find Cassidy hard at work in her fortress of solitude which has eaten up the majority of her garden, and Amos…well he’s still trying to get the invisibility gizmo he got off a friendly alien in exchange for a pair of earphones to work. Funnily enough he hasn’t been seen around much lately…Frequent doses of Sugary snacks, coupled with regular injections of caffeine aid in their production of a unique brand of cross genre tales. They are always writing, but are happy to take a break to chat to their wonderful readers, so drop them a line at amoscassidy@yahoo.co.uk, or just pop over to see what they’re working on at amoscassidyauthor.com and they’ll bust out the biscuit tin.

***Website ~ Facebook ~ Newsletter ~ Twitter***

Amos

 

 

Jun 7, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Awoken Jewelry

Want a chance to win this necklace? Join my fan group and interact to win the title of Member of the Month. This is the prize for June. Thanks to Jennifer Long for making this awesome jewelry. Join here.

Awoken necklace

Jun 6, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Awoken Jewelry

Tuesday Takeover: Secret Ingredient For Writers Listed Below by Caroline A. Gill

You know this already. You do. You see it every day, maybe even more often: that sense of wonder. We try to capture it over and over. Whether it’s depicted in a film, in commercials, or in a book, that feeling, that moment of discovery: that’s the magic.

In the contemporary fantasy/fiction writing, we are all under the influence of giants, standing on the shoulders of Tolkien, Lewis, Carroll, and Poe. And that sense of wonder they found in a wardrobe, down a rabbit hole, on the other side of a mirror, in a hobbit hole; that is what we all seek. That is modern magic.

The surprise in a child’s eyes at a birthday party that moment charms us, pulling at our own memories. When our main character finds a skill they didn’t know they had, or a marvelous item that unlocks a door to a new world, it’s all the same.

Discovering the new, finding the magic: we all search for that definable moment of wonder. It is the core of every journey we take, that hope that we will discover something new. That feeling becomes amplified if mixed with love. Or if it is blended with righteous defending anger. Over and over, we wait to be surprised. And we love those who manage to do just that.

Think about your favorite books and movies. It’s those scenes that pull you in, the ones that mirror the wonder you once felt. A return to innocence, the feeling of rightness in the world, the hero who rushes in regardless of personal cost these are primal human emotions.

These are how we connect with the reader. And how the reader connects with us.

Not everyone searches for the same emotions either, which is why even well written books do not appeal to every reader. As fallible, broken beings, we seek a glimpse into the Greater Good. Wonder. Magic. Surprise.

These are the things worth dying for. The friendships worth saving. Treasure beyond price.

In my novel Flying Away, Iolani Bearse encounters loss after loss. First, her father dies in a faraway war, then her mother in a car accident. Lani sees death up close, blood dripping down her mother’s face. And there is a fly there, in the car. Just like there have been flies on the windowsill of her bedroom where she waited for years for her father to return home.

But now, in Lani’s lowest moment, in the chasm of her grief, watching her mother’s eyes glaze over, shattered by her death the houseflies speak to her. Perhaps this is the first time she really listened. And they show her a magic that the insects have always kept hidden.

You’ve seen flies, zipping in the middle of the air, hovering for no apparent reason? Well, that was just so you wouldn’t see what they can do: flying fast enough they can open a portal to anywhere. If a fly has seen a location, any fly can find it. And Lani needs the houseflies and their magic, far sooner than anyone would have suspected. Because the memory thieves are coming. The green lanterns shine in dark of night, harvesting amino acids and draining away whole families, suburbs, and towns. Only the flies protect Lani. Only Lani sees the Stealers. With their help, one orphan girl can save our broken nation.

Caroline Gill

Bio:
Caroline A. Gill went to school at UCLA and NIU. She married the love of her life. Facing the world with children made her aware of how vulnerable they are. Weaving tales of courage, she tries to find hope. Living near the great California Redwoods, she finds a sense of the finite and infinite touching. The creative world is like that, especially when authors feel inspired.  She’s the author of Flying Away, a YA dystopian, supernatural paranormal fantasy. www.authorcarolineagill.com

 

May 24, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tuesday Takeover: Secret Ingredient For Writers Listed Below by Caroline A. Gill

Tuesday Takeover: The Importance of Detail in YA Sci-Fi by J.N. Chaney

I often get asked what genre my books are, usually after an avid reader makes it through one or two of them. Are they young adult? Are they hard sci-fi? Why would I include so much scientific information in a book that’s aimed at young people? As though you’re simply not allowed to delve that deeply into these things when your target audience is under the age of 21.

There seems to be a belief among many writers that in order to appeal to young readers, you need to cut certain details of your book while keeping the language as simple as possible. Now, granted, I believe that’s true to some extent, but when it comes to science fiction, what exactly are we trying to do here? Are teens too dumb to understand genetics, wormholes, and mandatory breeding programs? I don’t think so. In fact, I think they’re the perfect audience for that.

The entire point of science fiction, as far as I’m concerned, is to explore new concepts and provide avenues of thought that we simply can’t experience in our everyday lives. Sure, the book needs to be entertaining and appeal to someone that age, but shouldn’t it have some depth to it, too? I think you can have a story full of lizard people and intergalactic travel while also discussing the complexity of race relations and what it means to be human. The story can be as outrageous as you want while still discussing various themes and scientific principles.

And why not? Kids are smart. Let’s give them a little credit.

Many of us recall being 15 and reading books like Ender’s Game, Dune, The Forever War, Starship Troopers, and Stranger in a Strange Land, among so many others. We hadn’t even made it through our first semester of chemistry yet, but there we were, reading about complex societies, religions, ship design, physics, quantum mechanics, and philosophy. We came for the Klingons, but we stayed for the Vulcans.

And we were learning through it all. Each of these books explored interesting themes and ideas that we simply weren’t experiencing in school or in our ordinary lives. We were shaped by these stories, and they made us better.

I disguise my hard sci-fi books as young adult, not because I’m mischievous (although, a case could be made for that), but because I believe in respecting one’s audience. So far, I’ve been lucky enough to receive some positive comments from young teens about these stories, and I hope the trend continues with the rest of the series. Sometimes they ask about the characters, but other times they ask me how something works. These aren’t 17 year olds, mind you. They’re often about 13 years old.

There’s this myth that modern young adult novels shouldn’t be written with complex themes. You can’t talk about that, because your reader isn’t old enough. Avoid saying that, because they’re not smart enough. Don’t bother taking the time to explain the science; just show what happens next. These authors treat scifi like it’s just another form of fantasy, where the technology doesn’t need to be explained, so it might as well be magic. People seem to think children and teens are incapable of following these stories, despite the fact that they were more than able to do this a few short years ago.

Origins of YA

Literature targeted at teens arose over fifty years ago, right after WW2 with the publication of “Seventeenth Summer,” which is largely considered the first book ever written to be specifically targeted at teens. The new trend continued until the 70s, when the term “Young Adult” was actually coined. During this time, we saw a massive swell of teen fiction, much of which targeted young people, but focused on serious themes. The Outsiders is a great example of this, and remains a YA classic to this day.

Unfortunately, as the decades rolled on, YA fiction became far less popular. It was mostly ignored until the early 2000s, when a new wave of young people (mostly born between 1989 and 1992) grew into their formidable years. Finally, another golden age of YA hit the streets, and suddenly you could find the on any shelf in any bookstore throughout the modern world. The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight became international best-sellers, proving there was a thirst among teens for relatable fiction. The genre exploded, and before long it became one of the most profitable in the industry.

YA Sci-fi

Before the 2000s, if you were a fan of science fiction, your choices were a fair bit different from what we have today. Books like Divergent and The Maze Runner have taken hold of modern audiences, but have largely chosen to breeze over the more complex elements of their science and philosophy. Gone are the page-long explanations for how a wormhole works.

But are kids really that simple? Are we as adults really so arrogant to think kids can’t handle the same literature we had growing up?

After putting out my first book, I received an email from a guy who told me he was surprised at how scientific my book was. He said he and his two sons were reading it, and he was surprised at how much they enjoyed the more complex themes and science in the story. For some reason, he had doubts they’d be able to enjoy it, simply because they were 12 and 14 years old. Much to his surprise, they loved it, and were able to have an informed discussion with their father about the details of the book.

We don’t give kids nearly enough credit anymore. Not like we used to.

Why Detail Matters

Many of us have forgotten how curious kids actually are. I’m often reminded of Ender’s Game when I think about this. The dedication of that book reads, “For Geoffrey, who makes me remember how young and how old children can be,” which sums it up pretty nicely. Kids are both naïve and aware, all at the same time. They’re constantly observing, taking in the world around them, listening to everything. Maybe they aren’t as informed as you are, and maybe their vocabulary isn’t quite as robust (though, when you consider the average adult’s reading level these days, maybe they’re about on par), but a child is nonetheless built to learn.

Every detail you include in a book, whether it involves a description of a woman walking into a 1950’s swing club or an explanation for how a futuristic atom smasher works, can make waves in a child’s mind and help them grow, however gradually, into another person. In a way, the writer is like a second parent. You have the responsibility of educating that child with whatever you put in your stories. If you take the time to properly explain (in an easy to understand way) how a genetic disease works, how a body decomposes, how a hadron collider works, you might just teach them something valuable.

This doesn’t mean you have to sit there and churn out Wikipedia entries, but taking a few paragraphs to explain a concept to them won’t hurt you or your sales. Ender’s Game is still widely read in schools across the world, despite delving into relativity, string theory, and gravity. One of the driving concepts in the book is how one’s perception of direction changes in a zero gravity environment. Did any of that deter a young reader from falling in love with this story, I wonder?

My guess is that it didn’t. In fact, I’d wager just the opposite.

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J. N. Chaney has a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and is the author of the Variant Saga, The Other Side of Nowhere and other sci-fi books soon to be released. You can get J.N. Chaney’s very first dystopian science fiction novel, The Amber Project, absolutely free by going to the following link: http://jnchaney.com/stay-up-to-date/

May 17, 2016 | Posted by in Author | Comments Off on Tuesday Takeover: The Importance of Detail in YA Sci-Fi by J.N. Chaney