WARNER NEWSLETTER

I've moved my newsletter to Wordpress

2011-10-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hello and thank you for visiting. Warner Coaching's new Wordpress site launched in October 2011 and I'm now posting my newsletter there. Read the latest HERE.

Thanks so much.

Brooke Warner
Warner Coaching Inc.

How to Hire a Proofreader, Part 3 of a 3-Part Series

2011-08-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

This month’s newsletter is the final in the series about editors—and we’re talking proofreaders, the people you hire in the final stages of your project. You may have already employed the services of a developmental editor and a copyeditor by the time you hire a proofreader, or you may have even worked with several editors. This shouldn’t dissuade you from hiring a proofreader. Writers—and readers, too—are under the mistaken impression that editors catch every single error, and that if a book has been copyedited then it’s finished and ready for publication. Wrong.

What is Proofreading, Anyway?
Proofreading is a final pass on a document, manuscript, or piece of content. It’s different from line editing because a proofread shouldn’t entail substantive changes. A proofreader will note strange or wrong word choices. They will note redundancies (i.e., “This deep-felt experience resonated deeply.”) Now, it’s true that a copyeditor should have/might have caught something like this in the copyediting phase, but a proofreader is wearing a wholly different lens when they’re looking at your work. They are not reading for structure or logic like a copyeditor is. They’re looking for dropped words, and if a book is already formatted and/or designed, for mistakes a manuscript might contain as a result of being designed—things like bad breaks, inconsistent fonts, or wrongly formatted headings.

Why Do I Need a Proofreader?
I said in last month’s newsletter that if you only hire one editor, hire a copyeditor. It’s absolutely possible to take your manuscript to an agent or to shop your book without being proofread. I often see proposals and manuscripts that contain errors and it doesn’t make me want to write those authors off. However, if I’m looking at something that’s unsolicited, and the query letter and proposal are riddled with small errors, that’s a whole other story. Obviously good punctuation, spelling, and grammar make a good impression. If you’re unagented and trying to sell your manuscript directly to a publisher, it’s worth having a proofreader go over your work. If you’re self-publishing, do not skip the proofreading step. Most books, even after their proofread, STILL contain a handful of mistakes. You will be surprised and horrified by how many small things your proofreader catches, so be thorough and consider the value of that final few hundred dollars. After all, some agents and acquisitions editors are much more unforgiving than I am.

How Do I Work with a Proofreader?
Most proofreaders still mark up hardcopy pages. There are ways to proof online, and I still don’t like them as much as a good old-fashioned red pen on paper. So you can send your proofreader your content in the mail and they can mark it up and send it back to you, or you can consider an online method if it appeals to you. What’s important is what you do after you get your corrections back. If you do not know proofreading marks and you’re not editorially inclined, then you might want to consider working with your proofreader, copyeditor, or designer to implement the changes the proofreader made. All too often I see writers implementing perfectly good changes and introducing new errors because they don’t know any better. So be careful. Establish a process or this entire step might be for naught.

A Friendly Word of Advice
Be careful about hiring your best friend who’s a “pretty good proofreader” or your daughter who “passed the AP English test.” Unless they are trained proofreaders, they’re not proofreaders. They might be very skilled and have good instincts. They’ll probably even catch some errors. And, yes, if you’re not going to hire anyone then certainly have someone you know look over your pages for you. But understand that a good proofreader is someone who's going to go over your pages with a fine-tooth comb. And they will, I promise you, blow your mind.

Until next month,

Brooke

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How to Hire a Copyeditor, Part 2 of a 3-Part Series

2011-07-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last month I wrote about what a developmental editor does. This month we’re talking about copyeditors (and next month will be about proofreaders). The decision to have your final manuscript edited is a big deal---and an important step.

What is Copyediting, Anyway?
Copyediting, also called line editing, is mostly about consistency, word choice, good grammar, and accurate punctuation. A good copyeditor will notice repetition in your work. They may also help you with any timeline issues or chronology lapses, and inconsistencies caused by things like changing people's names late in the game. They will generally do a base-level fact-check as well. They’ll make your word and punctuation choices consistent. In a well-copyedited manuscript, for instance, you’ll never see make-up and makeup. You’ll never see some sentences with series commas (I write, I edit, and I rewrite) and others without (I write, I edit and I rewrite). Copyeditors usually won’t point out issues in the story or plot unless you ask them to, or unless the issues are so glaring that they must. More generally, they’ll clean up your grammar and catch things you wouldn’t be able to catch even if you took a month away from your work and came back with fresh eyes. Why is this so? It seems to be physiological! People stop seeing the errors in their own writing after having spent so much time with it. (I've experienced this enough times myself to know it’s true!)

Why Do I Need a Copyeditor?
You must be copyedited. If you have to choose between a developmental editor, copyeditor, or proofreader, choose the copyeditor. You will be stunned by what comes back. The things copyeditors catch delight me to no end. It’s amazing to see that EVERYTHING contains errors, and it gives you a whole new appreciation for accuracy. If you’re already a perfectionist, knowing that you will have your work copyedited at the end of your process can be a weight off your shoulders. It can allow you to focus on the creative process of writing rather than worrying so much about sentence construction. If you’re not a perfectionist and don’t even know what a conjunction or series comma is, then by god, get your work copyedited!

How Do I Work with a Copyeditor?
Recently I was struck by something one of my clients said about her manuscript being out with a copyeditor: “I just figured I had to sit back and wait,” she told me. Well, not exactly. The most important thing to know about working with a copyeditor is that you can and should give them notes and establish boundaries around your own expectations. There are a couple reasons to do so:

(1) Many copyeditors can slip into becoming developmental editors in a snap. If you do not want to be developmentally edited, then you need to be clear that all you’re looking for is a line edit. There are plenty of copyeditors out there who will over-edit and take liberties if you don’t tell them that you want some parameters. I’ve worked with a fair number of authors who have been shocked (and upset) when they got their copyedits back. This happens most often with people who are writing humor, or writers who specifically are not striving for perfect grammar because their work is intentionally conversational. If this is the case with your manuscript, you MUST tell your copyeditor so that he or she doesn't edit out the funny, or edit out your conversational tone. Ask your copyeditor to edit a sample chapter, or at least a few pages. (Pay for this if you have to---it won't cost too much.) Make sure the editor’s marks make sense to you and that you agree with the changes they’re making.

(2) It can get expensive. A line edit is less time-consuming than a developmental edit, and you can further clarify the level of edit you want by asking for a bid (see calculator below). Ask the editor if they’ll read some chapters and offer an assessment before you get started. Yes, you will most likely have to pay for this, too, but it’s better to throw away $60-$80 than to spend hundreds, even thousands, on something you’re not happy with.

Calculator:
Heavy edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 5
Medium edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 6
Light edit: Word count divided by 310 divided by 7

This calculator can give you a rough estimate of how much time each level (heavy, medium, light) should take so at least you will know whether your copyeditor’s bid is in the right ballpark.

Finally, make sure you have good rapport with your editor. Talk to them. Again, pay them to read some or all of your manuscript and give you notes. In today’s publishing climate you can’t afford to submit unedited material to an agent or a publishing house. It can mean the difference between getting picked up or not---and as I said last month, if you’re self-publishing, being thoroughly and professionally edited matters even more.

Until next month,

Brooke

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How to Hire an Editor, Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

2011-06-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

I know, apparently I’m into series this year. But as I started to write about how to hire an editor, I quickly began to see how many things writers have to consider before taking the plunge. So this month’s newsletter will cover hiring a developmental editor, and then in July and August we’ll talk about copyeditors and proofreaders.

What Is Developmental Editing, Anyway?
Developmental editing is about the big picture. It’s about structure and theme and content. It’s about understanding what your eventual Table of Contents is going to look like (or your plot, if you're writing fiction) and making sure that everything is consistent and actually makes sense. A lot of the coaching I do is developmental editing in that I walk authors through what’s working and not working with their manuscript. If I start working with someone early on in their process, I work with them to develop their Shitty First Drafts (SFDs) and to get their content on the page. It’s a process and it involves a lot of refining. For those writers who decide that they need a developmental editor later in the game, like after they've written their entire manuscript, the process is a little different in that it can involve an overhaul. A developmental edit can get a little messy at this stage, and a good editor is more important than ever because there are so many moving parts to hold. If you find yourself in this situation, knowing that your manuscript is a bit of a mess and needs more help than you ever anticipated, don't fret. There are good people out there who can fix almost anything!

Why Do I Need a Developmental Editor?
A developmental editor should be your collaborative partner. You can bring them on board at any stage of your writing process, but in my opinion, the earlier you have them reading along with you, the better off you’re going to be in the long-run. A developmental editor is looking for the big picture. Because they're removed, they can see things you can’t because you’re too close to the story. They can also help guide you in a direction you might not have considered. Your developmental editor should be someone who defers to your choices, but also someone you can trust, and who hopefully occasionally pushes back and has an opinion about your work.

How Do I Work with a Developmental Editor?
There are any number of ways to work, and many editors will have strong feelings about how they want to work, but I will throw out some food for thought here since you do have a say in your process---no matter what. If you are just getting started on a new book project and you know you do well with feedback and partnership, consider hiring someone upfront who can read pages as you write them and talk you through decisions about the arc of the work or your plot. Ideally, your editor will ask you to create a chapter summary document that the two of you can use as your roadmap in the process of completing your book. This is my preferred way to work with clients, and it ultimately saves both time and money as pitfalls and inconsistencies are averted along the way. If you already have a complete manuscript and realize that you need or want a developmental editor, you will probably need to pay someone to read your entire manuscript and give you notes. This is kind of like paying for a home inspection before you buy a house. You might not end up buying the house, but you aren't going to regret having paid a little bit upfront to know what you were getting yourself into. If you’re going to pay someone to read, make sure you get good notes. Make sure you agree with the editor's direction and ideas. Make sure you have good rapport with the editor and that you like the way they talk and/or advise you. This is going to be an important relationship, and you want to feel like you’re being heard, that the editor understands your story, and that everything they’re saying actually makes sense to you.

Is This Going to Cost an Arm and a Leg?
A developmental edit can get expensive. When we outsource developmental edits at Seal Press, we generally expect that it will take between 60-100 hours. Editors are charging anywhere from $25-50 an hour for this kind of work. This is why I advise getting started working with an editor early on in your process. Spreading out that kind of expense over the year or more that you’re writing the book is much easier to swallow than spending it all at once because you’re desperate and you need someone to save or fix your book. That said, you never want to shop your book to an agent or editor without having some sort of professional assessment. So if the price tag here freaks you out, consider at least getting your manuscript copyedited. I’ve met many smart people who felt that the fact that their best friend and mother read and loved their book was evidence enough that it was going to be a bestseller. The best piece of advice I can give you is: Don’t be naive. If you want to get published by a traditional publisher, you need to have your work edited. If you want to self-publish, it matters even more.

Until next month,

Brooke

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Going Shopping---for an Agent or Publishing House

2011-05-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Shopping for an agent or an editor is an important step on the journey to getting published. For a lot of writers, it’s the first time they’re getting outside feedback from professionals about their work; for many, it means that countless hours spent in silence, toiling away in solitude, is coming to an end. But when do you shop for an agent? How do you decide whether to shop for an agent or to go directly to an editor at a publishing house? What do you need to have complete before you approach an agent or an editor? And once you know you’re really ready, what are some best practices to keep in mind for keeping track of whom you’re pitching to? This month’s newsletter answers all of these questions and more.

When Should I Shop My Manuscript?

Novelists: If you’re writing a novel (adult or YA), do not shop until you are completely finished with your manuscript. Many agents only require a query letter in addition to your manuscript, but I highly recommend creating a chapter-by-chapter summary of your entire book to send along with your first fifty pages when an agent expresses interest in your work. This helps the agent get a sense of the arc of your narrative without having to read the entire manuscript. If the summary holds together well, they will be more likely to request your full manuscript.

Nonfiction writers: If you’re writing creative nonfiction, a memoir, or self-help, you can shop with a proposal and sample chapters, though some agents prefer a complete manuscript. Critical to shopping your nonfiction manuscript is a proposal. You must have a complete book proposal that includes some variation of the following elements: Overview, About the Author, Competitive Titles, Target Audience, Marketing/Publicity, Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries, Sample Chapters.

Tip: Don’t feel pressured to go out with your work before it’s ready. I have worked with writers who are so anxious to land an agent that they have gone out too soon---before their concept was completely secure, or before the proposal had been thoroughly edited or proofread. Agents are flooded with mediocre proposals. Don’t be one of them!

How do I decide whether to shop for an agent or go directly to a publishing house?

The answer to this question has everything to do with your expectations. If you think your work is commercial and you expect a good advance, you must get an agent. If you think you have a fairly niche project and money doesn’t matter that much to you, then you might consider shopping directly to a publisher. Some publishing houses simply do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, making the decision of whether you need to be agented an easy one. If you want to publish on Random House, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, or any number of bigger houses, you have to be agented. If you know that you would like to publish with a small house, and you absolutely feel an alignment to a particular house or editor, consider pitching to them directly.

Tip: Never pitch agents and publishing houses simultaneously. If you pitch to a publishing house and get a rejection, your agent will not be able to circle back around to that house to pitch on your behalf. You never want to be in the position of telling an agent who’s just agreed to represent you that you’ve stacked up a list of rejections from various publishing houses you approached before you approached them.

What do I need to have complete before I approach an agent or a publisher?

Novelists: First, you must have a finished manuscript. As I mentioned above, I also recommend completing a chapter-by-chapter summary of your book. Ideally, this is a three- to four-sentence summary of each of your chapters, which you save in a single document called ChxChSummary.doc. Additionally, you must create a query letter. The query letter is sometimes called a pitch letter, and it’s what you send to an agent or publisher when you want to ask them to take a look at your work. A good resource for query letters is Query Shark.

Nonfiction writers: First, you must have a complete proposal. In addition to this, you may opt to complete your manuscript. There are pros and cons to shopping a whole manuscript versus shopping on sample chapters, and some agents and editors have strong feels about which they prefer---and it varies from person to person. Like novelists, you also need to create a query letter, which you send to an agent or publishing house for the purpose of getting them interested in your work.

Tip: Do your research and find out the names of the agents and editors you want to approach. If you are a more casual person, feel free to address them by their first name; if you’re more old-school, address them as Mr. or Ms. Never address a query letter to “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir.” (I have been known to immediately trash letters addressed to “Dear Sir.”) Note that Publishers Marketplace gives you access to agents’ and editors’ full names, titles, and email addresses on their homepage. (Scroll down to the "Quick contact search," which gives you the option of entering name and/or company to find who you're looking for.)

What’s the best way to pitch my work to an agent or editor?

When you’re ready to pitch your work, choose ten agents you want to approach. Researching an agent is an important part of this process, so take your time. I recommend spending the $20/month it takes to be a member on Publishers Marketplace. Look at the deals and see who’s buying and selling what. Spend time on The Guide to Literary Agents and zero in on agents whose websites, mission statements, personal statements, and interviews you like. There’s a wealth of information about agents and editors online.

Start your pitching process by pasting your query letter into the body of your email. At the end of your query, you will ask the question: “May I send you the first fifty pages of my novel?” (if you are a novelist), or, “May I send you my complete proposal?” (if you are a nonfiction writer). Then you wait to get an affirmative response.

Once you get a “Yes, you may send me your first fifty pages,” or, “Yes, you may send me your proposal,” you follow up by saying, “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my chapters,” or “Thank you for agreeing to take a look at my proposal,” and you attach the work as an email attachment. If you are a novelist, this is when you attach your chapter summaries document as well, and make sure to note that you are taking the liberty of attaching a chapter summary document in addition to the first fifty pages of your novel.

Tip: Name your document appropriately. If I wrote a novel called Book Blazer, I would call my document BookBlazer_1st50.doc or BookBlazer_Warner.doc. Or if my memoir were titled, Confessions of a Booklover, I would title my document Confessions Booklover_Proposal.doc or Warner_finalproposal.doc. Avoid sending your proposal to Agent Frank Gage and titling it FrankGage.doc.

What’s the best way to keep track of the agents and editors I’m pitching to?

I mentioned above starting with just ten agents or ten publishing houses. The reason for this is because this process gets very messy very fast. It may seem like it’s not a big deal to pitch to twenty agents, but what if they all get back to you right away?

You’ll want to create a spreadsheet that keeps track of each agent’s name, email address, and the date you sent the query. Then keep track of whether they respond yes or no to receiving your work. If they respond yes, note what date you sent them your material (attachments). The normal amount of time to wait before hearing back is four to six weeks. Once you hit the six-week mark, it’s completely acceptable to send a follow-up email.

Once you receive five or more rejections, send out to five more agents at a time, never having more than ten open queries at a given time. Once you receive notice that an agent is interested in representing you, consider the Five Questions You Should Ask Your Would-Be Agent.

Tip: Use your spreadsheet to keep track of what you like about the agents you’re pitching. If they represent an author you admire, write that down. If something they said on their website resonates with you, take note. It’s very easy to lose track of who’s who when you’re juggling multiple agents, so get organized early!

Good luck in this process. It’s exciting and terrifying, and hopefully somewhat comforting to know that everyone who’s ever gotten published before you has been subjected to this process.

Until next month.

Brooke

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Book Marketing, Part 3 of a 3-Part Series: Marketing/Publicity

2011-04-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

This month we’ll be covering the third and final part of this three-part series, which to date has covered the Competitive Titles and About the Author components of the book proposal. With these two aspects behind us, we can now turn to “Marketing/Publicity,” arguably the most time-consuming and elusive part of the proposal. Marketing/Publicity, as I’m referring to it throughout this post, is a component of your book proposal, and it requires you to get comfortable using a little smoke and mirrors.

I’m not suggesting that you lie, but I am absolutely suggesting that you’re not required to deliver on everything you include in your Marketing/Publicity plan. This section of your proposal exists as a marketing tool, and its sole purpose is to make a case to your would-be agent or editor that you understand how to reach your readers. This is not the place to make a case for the fact that there’s an audience. You do that in another section of the proposal called “Target Audience.” This is the place to talk about where your readers hang out. It’s the place to make long lists of TV shows, radio stations, and magazines that might want to feature your work. If you have connections to any particular outlets, that’s wonderful, but again, it’s not required. The point of this section is to show the person reading the proposal that you get that you have to cast your net wide, and the more information you can pack in there, the better.

Tools to Drive It Home

1. Statistics: Use stats wherever possible to talk about your target demographic. Remember, it’s important to differentiate the Marketing/Publicity section from the Target Audience section. Here you’re using stats to say things like, “14% of family caregivers care for a special needs child—an estimated 16.8 million care for special needs children under 18 years old (National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP, 2009)” or “According to a 2005 article by Pew Internet & American Life Project, some 55% of adult internet users have looked for "how-to," "do-it-yourself," or repair information online, and roughly 1 in 20 internet users—about 7 million people—search for repair help on a typical day.” These are called “marketing points” in the industry because they make the case that there are real numbers to support your claim that there are people out there who will want to read your book.

2. Lists: I mentioned compiling lists of TV shows, radio shows, and magazines, but this also includes organizations, blogs, and ezines. Use any and all of these outlets as subheads in your Marketing/Publicity section to make an impression. If I were writing a spiritual memoir, for example, I might include a subsection that reads something like this:

Magazines
Women’s interest magazines regularly cover stories about women’s personal journeys. Warner’s story will appeal to mainstream readers of the following magazines:

Ladies’ Home Journal
Self
Ms. magazine
Woman’s Day
Redbook
O, The Oprah Magazine
Women Today

You might wonder about the point of including this kind of research in your proposal, but again, it’s a marketing tool. Agents and editors need all the ammunition they can get to make a case for your book. Agents are selling to editors and editors are selling to their Editorial Boards and ultimately to the reps who in turn sell your book to book-buyers who sell your book to consumers. The more robust your Marketing/Publicity section, the better equipped your agent or editor will be to make the case that you’re worth taking a risk on.

3. Your personal marketing plans and/or connections: The Marketing/Publicity section is also the place where you drive home any and all ideas, plans, connections, and favors you might be able and willing to pull. This may include possible speaking engagements even if they’re not yet booked. You could say you’ll approach your local JCC, for instance, even if they haven’t formally invited you to speak. As long as it’s true, you can say that you have a connection to Julia Roberts and that she may blurb your book. This is where the smoke and mirrors part comes in. You’re not necessarily having to deliver on all the things you propose, but you’re putting forth all of the things you think you can do. Don’t say you’re going to start a blog if you have no intention to do so, but do say that you’ll blog every day if you’re willing to, even if you’re not currently blogging every day.

The Marketing/Publicity section of your book proposal is meant to show the ways in which you’re thinking big—bigger than you might be feeling even. It shows that you’re thinking outside of the box and that when push comes to shove you’ll step up to the plate and be a strong collaborator who’s willing to go the distance to help your publisher sell books. Publishers are increasingly relying on their authors to bring the readers, and understanding this as you’re creating your Marketing/Publicity section is key. You honestly can’t go too big. And this is intimidating to a lot of folks. I’ve seen more than a few authors balk at the idea of having to sell themselves in this way. But trust me, it’s worth it. Put in the time to create a solid presentation. Hire someone to do the research if you need to. Putting forward a flimsy Marketing/Publicity section gives agents and editors a good reason to pass on your project. And giving it all you’ve got can make the difference between getting representation and a book deal and being left wondering why you got a rejection.

Until next month.

Brooke

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LISTEN: A conversation with Brooke & Linda Joy Meyers about Creative Nonfiction

2011-04-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I was invited to do another teleseminar with Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers.

This is a conversation about creative nonfiction and some of the points we cover include:
•What does this term mean to agents and editors?
•Does presenting your work as Creative Nonfiction give you a leg up or work against you?
•What’s problematic about Creative Nonfiction from a publishing perspective?
•Have public fallouts (like James Frey and Margaret Seltzer) changed the way publishers consider Creative Nonfiction?
•What do you need to know if you’re writing Creative Nonfiction and you want to sell it to a publishing house?

Thanks for listening.

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Book Marketing, Part 2 of a 3-Part Series: Your Bio

2011-04-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

Last month’s newsletter covered the importance of Competitive Titles in positioning your book.

I wrote that there are three marketing-related aspects to your book proposal that you need to understand and execute well if you want to sell your book in today’s publishing climate:

1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book

This month we’re covering #2, the About the Author section. This may seem like the most straightforward and easy section of the proposal, but if you’ve ever attempted to write your professional bio in this capacity you may already know that it’s actually quite hard.

The three most important things to know are:

1. Write your bio in the third person
2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
3. Make sure your bio sounds like you

1. Write your bio in the third person
It’s important to know that it’s not a dealbreaker if you write your bio in the first person; it’s simply more professional to write it in the third. It also gives you some distance from the content, allowing you to list your achievements and toot your own horn with a little more recklessness.

2. Don’t leave out anything important, even if it feels like your being boastful or repetitive
There are many opportunities to promote yourself throughout your book proposal. It’s a good idea to work on self-promotional language in the query letter, the overview, the marketing section (which we’ll cover next month), and even in the Comparative Title section. But there’s no aspect of the proposal quite like the author bio section. So don’t waste it! Just because you’ve already said something in the query letter doesn’t mean you should leave it out of your author bio. Too often authors leave out important information, like their website URL, or a specific achievement, because they’ve listed it elsewhere. Remember, the book proposal is an exercise in repetition. Most editors are skimming through it looking for things that pop out. And if you’re not comfortable saying how fantastic you are, work on it slowly. Create a “What’s Fabulous About Me” document and save it on your desktop. Add to it over time and allow yourself to be outrageous. Then you can weed out what truly doesn’t belong. In this competitive market, editors are looking for people who stand out, so your author bio is not a place to be humble or modest.

3. Make sure your bio sounds like you
Whether you’re writing a prescriptive how-to, a funny memoir, or your literary masterpiece, you employ a certain tone and style in your work—and you’ve probably found your voice by the time you’re working on your proposal. Use that voice in your proposal, too, and don’t drop it when you get to the author bio. Too often I see lists of accomplishments without much personality showing through. And while I tell my clients not to lead with their hobbies, it’s completely appropriate---even advisable---to include what you love in the last graph of your bio—including where you live and who you live with (partner, animals, children).

Until next month.

Brooke

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Book Marketing, Part 1 of a 3-Part Series: Positioning

2011-02-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

I’ve found that lots of aspiring authors are confused by what it means to market themselves. I often see proposals that are lackluster at best in the marketing components; or worse, proposals that claim there are no Competitive Titles (a big no-no). If you want to sell your book in today’s publishing climate, there are three aspects to your proposal that have everything to do with marketing:

1. Your Competitive Titles section, which is about positioning your book
2. Your About the Author section, which is about marketing you
3. Your Marketing/Publicity section, which is about marketing your book

For the sake of brevity, we’re only going to tackle one of these today---#1---and I’ll come back to the other two in future newsletters. I tend to choose topics based on where I’m seeing my clients struggle, and this month, in the small window I’m coaching on my maternity leave (see below for the baby photo), positioning is begging to be better understood.

What is positioning?

According to Wikipedia, “positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization.”

In book publishing, hours-long marketing meetings can be spent talking about positioning. The reason it’s tied to Competitive Titles is because those titles that are similar (note: similar does not mean the same) to your book help publishers figure out: a) whether your book belongs on their list in the first place; b) where your book belongs in the bookstore (ie, category); and c) how their publicists can pitch your book to media.

Understanding and knowing how you want to position your book before you shop it can increase your chances of getting a book deal. So, let’s look at a couple examples---one prescriptive and one memoir.

Example 1: Prescriptive Self-Help
One of my authors at Seal Press, Joan Price, came to me a couple years ago with an idea for a second book (Naked at Our Age is being published this spring). Her first book, Better Than I Ever Expected, was about senior sex, and though the book had performed well, our marketing department was reluctant to do another book solely focused on the same topic by the same author. Joan’s book, however, was equal parts sex and health, and the marketing team was very interested in a sex book that focused on health. This is where positioning came into play. It’s not that Joan had to write a different book. She, and by extension me as the editor, simply had to keep in mind that health was a key component to what she was doing. This meant more expert opinions. We floated the idea (though it ultimately didn’t happen) of getting an MD to write the book’s foreword to give it more health credentials. This small adjustment to the way we thought about and later pitched (read: positioned) Joan’s book was what allowed Seal to be able to publish it. It’s important to note that publishers don’t want replicas of books they've published in the past. They need and want fresh content. So if you’re approaching a press because they’ve done something similar to what you’re doing, help them out by being creative about your positioning. Make sure to tell them what’s unique about your book, and how it might be differently positioned from other similar titles on their backlists.

Example 2: Memoir
Memoirs are tricky because their positioning isn’t always as easy to manipulate. Although positioning has to do with how you talk about your book, the book itself does have to deliver. This example comes from one of my clients who wrote a spiritual memoir, and yet she and her agent positioned the book as both spiritual and as a Girl, Interrupted or Prozac Nation---meaning edgy, truth-telling, and raw. It was, in fact, a blend of all of these things, but in this writer's case, the positioning ended up being problematic for publishers. Many of the editors who saw it wanted the grittier, edgier book promised in the proposal, and some even suggested she lose the spiritual undertones. It’s probable that she could have reworked her book per editors’ suggestions and repositioned (and in her case cut) the book to make it work for a particular press. Or she could do what she did: decide that the spiritual aspect was integral to the work and to her story. This particular book still hasn’t sold (and the author moved on to writing another book), but I don’t think she regrets not having changed her book for other people’s vision.

When you’re in the seemingly enviable circumstance of having editors weighing in on your proposal and telling you they might be able to buy/publish it if you’d just . . . (fill in the blank), it’s important to be careful. This can be a great thing, and it can lead to being published. But it can also lead to you sacrificing the book you were meant to write. I’ve seen authors have their book hijacked by editors who were trying to make a book work. I’ve also seen authors get more closely aligned with their original visions for a book by editors who were trying to make it work. So it goes both ways.

So think about where you are with positioning, and do your homework on your Competitive Titles. Help your agent, and by extension your publisher, understand how you think about your book, and be open if they have other suggestions for you---but not to the extent that you sacrifice your original intentions or story.

Good luck, and until next month.

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Postscript. There was no January newsletter in the midst of my new motherhood haze. James Lyons came into the world on December 22. Thank you for all of your well wishes. I’m back to work, as I mentioned, in a limited capacity, but I’m happy to have squeezed a February newsletter out just under the wire.

James Lyons

Plan Your 2011 Sabbatical

2010-12-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

This Christmas season it seems that everywhere I turn, people are telling me about laying low, reassessing, taking time off, hibernating.

It’s true that winter lends itself to this already, and perhaps my own attunement to this message has to do with the imposed sabbatical that’s just around the corner as my partner and I wait for Baby James to arrive. Seasoned parents, I’m sure, will tell me that having a new baby is not a sabbatical, but I say, why not?

A sabbatical is, according to Wikipedia, a "ceasing," a rest from work, or a hiatus. For most of us, going nonstop at breakneck speed is just part of what we’ve trained ourselves to do. We’re working, starting and growing businesses, writing books, trying to stay on top of social media. This is only the beginning, and it’s literally exhausting.

One of my writers is taking the month of December off. My mom has devised a series of weeklong workshops for 2011 in which she’s inviting writers, artists, and entrepreneurs to come to her retreat center, Pine Manor, to gift themselves the space to just be with their creative process. Another of my writers, like me, is expecting a baby, and the invitation to approach her away from work as a sabbatical was a welcome relief from the self-imposed pressure she felt around taking time off.

We live in a culture that doesn’t value time off, and so we must carve it out for ourselves. We all know that stepping away from something gives us perspective, and yet too seldom do we actually heed our own instincts for fear that we’ll fall behind, or worse, fall completely off track.

This month I have an offering and an invitation. My offering is a poem by Mark Nepo, the brilliant teacher and poet I have the honor of representing at Three Intentions.

Kiss Everything on Fire

Everyone keeps stopping me with their urgency.
As if the secret of life was written in a corner
of their mind and before they could
read it, it burst aflame.
The first hundred times, I rushed to do their
bidding. Then one day, exhausted by my own
secrets burning, I stopped running and
kissed everything on fire.
And yes, it scarred my lip and now
I have trouble saying anything complicated,
but wind no longer gets trapped in my head.
I know you understand. I’ve seen you suffer
the secrets no one asked us to keep secret. I’ve
seen them burning up your mind. But today,
we can part the veils and let in whatever
it is we thought we had to keep out.
Today, urgency dies because the heart
has burned its excuses.

My invitation is to plan a sabbatical. Perhaps it’s just a week, but find a time to get away in 2011. Get it on your calendar and make no exceptions! It’s not so much a time to put your projects on hold as it is to approach them from a slower, more intentional place and see what’s there for you. Go on retreat, take a “staycation,” rent a beach house for a few days, find silence. And see what opens up when the urgency dies.

Until next month!

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Subheads, em-dashes, plural possessive, and other things I’m grateful for

2010-11-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Like many American families, ours honors the Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and saying what we’re thankful for each year. This year I have a lot to be grateful for, most especially my amazing partner and stepsons, and my first baby, James, who’s due on Christmas Day.

This year, after the Thanksgiving meal was over (and probably because I spent a lot of the weekend working), I started thinking of some of the less-often-recognized things for which I am thankful. This Thanksgiving season, therefore, I want to give a shout out to a few of my favorite editorial whatnots.

The Subhead

Because my professional career has been mostly devoted to nonfiction, I must profess my love of the subhead. Memoirists and novelists, you can bypass this section, but my feeling is that all writers should understand the value of the sub.

Subheads give us structure and hierarchy. They help readers by containing information and giving a sense of what’s to come. A good writer understands that the content that falls beneath a given subhead is meant to be contained to the subject matter the subhead professes to cover. The space under a subhead is like a bucket. Throw in everything you want to say about that topic, but don’t let it overflow or spill out. There’s skill to keeping relevant content within the constraints of the subheads you’ve delineated, and oftentimes I feel that one of my biggest job as an editor is helping people shove certain lines or paragraphs of text back under its appropriate sub after an author has accidentally let it leak.

Subheads come in different levels. Don’t be afraid to use A-level, B-level, and C-level heads. However, any time you make use of subheads, remember the cardinal rule: Do not open your chapter with a subhead. It conflicts with the chapter title and deprives the reader of some introductory and general text about the chapter they’re about to read.

A simplistic example of a chapter that uses multiple levels of subheads might look something like this:

Chapter 2. Best Desserts

There are so many good desserts in the world that narrowing them down to just a few in this chapter is going to be hard. I must also note that it’s a subjective exercise and you will only be reading about desserts I love to eat.

[A]Ice Cream

I love ice cream and I eat it every day. There are so many reasons I love it. I love the texture, the different flavors, and the fact that it’s a healthy dessert.

[B]Texture

The texture of ice cream varies, and I like it creamy or icy. I like it in milkshakes, too. I’m a fan of added elements as well, like cookie dough and Oreo and Heath bar. Crunchy or smooth, I’ll eat it.

[B]Flavors

Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, of course, but also Chunky Monkey and spumoni and orange sherbet.

[B]Health Value

Ice cream is high in protein. Many people may argue that the fat content cancels out the health benefits the protein offers. But I’ll just defer to a video posted at http://fasteasyfit.blogspot.com on how to make high-protein, low fat ice cream. I think these people are geniuses.

[C]Fat Content

According to CBS News, “A chocolate-dipped waffle cone at Ben & Jerry's has about 320 calories and 16 grams of fat. Add one scoop of Chunky Monkey ice cream and the total surges to 820 calories and 26 grams of saturated fat---roughly as much as a one-pound rack of ribs.” Hmmm … maybe I should consider cutting back on Chunky Monkey.

[A]Tiramisu

And then we start all over again…

Not all books require you to think about multiple levels of subheads. Many self-help books, for instance, tend toward using only A-level headers, and this is another fine choice.

I recommend that any author preparing to write a book think about their chapter outline---and subheads---when they sit down to write their summaries. Having a good outline is just like getting the foundation of your house done before you start putting up the walls. It shows you where to build, and in the end, it also makes for a better reading experience for the public out there who will be clamoring for your book.

I’m thankful for subheads because I’m a structure freak, I admit it. But if you have a book that would benefit from structure and hierarchy, you should become one too. And give thanks to the subhead's capacity to organize your information and keep you on track!

The Em-dash

The em-dash is my favorite punctuation mark, hands down. However, too many people misuse it and/or don’t know the key command to get an em-dash into their writing.

Mac key command: option+shift+hyphen

PC key command: Alt+0151

Good alternative: pressing the hyphen three times in a row, like this ---

The em-dash should never have spaces around it. Do not --- as shown here --- have spaces on either side of your em-dash. Em-dashes need to run up right against the text---like this---and always get closed up on the other side. It’s fine, too, to end a sentence on other punctuation following an em-dash---because that’s allowed, too!

The em-dash exists to show a break in thought or a shift in tone. It’s also used to convey an aside---because our minds tend to wander---when we’re otherwise very much on track with an idea. A sentence that’s broken by an em-dash should make perfect sense and read as a complete sentence when you read it without the em-dash. Taking the above sentence as an example:

“It’s also used to convey an aside ~~---because our minds tend to wander---~~when we’re otherwise very much on track with an idea.”

I’m thankful for the em-dash because it’s pretty and I've always loved it, but it's way too often shoved aside by people mistakenly using en-dashes ( – ) or hyphens ( - ). Learn to love em-dashes like I do, but once you do, resist overusing them. You shouldn’t, for instance, use them when you should be using commas. But if you don’t use them at all, start today!

Plural Possessives

I’m not going to get into the rules of plural possessive here. If you want a good little write-up, click here. The only reason I bring it up is to highlight that names ending in “s” get the possessive apostrophe-s tacked onto the end just like any other proper noun. This is a self-serving addition because we’re naming our new baby James, and I figure he's in for a lifetime of seeing this like "James' room is cool." Also, there's a new edition (16th) of Chicago Manual of Style, the Bible of all editorial style choices. The 15th edition exempted Jesus and Moses from the plural possessive. So while we would still write about James’s choices, we would only speak of Jesus’ followers. This has now changed and there’s one single rule for everyone, dead or alive. They all get the apostrophe-s. Thank you, Chicago 16! Yes, very small things make editors happy.

I’m thankful for the plural possessive (and specifically the s-apostrophe-s rule, because it’s hard to have a first or last name that ends in “s.”And it's hard to remember exceptions to the rule. So life just got that much easier for everyone.

And Other Things I’m Grateful For

I’m thankful for my readers, my clients, and my authors and for all of you who put time and energy into good writing. For those of you who value good writing. For those of you who read books---and who buy books! Thank you. I’m thankful to people who have the ambition and passion to write, and I’m thankful for all the many many types of writers and projects that come my way. People’s creative depths inspire me week in and week out.

Until next month,

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

She Writes Live webinar, December 8th (10am PST/1pm EST)

2010-11-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

"EVERYTHING YOU WANT AND NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GETTING YOUR NONFICTION BOOK PUBLISHED IN TODAY'S PUBLISHING CLIMATE"

Weds Dec 8 10am-11am PT | 1pm-2pm ET, via web and call-in
Hosted by Deborah Siegel

Writing as Meditation, with a Twist

2010-10-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

There are many deterrents to writing. Every writer knows that. Top Five (off the top of my head) are:

(1) Procrastination (ie, everything in my life, including the dishes, comes before my writing);
(2) High expectations, leading to paralysis (ie, I don’t want to write a shitty first draft and have some unfounded expectation that my first draft be perfect);
(3) I’m going to hurt someone’s feelings or mischaracterize what really happened (curse of the memoirist who’s trying to protect everyone else);
(4) I’m too busy with work, school, social life, kids, etc. (very similar to #1 as it also leads to paralysis, but these types of excuses often help us feel more validated because they feel very legitimate);
(5) It feels like an obligation (ie, you’re not having fun).

Do any of these barriers sound familiar? (And by all means, if you have others please leave them in the COMMENTS below! Who loves to commiserate more than writers, after all?)

So how do you pull yourself out of the funk? I talk with my writers extensively about scheduling, but that can only take you so far. Getting when you’re going to write on your calendar is critical, but it doesn’t solve the fact that all writing deterrents are psychological barriers, not actual time barriers.

Last month, one of my writers had a breakthrough, and she’s given me permission to share it here. She was struggling with a few of the above sentiments, and we talked about writing as meditation. I suggested to her, as I do to many of my writers, to create a sacred space. You can light candles, say a mantra before you start, do meditative breathing—whatever it takes to help you set an intention around your writing. And as you do all of these things, you commit yourself to your hour, two hours, three hours, what have you.

This process worked for my client, but she added a spunky twist, inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, which I posted about in February 2009. She scooped up an uglydoll and named it Genius and placed it in her writing space. Not only does Genius delight her every day, he reminds her to have fun, that it doesn’t have to be perfect, and that Genius doesn’t have to look a particular way. After all, this guy is UGLY!

I love this extra little structure my client created because for two reasons: (1) It’s working for her. She’s more productive and inspired than she’s been in months; and (2) It’s a reminder to shake it up a little bit. I do believe in setting intentions and creating space—both physical and emotional—to write. But it’s actually quite difficult for some people to make this a priority, to really make it happen. Everyone likes the idea of cultivating space, of setting an intention, of writing their six or nine or twelve hours a week, but only the most disciplined writers I know succeed at this week in and week out—and that's because they live their practice.

For those of you struggling to live your practice, consider something special to add to your writing space. Invite in Genius, or Inspiration, or Creativity. Assign it to an object that’s going to make you smile or catch your attention. Have fun with it! If you’re anything like the writer who dubbed her uglydoll Genius, you’ll discover that motivation sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.

Until next month!

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Think like a publisher (plus a few insider tips on industry bad habits)

2010-09-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

For an industry that’s in the business of creativity, most publishing houses are actually extremely uncreative. (Caveat: I’m speaking mostly of bigger houses and mostly of nonfiction.)

If you want to get your nonfiction work published on a mainstream press, here’s a few insights into how to think like a publisher:

•Recognize that there is no such thing as a new idea. Editors have seen everything, and any attempt by you to say that you’re doing something that’s never before been attempted or done is only going to make you sound like an amateur. In that vein, do your competitive title research and do it well. The deeper the analysis and the more books you add to your list of comps, the more you’re helping your own cause.

•Understand that what you think is important about your book might not be what a publisher thinks is important about your book. Most editors get into publishing because they love to read, and/or maybe love to write. And most of us probably think we know a good book when we see one---that’s our job, after all. But good writing is not enough. I’ve turned down plenty of memoirs for being too literary, actually. And why is that? Because the longer we’re in the industry the more we’re trained to think like marketing people. I have fallen in love with books that are great reads, but in today’s publishing climate what’s far more important than your talent is proving to the marketing department that there’s an audience for your book. Spend time thinking about marketing. Do not assume that the most important thing about your book is the writing and/or the originality of the manuscript.

•Know that publishers are actually not very good at reaching readers. I know, this might seem like an insane thing to say, but it’s true. Publishers have relationships with media, and every good publicist’s job is to get the word out. Then it’s the media that attracts the readers to the book. Understand that it’s your job to create relationships---through your blog, Twitter, getting out and speaking, organizing events, workshops, etc. Whatever you have to do. The more you can think about your readers early on and identify who they are, the more you’re going to be able to make a case for publication, and then actually sell books once your book is published.

INDUSTRY BAD HABITS
While it’s helpful to think like a publisher, I also think knowing some of publishing’s bad habits helps authors be in relationship with publishers. After all, any one of us in relationship with someone knows that you have to take the good with the bad. So on that note, here are a few things you should know so you’re not surprised if and when it comes up later:

•Publishers ghettoize books. Whether it’s for the Library of Congress or to help local bookstores know where to shelf books, publishers need to categorize---and some categories actually do a disservice to the book by limiting their visibility and appeal. Knowing your category is important because books do get lost because of category. I’ve seen it happen. Bad categories for books include: gay/lesbian; essays; Latino studies; African-American studies; women’s studies. Notice a trend? Yes, publishing (and I would argue that this isn’t necessarily intentional and has more to do with an unwillingness to think creatively) works against women and minorities.

•Publishers copy each other. Every once in a while I feel envious of my colleagues who work for New York houses, if only because I can feel out of the loop out here in Berkeley. That said, most often I feel grateful. Why? Because Manhattan is the ultimate creative bottleneck. If you can get on the inside publishing track in New York, you can have a great writing career simply by merit of who you know. But for the rest of you, all you have to do is follow publishers marketplace for a couple days before you start noticing trends. We’re all buying the same books over and over and over again.

•Publishers don’t make good business decisions. Publishers are notoriously risk-averse, and yet they throw huge money (sometimes) at books for incomprehensible (at times) reasons. Sometimes books go to auction because of the hype (refer back to the insularity of Manhattan publishing and how agents and editors talk to each other about the next sure bet). Unless the author is a celebrity, however, throwing $100,000+ advances honestly doesn’t make sense. A book has to sell through 100,000 copies to break even on a $100,000 advance, and I could come up with a pretty short list of books that have managed to do that. Huge advances are not as common as they used to be, but my personal opinion is that it screws the midlist author with a good book who has the potential to earn out a midlevel ($15,000-$30,000) advance. How? Because ALL the resources are going to the author who got paid $100,000. And if you are that big advance author and your book doesn’t work, watch out. I’ve heard of more than a few authors whose publishers stopped taking their calls.

•Publishers will base your potential sales on sales tracks of other books that may have nothing to do with your book. That’s right! This is why it’s important to think outside of the box when you’re compiling your comparative titles. Anyone who’s worked on a proposal with me knows how much I harp on the importance of comparative (synonymous with competitive) titles. What, those aren’t really synonyms? Exactly! But they’re one in the same where publishing is concerned, so start to think about books that are like yours for ANY reason: voice, scope, category, theme—it’s all fair game.

ON A HAPPIER NOTE
I know some of you have come to rely on my optimism, so here are a few parting thoughts:

1. There are legitimate and good reasons to look within yourself for a greater reason to finish your book than just getting published on a mainstream press. Shopping your book, especially before it’s finished, can be a creative buzzkill. If you’re in the flow and you believe in your work, keep writing!

2. There are lots of signs pointing toward a Brave New World of book publishing. No, we’re not there yet, but many authors are choosing not to get discouraged and just publish their work themselves. If you’ve been reading my newsletters for any amount of time, you know I’m a fan of self-publishing---as long as you have an online presence and a way to reach your readers. This July 19 keynote by Seth Godin speaks to mistakes publishers make (some of which I’ve covered here) and why he thinks authors with audience and platform shouldn’t even bother with traditional publishers. Take the time to listen. It’s a great conversation-starter.

Social Networking: Keeping It Simple

2010-08-15T10:24:00.001-07:00

Last month I facilitated a weekend-long writing/publishing workshop in Bellingham, Washington. In workshops I like to gauge the temperature of the crowd to see what concerns and anxieties people have. Our group was 27 strong, so there were a lot of them, but overwhelm and how to juggle new technology/social media was one that stood out.

Lots of writers I work with are concerned with staying on top of social media. We’re talking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, SecondLife, and a many many others. Recently, in a mastermind group I’m a part of, a hardworking entrepreneurial woman in the group was sharing about backlinking her Digg, del.icio.us, Foursquare, and more. I only vaguely understood what she was talking about.

There are writers out there who are tremendously tech-savvy, and of course many others who are not. Most people are drawn to write because they love words, not because they love computers and html. And yet, the power of social media, and the importance of having an online presence and traffic, makes it so that you—the aspiring (or especially published) author—MUST in fact care and tend to your social media. But you can keep your social networking in check.

After all, you might ask, where does anyone find the time? Good question. The majority of the writers I work with are struggling to find time to WRITE. I try to get all my writers (except those maniacs who write every day) to get on a three-by-three schedule (3 hours, 3 days a week). But that’s just for the writing alone. Social media could easily take up that much time or more a week—and for some people it does. (For a great read on being obsessed with being connected, check out this essay by Gary Shteyngart.)

If you want to publish, at least do Facebook and Twitter—and update them. You really can get away with only doing these two, in addition to having your own website. You can link your accounts so that every Facebook post also updates Twitter, releasing you from the burden of double-posting. Later, once you publish your book, you’ll need to make a fan page for it. As far as other forms of social media go, I think it’s important to ask yourself how much time you are willing and able to commit; and it’s not just about time. It’s mental energy being expended into the universe in a particularly deliberate way. I know people who can’t go out to dinner without updating their status mid-meal. If this strikes you as problematic, set a schedule and some ground rules about when and what you’ll post online.

In her recent New York Times article, Peggy Orenstein wrote about the ways in which Twitter propagates life as performance. She writes:

“The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity.”

This is coming from a self-professed fan of the medium. Everything I’ve read about Twitter suggests that we’re waiting to see its actual capacity to sell things. It’s so much a part of the social networking landscape that it’s not going anywhere, but it still feels like people haven’t quite figured out how to harness its real power—and by power I guess I mean influencing decision-making and consumer choices. Interestingly, the authors of a book I edited called The Choice Effect did a free Kindle giveaway of their book, largely promoted through Twitter. The result: 10,000 copies downloaded. So the viral capacity of Twitter is nothing to bat an eye at; the question is, how do authors (or anyone) get similar results for things that aren’t free?

If you’re working on a book now and don’t Facebook or Twitter, start now. Do consider how connected you want to be, though. Three posts a week is a solid place to start. And keep a check on how into it you get. Try to keep it relevant to your work and/or process. If you start needing to post to Facebook every time you’re doing something fun with your family or friends, you might want to reel it in. After all, there's a name for what you might be setting yourself up for: Internet addiction disorder.

Practice, Process, Publish: July 24 - 25, 2010, at The Chrysalis Inn & Spa

2010-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Presents:

A Summer Writing Workshop: Practice, Process, Publish
July 24 - 25, 2010 at The Chrysalis Inn & Spa

General Info:

Join Senior Editor and Writing Coach Brooke Warner and Award Winning Writer and Teacher Laura Kalpakian for an intimate and inspiring weekend of workshops, hands-on classes and one-on-one discussion. Take advantage of this intimate opportunity to ask questions and move forward with your individual writing goals.

Saturday, July 24 – 8:30am - 5:00pm
Sunday, July 25 – 8:30am - Noon

The Chrysalis Inn & Spa, Bellingham, WA
$150.00 per person (includes coffee and snacks)
15-minute consultations with Brooke Warner are available on Sunday for an additional $20
For information and to sign up, call Cami at 206.890.8694 or email us at CLOSTMAN@live.com.

Improve your writing Practice:

• Soul searching---defining and redefining your project
• Where to start when you’ve got more than one project in mind
• The importance of structure, scope, angle, and hook
• Writing with “relatability” and universal conclusions in mind
• Getting out of the way so the book that wants to be written comes through
• Creating accountability: schedules, deadlines, and discipline

Learn about the writing Process:

• Effective editing---the right questions to ask as you revise and develop
• Tips for seeing and shaping your work with new eyes
• How to revise creatively throughout the writing process
• Hands on practice with new techniques

Get ready to Publish:

• The dos and don’ts of publishing---secrets of a pro
• Marketing yourself---why you need a platform
• Deconstructing query letters and proposals
• How to stand out from the crowd
• Building relationships with editors and agents
• Digital, self-publishing and the future

Register Today! Enrollment Limited

Cash, Check, and Paypal Accepted

Contact Cami @ Write on Bellingham:

206.890.8694 or email at CLOSTMAN@live.com

PO Box 29043

Bellingham WA 98228

Workshop Schedule

Saturday, July 24

8:30am - Noon, Practice and Process, Brooke Warner

12pm - 1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm - 4:30pm The Writer and Creative Revision, Laura Kalpakian

4:30pm - 5:00pm Day 1 Wrap Up

Sunday, July 25

8:30 am - noon The Inside Scoop on Publishing, Brooke Warner

noon - 3:00pm Individual Consultations Available with Brooke

Guest Bios

Brooke Warner is Senior Editor at Seal Press, publisher of women’s nonfiction books, written for women, by women. Brooke has been in the publishing industry for over ten years and has been coaching and consulting individual writers for the past three years. She specializes in coaching writers through the completion of their book proposals and manuscripts and helping them to identify the best route to getting published. Brooke works with writers across many genres, including writers of nonfiction, from women’s issues to mind/body/spirit, novelists, memoirists, poets, and essayists. Read more about Brooke on her website and see her list of acquisitions.

Laura Kalpakian is the author of ten novels, including The Memoir Club, Steps and Exes, and most recently, American Cookery, nominated for the 2007 IMPAC/Dublin Literary Award. Her stories are published in the UK and USA, and gathered into three prize-winning collections. Her memoirs and essays have appeared in quarterlies and anthologies. She has long taught both Memoir and Fiction classes in Washington.

The Chrysalis Inn Location:

804 10th Street
Bellingham, WA 98225

Platform versus Passion

2010-06-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

This past month I went to back-to-back conferences. One was an entrepreneurial program and the other was Book Expo. At both conferences, I ended up talking and thinking a lot about books. The two conferences exemplified to me two writing extremes: the platform writer and the passion writer. They’re not mutually exclusive. I’d argue that the most successful writers are those who have figured out how to be both. But this is what they look like:

The platform writer wants to have a book to boost their credibility and professional legitimacy. I met a lot of these people at the entrepreneurial conference I went to. They’ve heard they should have a book, that it'll bring in more clients and speaking gigs, make them experts in their fields. A lot of these people just wish someone would write their book for them. They want to be spending their efforts on their business, where there’s real moneymaking potential. In their mind, a book looks good and they want it to be something their proud of, by their identity isn’t too wrapped up in the process or the publication itself.

Then there’s the passion writer. These are the writers I end up talking to at BEA. Because it’s not a good venue to pitch your book, those writers who do pitch books at BEA have generally paid a lot of money or finagled their way in there to get to agents and editors. My heart goes out to these people because they are definitely in the passion category. They care so much about their projects. They’re projects are their babies. Women often use pregnancy and laboring metaphors when they speak to you about their process, and far too frequently these writers are too attached to their projects and don’t understand that good writing doesn’t make up for a nonexistent platform.

So . . .

If you are one or the other of these writers, don’t despair. It’s not a bad thing to be a platform writer or a passion writer. It’s just important to know which you are. Why?

Because if you’re the former then you might want to adjust your strategy a little bit. You might want to hire someone who can transcribe or ghostwrite. You might want to consider self-publishing your first book to get your feet wet and to have something immediately available to your clients. Start with a downloadable e-book.

If you’re the latter, then you might benefit from taking a day off a week from your writing to focus on your platform. Publishing is changing so much, and it’s harder than it’s ever been to get published without a platform. You can build a platform, yes, which I’ve written about in a previous post. But also, importantly, don’t assume that your book is one of a kind. I personally advise my clients to love their books, yes, feel passionate about them, but help agents and editors help you by understanding the books that are similar to yours. And don’t be so tied to your words and your concept that you can’t change if and when someone comes to you with feedback, editorial remarks, or because they want to publish you.

The vast majority of you probably see yourself a little bit in both of these scenarios. And that’s okay. It should be a healthy balance. When you pitch yourself to an editor or an agent you want to be informed. You want to wow. The platform part tells the industry professional that you know what’s up, that you’re worth taking a risk on. (Because unless you have proven book sales from a previous book, you’re a risk.) The passion part tells the industry professional that you’re willing to kick your butt into high gear, that your book means the world to you and that you’re not going to get sick and tired of it (even though you will).

It’s a hard act to balance---to be both kinds of writers. Neither extreme makes for an ideal publishing candidate, and being just in the middle is a lot to ask of yourself. So just feel into which is more true of you, and consider that you might need to focus your energy, your proposal, your attention on the other when you go to present yourself and your book to the world.

Brooke meets up with a skeptical Jon Stewart at BEA:

Until next month.

Brooke

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Know your hook before you pitch

2010-05-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you for submitting your proposal to Seal Press. Unfortunately, your project doesn’t have enough of a hook or angle for me to be able to truly define what you’re doing to my Editorial Board and sales team. I appreciate your story, but I’m afraid it’s a bit too vague and sprawling for us to be able to pursue your project for our list.

Sincerely,
Brooke Warner
Senior Editor, Seal Press

This is typical of rejection letters I write in my role as Editor at Seal. In fact, there are more submissions than not that fall into this category of too diffuse, too big, too sprawling, too vague—even too common. All writers, but especially writers of memoir, must must understand that they need to define a unique angle in their pitch, cover letter, and/or manuscript.

I hear and read pitches all the time that that do nothing to give me a unique sales handle, nothing to tell me what’s different about their book, or alternately (flip side of the same coin) what’s similar to other books that are on the market. I’ve talked in previous newsletters about the difference between high concept and low concept books, and it’s not so much that you have to have a high concept, but you do need to help the agent or editor you want to publish with make their job easier.

This vagueness happens so often in memoir because memoirists are trying to tackle the landscape of their lives. Unless you're famous, your life story is not enough. Typical submissions might look like: (1) a writer’s life story from point A to point B, (2) a writer’s experience as a mother, (3) a writer’s bizarre set of experiences that led them to where they are today. And it’s a conundrum, because there are writers who get published under these scenarios. After all, #1 could be Eat, Pray, Love; #2 could be Operating Instructions; and #3 could be Running with Scissors. But Elizabeth Gilbert, Annie Lamott, and Augusten Burroughs were/are writers with well-established platforms. For the average writer trying to catch a break, the hook can make or break the deal.

As a case study, I’ll share the example of a memoir I edited at Seal called Loaded, by Jill Talbot. When Jill first approached me with a book idea, she actually proposed an entirely different book. It was going to be coauthored with a friend and the title was South of 30, which the authors described as “a collaboration, a collection of essays, that creates a conversation as well as our own individual ruminations about life as women in our late thirties.” Not a bad concept, but too big? Yes. And ruminations about life? Definitely too vague. I rejected that proposal, but I was struck by Jill’s writing. So you could say she caught a break. I wanted to develop something with her. She was---is---a beautiful writer, and in a follow-up conversation she mentioned she’d been in rehab. It just so happened that I wanted a book about addiction at the time, and she was open to going down that road. And so we developed a proposal together that worked. The angle was clear: addiction. Addiction to alcohol, addiction to men, addiction to troubled relationships. The result is Loaded, and it’s a fantastic book that’s highly literary while still being high concept.

Not all of you will be lucky enough to develop a proposal for an editor who’s really interested in your book, but some of you might. Listen to people who work with books. Have conversations about hook. Look at the books you love and try to figure out if the hook is immediately apparent. Make sure your pitch is clear. The tighter your concept is, the more likely you are to get positive responses. And remember, this doesn’t mean that your writing has to be simple or that the scope of your book needs to be necessary scaled back. Your hook is not the entirety of the book, and it doesn’t need to be. Think of it like CliffNotes for your would-be agent or editor. We want to work with people who help us help them, and a well-defined hook goes way farther than you might think.

A special thanks to Jill Talbot this month for letting me share her story.

Until next month.

Brooke

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The future of feminism panel that wasn't

2010-04-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Warner Coaching readers, I have never before cross-posted with Seal, but I'm doing so because I realized I had a tremendous spike in the number of readers visiting this site over the weekend, which I think has to do with AWP. So here goes, for those of you who are interested in reading:

I flew to Denver this weekend to attend AWP. I was supposed to be sitting on a panel called The Future of Feminism, which Amy Scholder at The Feminist Press had organized quite some time ago.

We got the very last time slot of the conference: 4.30 on Saturday afternoon. I was prepared for a not-so-good turnout, but I’ve been to enough conferences to know that sometimes the biggest impact is made on the smallest groups.

When I showed up to my panel, this was the sign I saw on the door.

I had no notification, no advance warning, no opportunity to have made a different decision. I was, needless to say, bummed. At first I thought the conference had canceled the panel on our behalf, and I couldn’t understand why. Then, as woman after woman came by, some audibly disappointed, I started to feel genuinely upset.

One group of students from Western Washington University turned to me, and recognizing my name on my badge, asked if I would do a talk without my panel. I wish I had said yes. One of them said, “We thought it was so cool that this was going to be our last panel of the day. We were going to go out with a bang!”

As it turned out, Amy had a family emergency. These things happen. The other panelists decided, it seems, that they didn’t want to do the panel with so few people. Later that evening, at a meet up hosted by SheWrites, Lucy Bledsoe, a beloved Seal author who has a new novel out, asked me what happened. It was kind of ironic, she said. What does that say about the future of feminist publishing? And I had been thinking the same thing as I sulked back to my hotel room.

And because I wish I’d had the wherewithal to tear down that sign and just do a talk about feminist publishing, or about women and publishing at the bare minimum, I’ve composed a few thoughts that I might have highlighted had the panel happened:

1. We still have a presence.
The fact that presses like Seal and The Feminist Press, as well as Cleis and Belladonna and Firebrand, and many others (please comment and list yourselves!) are still out there publishing with a feminist mission is extraordinary. I meet with women all the time who think that feminism died with the second wave. They are thrilled to know that the younger generation is carrying forth messages about women’s equality, and that we don’t just sit idly by and think that all of the disparities have ceased to exist. There’s room for new feminist voices, and there’s a thriving online community of bloggers and activists (too abundant to list here) who are doing amazing work in the name of feminism. And lots of them are getting published.

2. There’s more than one kind of feminism.
Seal is increasingly publishing “mainstream” feminism, for which we’ve been criticized by some and commended by others. Whatever your feelings are about mainstream feminist writers, the good news is this: they reach a wider audience. We’re expected to bring in books that can sell---that’s the nature of the book business, even though lots of books don’t. So for us to be able to say that we have feminist books that sell well is, to me, a huge win. Notably is Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism, but there are many others. Some Seal books are overtly feminist in scope, while others simply have a feminist or pro-woman sensibility to them. That is critical to who we are, and it won’t change for as long as Seal continues to be around. I would have loved to hear what some of my fellow editors have to say about mainstream feminism and/or popular or celebrity feminism. And I want to note, in the interest of talking about a mainstream book that Seal has coming up in 2011, that we are publishing our first ever male authors*, Michael Kimmel and Michael Kaufman, who are writing a mainstream book that tackles feminism for men---and it’s actually targeted toward men (and not only their girlfriends, sisters, wives, and moms).

*It’s important to qualify here that Seal has published men in our anthologies, and we have two memoirs by trans men.

3. Women are keeping publishing real.
When it comes to accolades and honors it unfortunately seems to be the case that men are still getting more attention in the publishing industry than women. But I see women pushing the envelope. Women are bringing things that matter to their writing. Women are keeping it real. Sure, not all women are feminists, or they are and they don’t know it. This very complex issue of women and their feminisms was tacked in the Seal book Girldrive, by Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein. In my ideal world, every woman would call herself a feminist, but what I realize more and more is that all we really need to do is acknowledge that we care about the same things and that we are stronger than our differences. Feminism can be a torturously divided movement, and I hesitate to even call it that, though I’ll leave it for lack of a better word. If I were going to leave our would-have-been audience on one note, it would have to do with coming together. I don’t think the goal of feminism was ever for women to be more divided, but it can sometimes feel like that. At Seal, and I imagine this is true for my other feminist press colleagues as well, part of what we look for in our manuscripts is inclusiveness, a pro-woman sentiment, bridging the divides, educating our audience, and owning a uniquely female perspective on whatever the topic is---be it motherhood, social issues, organizing your life, or breaking out of your career rut.

So that's what happened. Because there are so many charged issues that come up around feminism, and because feminist publishing and feminist bookstores have been so obliterated over the past three decades, I thought Lucy's noting that it was indeed ironic that the panel was canceled couldn't have been more true. So I apologize to those of you who wanted to be there.

Thanks for reading.

Brooke

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4 Ways to Make Your Writing Feel New Again

2010-04-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

It’s Easter, so today’s topic has to do with rebirth, renewal, and getting reinspired. It’s timely, too. I have a handful of new clients who have reached out in the past couple weeks looking for a shot in the arm, and I have plenty of other long-timers who have hit a slump and are looking for ways to liven things up and make their projects sparkle.

So where do you find new inspiration? How do you get motivated when you’re asking yourself whether it’s all even worth it?

Share
Sharing your writing is key. Some writers are great about doing this, but some of you (you know who you are) are writing in such isolation that you simply have no gauge, no barometer for how well your work is going to stand up to criticism, to relevancy, to feedback. Many writers do this on purpose—because it’s scary to share your work. But if you’re in a slump, you absolutely must take that risk. Other people—whether they’re friends, a writing group, possibly even family—can breathe life back into your work and make you remember what it is you love about writing.

Hire someone
Hire a coach, an editor, or a reader to read your work and give you feedback. Ask them not to spare your feelings. Be open to seeing another person’s comments. Whether or not you integrate them into your story or book project is totally up to you. Comments from outside professionals are meant to open up a dialogue. It’s not about accepting edits hook, line, and sinker. Sometimes what someone else sees can open a doorway to an inspiration or creative depth you weren’t able to previously access.

Create something visual
SoulCollage® is a process I like to share with word-lovers because of its power to help highly articulate types get beyond the verbal. SoulCollage® is a special way of collaging, that asks you to rely solely on your intuition to create a 5 x 8 inch collage. See instructions here. You can do this on a larger scale, too, and create a Dream Board. The primary thing you’re looking to do here is get out of your head. To create something visual that gets you in touch with the nonverbal aspect of your creativity. You’ll be amazed at the power of your own imagination—and oftentimes Soul cards are so prescient that many months later you piece something together that you didn’t even notice upon first examination.

Change your process
There are lots of ways to do this. Try writing in a new place. Maybe your garden. Move your desk to a new location. Or get out of the house altogether. Go to a coffee shop or the library. Try writing in the morning if you usually write at night, or vice versa. Take a writing retreat. Gift yourself a weekend away, whether you stay at a B&B or a friend’s house, and commit to writing for the whole weekend. See what happens. Sometimes the key to getting reinspired is reconnecting with your characters (if you’re writing fiction) or reconnecting with your expertise and why you want to help people with your writing (if you’re writing self-help) or sitting with the power of your personal story (if you’re writing memoir). Whatever you do, make your process intentional, and commit to sticking with some changes to get you out of your rut.

These are my four suggestions, but if you have others you'd like to share, please do. We can all benefit from hearing about things that have really worked for others. And I welcome your stories and comments.

Until next month.

Brooke

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LISTEN: Who Needs Editing? No, Really…

2010-03-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I did a teleseminar with Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers. If you're writing memoir, you need to check out this website and become a member. She's doing amazing work, and there's so many great resources for writers.

The audio starts about ten seconds in, so hang in there! This is a discussion about the types of editing and my thoughts about the value of editing for writers, whether you're just starting out or already have a publisher.

Thanks for listening.

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Busting “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up”

2010-03-02T20:16:00.001-08:00

I had a fun and inspiring coaching call last week where one of my clients envisioned her proposal being well-received by publishers. We dreamed into the reality of what it would feel like to have multiple offers. We actually felt the joy and celebration of going through that experience. And it was delicious.

After I hung up I got to thinking about all the ways in which we don’t allow ourselves to dream. All the ways we keep ourselves from soaring. Our culture tells us, “Don’t get your hopes up.” All because the letdown will be too big. It’s easier to pick yourself up off the floor if you expect the worst, if you don’t allow yourself to feel into the probability of what’s possible.

Well, it’s time to call bullshit on all that. Getting our hopes up is the primary motivating factor behind everything we do. Anyone who’s ever succeeded at anything will tell you that they hoped and dreamed and believed that their dreams would come true.

And yet we do this thing of telling, professing, self-limiting. Almost every author I’ve ever worked with has confronted some variation of the demon who tells them they’re not good enough.

You’re not qualified to write this book/talk about this subject.
Who’s going to want to read what you have to say?
Your writing isn’t good enough to get published.
Why do you think you can do this?
Expect the worst.

Do any of these messages sound familiar? These are the pin needles to the balloon your spirit is trying to fly high. Recognize them for what they are.

Regardless of what you choose to believe in this month, test out where you stand on getting your hopes up. Do you allow yourself to believe in you, or do you squash that seed of hope before it starts to feel too good? Just check it out. If you find that you’re in fact not allowing yourself to soar, just do it. Believe that it will happen. You will be successful. You will write a book that everyone loves. You will get published. You will live the dream.

Until next month.

Brooke

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iPad, e-books, and price wars

2010-02-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

This has been an interesting couple weeks in publishing! The iPad is all the rage and it’s not even out yet. MacMillan became a publishing hero by standing up to Amazon, first insisting that it carry its e-books for $15 instead of $9.99 and then for refusing to back down after Amazon stopped carrying MacMillon’s books. Apparently the CEO even got a standing ovation at last week’s Fifth Annual Winter Institute (wi5), according to a tweet or two I caught last week. And The Onion even spoofed the whole thing. Quite a lot of play for publishing industry insiders. Usually if there’s any big publicity it’s about big-name authors, so I have to admit, it’s been a little exciting.

But what’s the what here? Publishing is changing. There’s no question that the iPad is going to be a game-changer. I laughed aloud when I read this aside from David Carr in the New York Times last week (because it's so dead on):

"To emphasize that a new competition in the book space was underway, Mr. Jobs lingered over a slide of the Kindle, a device that looked like it had been manufactured by Mennonites by comparison, even as he gave Amazon due credit for building out a robust new business."

The Kindle is just two years old and already it’s about to become obsolete. I own one, and I know I’m not going to be the only person to wish I’d saved my $300 when I get my hands on an iPad.

I’m happy that e-books are going up in price. It seems right to me, given how much work goes into creating books. It’s true that there will ultimately be fewer costs for e-books. No paper. Easier distribution (maybe). But we’re certainly not there yet. And the truth is that so so few authors make real money on their books.

This is an interesting time to be in publishing. Things are changing so fast that it seems hasty to jump too quickly to buy the next new thing, even if it is coming from Apple. The truth is that the Second Gen Kindle is way better than the first. And there’s no question a later version of the iPad will be significantly better than the original. And Apple puts out products faster than reality TV stars fade into oblivion. And at $499, I would put a lot of money (maybe even $499) on the price going down within a year.

It’s tough to resist when iPad pulls out all the stops, but if you can wait or are wondering whether you should wait—--wait.

Until next month.

Brooke

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following through on resolutions

2010-01-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday in my yoga class, the teacher, Jason, noted that he could feel the expectation in the room. And there a lot of extra grunting and pushing. A lot of sighing. A lot of people trying to do their very best poses. He reminded us that our practice was not about yesterday’s class. And because the class faces a mirrored wall, I saw a lot of people nodding and smiling and breathing a sigh of relief in response.

It reminded me of my favorite writing metaphor: the marathon. I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but the new year is always a point at which we take stock of the year we're facing. And this time around it’s a new decade to boot.

Where do you want to be January 1, 2011?
Where do you want to be January 1, 2020?

More specifically, where do you want to be with your writing on January 1, 2011? Where do you want to be with your writing on January 1, 2010?

Really think about it. And then make a reasonable schedule that allows you to accomplish your goal, not like a person who hasn’t run in over a year and decides to accomplish a marathon next weekend, but like a sane person who sets a reasonable training schedule and some points to hit along the way.

Many of my writers come barreling out the new year gate with huge aspirations. Huge aspirations lead to the expectations that Jason noticed among my fellow yogis yesterday. And huge aspirations usually lead to huge disappointments. You can’t keep it up. Just like you wouldn’t be able to go out and do a 15-mile training run tomorrow if you haven’t worked up to it, you’re not going to be able to start writing every morning at five AM, seven days a week for two hours every morning, if that’s not already your schedule. The better thing to do would be to commit to two or three mornings a week so that you don’t start to resent your new, impossible-to-manage schedule.

Take your resolution in stride. Or better yet, don’t make a resolution. Make a lifestyle choice. Choose to honor yourself and your writing by allocating as much time to it as you would to, say, your weekly television intake. If you watch a drama or two and two or three sitcoms a week, plus the news, chances are you’re at least watching four to five hours of television a week. And that’s a conservative estimate for most of us.

Just consider where you’re putting your time. And remind yourself again where you want to be a year from now, and a decade from now.

Go ahead and make a commitment to bring it in the 2010s!

Until next month.

Brooke

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The What’s What of Writers’ Groups

2009-12-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

From time to time one of my readers will ask me to write about a particular topic, which I love (so go ahead and request away!) This writer's request was about how to start a writers’ group. Unless you know some writers you respect enough to want to get together with on a regular basis, or you get invited to join a group, knowing where to start can actually be a pretty daunting task.

Starting your own group
There are a few different possibilities here.
1. Email friends and friends of friends to gauge interest. Maybe people in your immediate circle have been writing for years and you don’t even know it. Too many writers can keep their passions and talents on the down-low, so don’t assume you don’t know any writers just because people aren’t sharing their work with you on a regular basis.

2. Go to your local bookstore (preferably an indie, since they’re way more involved with the community than your average Barnes & Noble). Ask the person who works there if they know of any local writing groups, or if they’d be willing to post something for you on their bulletin boards—physical or online.

3. Find out if you have a local writers club. I live in California, and the California Writers Club has eighteen branch websites! This is a great way to meet other writers. Attend their meetings and see who you connect with. You may find an immediate connection and grow from there.

4. If you want to work within a particular genre, consider looking into memoir groups, or fiction groups. The National Association of Memoir Writers, run by Linda Joy Myers, offers regular teleseminars (I’m going to be leading one in March 2010, so stay tuned) and workshops. This is a great place to connect with other writers who are doing memoir, and possibly to develop a group based on the connections you make there. A fun fiction outlet is National Novel Writing Month (popularly known as NaNoWriMo). This would be a good place to connect with other fiction writers online. Anyone who attempts to write a novel in a month demonstrates at least a willingness to throw themselves into something headfirst. And those might be your kind of people, just waiting for something more long-term to come along.

5. Go to book readings and strike up a conversation with the people there. You’re very likely to find writers at readings. It’s just the way it goes. Writers and book people attend lots and lots of readings!

A word of caution
I’d advise you against posting on Craigslist or Meet-up groups. I'm sure there are a number of success stories out there, but you’re most likely going to have better luck going with one of the abovementioned strategies. The group you’re creating has to be a safe space where you can feel free to share your most intimate stories and self. It can feel very vulnerable to share your writing with others, so going about finding a group you really mesh with is important---and it might take some time.

What are the parameters of your group?
Before you even start looking for people to join your group, know the answer to the following questions and get clear on what you want. Write down your answers so that you remember what you want, and so you bring to you the group you want to be a part of.
• How many people do I want in my group?
• Do I want men and women in my group?
• How often would I like my group to meet?
• Do I want writers who write in any genre, or only in my genre?
• Do I care if the people in my group are at different experience levels?
• Do I require a certain level of discipline from the other writers in my group?
• Do I expect my group to be a critique group or a support group?

Some things to consider for your first meeting (or even before your first meeting):
Make sure you take your first meeting to discuss the expectations of the group.
• What kind of feedback does each person want?
• Do you all agree to send writing ahead of the meeting and read beforehand, or will you read at the beginning of the meeting?
• Will you go around and discuss each person’s writing each meeting, or will you focus on one person per meeting?

You may also decide to create a confidentiality agreement. This can be in writing or verbal, but I recommend it as a way to honor the space you will be inhabiting with your fellow writers. The confidentiality agreement simply states that you all agree that what you are sharing is for the eyes of the group only and that no one in the group will discuss the writing or what’s shared outside of your group. It should be clear why a confidentiality agreement is important, but don’t just assume it. Speaking your intentions will get your group off on the right track.

Good luck and may you find a group that supports you or challenges you or simply helps to keep you writing!

I’d like to thank Linda Joy Myers of The National Association of Memoir Writers for her input on this post.

Until next month.

Brooke

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Brooke on Being Woman---a radio show with Sara Connell

2009-11-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

This is an hour-long radio show I did with Sara Connell, who hosts Being Woman: A Journey and an Experience. This was a conversation about women and the creative process. I invite you to listen here or download it here. Go to the bottom of the page. It's Episode 3.

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Getting Comfortable with Self-Promotion

2009-11-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

Because there was so much to cover in the self-publishing breakdown for my September newsletter, I wanted to take this month to follow up with Part 2: self-promotion, publicity, and marketing your book.

The fact is that publicity and marketing isn’t going to look so different whether you’re a self-published author or an author with a book deal. Nowadays EVERYONE needs to do their own publicity. (The reason for this is yet another blog post.)

Most new writers wonder where to start, but the first question, really, is when to start. Answer: Start today. There are some easy and effective things you can do to start to at least get your feet wet.

#1. If you don’t have a blog, start one.
Free blog sites include:
Blogspot (what this site is on)
Tumblr
Typepad
Wordpress

#2. Start a profile on Facebook and start building up your friend base.

#3. Get up and running on Twitter. Good news! You can link your Facebook status updates to Twitter, which means that you only have to update Facebook and you’ll be tweeting automatically.

Most writers understand the value of being online, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you of its merits. It is important. And it can be less daunting than it seems. One word of advice: Start slow. If you don't even know what "tweeting" means, just sign up for Twitter and start following one or two people. Follow me! Most of my writers who stumble around self-promotion tend to do so out of overwhelm. But that’s where the 1-2-3 punch comes in: 1) blog; 2) Facebook; 3) Twitter. When you post to one, post to all three. This is what we call “repurposing your content.” You don't have to come up with new and exciting things to write about all the time. Post once a week. Think of it as writing a note to a good friend about what you're up to.

In September I interviewed a couple of self-published authors and shared their stories with you. One of those authors, Rosie Sorenson, generously shared her marketing and publicity strategies for her self-published book, They Had Me At Meow.

They Had Me At Meow is a memoir about the feral cats at Buster Hollow and Rosie's care and rescue of those cats. Though her book fills a very particular niche, Rosie’s marketing strategies can serve as a template for any writer who wants to get the word out there about their book. Here’s a sampling of some of the things she’s done, and things she’s still doing:

1. Set up a website and joined social networking sites.
Rosie’s site is www.theyhadmeatmeow.com. She’s also on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as LinkedIn and Filedby. She also set up a page on the Poets and Writers website.

2. Created unique video content and posted it to YouTube.
Rosie created a book trailer that includes some of the cats featured in her books. In addition to being on YouTube, they’re also posted to her website.

3. Sent the book out for early endorsement.
Sent the book to prominent people in the area of interest of the book. Among them were the cat program manager of the Humane Society of the United States, who ended up writing the foreword, and the founder and former director of Fix Our Ferals in Berkeley, who wrote an introduction.

4. Set up her own book readings.
Rosie organized a reading at her local independent bookstore as a benefit for Fix Our Ferals, The Humane Society of the United States, the Marin Humane Society, and Marin Cat Connection. She invited representatives from each of these organizations to appear with her on a panel. In addition to reading from her book, she also presented a slide show. Eighty people attended and she sold 35 books. She also organized readings at a Barnes & Noble in Oakland, CA.

5. Secured corporate sponsors.
This isn’t possible for every book, but if you have a book with a cause, setting up sponsorship can be a wonderful way to get more promotional copies out into the world. Rosie used the books purchased with corporate dollars for community outreach, humane education, and fundraising.

6. Pitched herself to TV and radio.
Rosie appeared on a local show, “Bay Area People,” on KTVU-2. The broadcast is available at Comcast On Demand and YouTube, which Rosie highlights on her website. Rosie did a radio interview with Bonnie Colleen’s program, “Seeing Beyond,” which is broadcast throughout Northern California. Radio opportunities are vast, and pitching yourself to a radio show that’s in line with your audience can be a stepping stone to other publicity opportunities. Rosie has recently pitched two other radio shows and three other TV programs and she’s waiting to hear back.

7. Sent out post-publication copies for more endorsements and reviews.
Rosie was able to garner more reviews and blurbs for her book once it was out. She sent her finished book to Self-Publishing Review and the editor there wrote a positive review. If you Google Rosie’s name, this is in fact the first link that comes up. She was also featured in two (one and two) stories on Examiner.com.

8. Followed up on leads that resulted from these stories.
The Communications Director of Alley Cat Rescue in Maryland contacted her as a result of these stories, which led to her being featured in their newsletter (650,000 members strong!).

9. Speaking opportunities.
Rosie volunteered to speak at a local animal welfare conference in March 2010. This opportunity may well lead to other paid engagements and keeps the campaign alive and thriving even months after publication.

10. Opportunities for joint ventures.
Rosie found out about a documentary film producer who’s working on a film about feral cats. She is now going to be filmed with the cats featured in her book.

11. Keeps copies of her book on her at all times.
Rosie has given away about 150 copies of her book for marketing purposes. She recently ran into Halle Berry at a restaurant in Berkeley and struck up a conversation with her about her book. Halle told Rosie she had four cats and Rosie, on the ball, offered Halle an autographed copy of her book. You never know who you’ll meet, or where. So be prepared!

Rosie has been an incredibly active self-promoter who's found a way to get her very niche book out to hundreds of people. She's done a tremendous job of identifying her audience and focusing her attention on those people who care about cats as much as she does. This is part of the key to success. Don't dilute your efforts. Know your audience and go after them.

A few other areas of online interest for those of you who want more more more.

• Check out She Writes. (Men are welcome, too!) There's an excellent webinar by Lauren Cerand called “Innovative Publicity Now!” It's worth the $30!

• Shelfari! For people who love books.

• BookTour: A site for author appearances, book events, and literary happenings near you.

Two final points:
(1) Don't get so sucked in that your writing starts to suffer.
(2) And have fun.

Until next month.

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Memoir Glut and How to Stand Out

2009-10-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

People often ask me about the types of submissions I see in my role as Senior Editor at Seal Press. Of the agented manuscripts, a good 70% are memoir; of the unagented submissions, it’s closer to 90%. We’re known for memoir, and we’re a women’s press, but still. Memoir is where it’s at---and where it’s been at for a while. Despite the fact that it’s difficult to get memoir published, the industry still loves a good memoir.

I tried to get some up-to-date stats on memoir, but because I’m late in getting to the newsletter this month (real excuse---I got married earlier this month!), I’m citing some older statistics. This 2008 USA Today article says that 295 memoirs were signed by publishers in 2007 compared with 214 memoirs in 2006. So right off the bat let’s say that today that number is 350. Then there’s the question of how many deals went unreported to Publishers Marketplace. There are many many editors who do not report, or only report some deals. So let’s tack on another 250 (yes, that many) unreported. Add to that number the self-published memoirs, and we’re conservatively looking at about at least 1,000 memoirs a year, though even that number seems small to me given what I see on a day-to-day basis.

So where does that leave you, the aspiring memoirist?

The point of this post is not to discourage you from writing your memoir. It’s to encourage you to consider what an editor is looking for when they read your memoir. Here are several major things I look for in a memoir---after good writing. But you don’t have to be a brilliant or natural writer if you understand and execute the following takeaways:

1. Relatability. Consider some of the top-selling memoirs out there: Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle; Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. All of these writers came to the table with pretty unique stories. It’s not that most of us can relate, per se, to Eggers’s experience of having had our parents die within five months of one another of unrelated cancers, or Walls’s portrayal of growing up with pretty much insane and neglectful parents; or Gilbert’s capacity to leave everything behind to tour the world in search of herself. And yet these authors wrote in a way that moved their readers. Sometimes a random or strange life story is what moves people to write memoir in the first place, but if you don’t know how to invite the reader into your inner world, to a place where they not only see you but relate to you because of what you’re willing to show them once they get there, then you’re not going to make it past the editor’s desk. Editors are looking for stories that have universal appeal even if the story itself is really out there. They’re looking for writers who know how to make an unusual or heartbreaking or tough situation be something everyone can relate to and understand.

2. Insights. Most writers are insightful or they wouldn’t write in the first place. But do you know when and how to deliver your insights? For that matter, do you consciously do this when you sit down to write? The number one reason I reject memoir is because of the “and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened” mistake of telling rather than showing. This is a classic mark of a novice writer. If you’re writing memoir, you must slow down. You must share your insightfulness and own the fact that you have something to say. (I know it’s scary! Wait till we get to transparency.) But if you sacrifice your insights for the sake of getting all the details of something that happened just right, you’re probably being more self-indulgent than you need to be. The insights are more important because those are the times when you’re reaching out to your reader rather than asking your reader to be with you. It’s a give and take. Don’t forget that we want to be moved.

3. Through-threads. Don’t lose site of what you’re talking about. If you’re writing a continuous narrative, figure out the question you’re trying to answer before you even start writing. What’s the payoff for the reader? If you’re writing a memoir in essays then you do this for each chapter—in these instances the chapter itself functions much like the arc of the whole book and requires you to hold the reader’s hand. It’s not easy to juggle these threads, but the mark of a good memoirist (and novelist for that matter) is someone who remembers to tie it all together. I often liken this to wrapping a present. You have to make all the right folds and tape the sides and then tie the ribbon across the package. You wouldn’t bring a half-wrapped package with an untied ribbon to a party, right? So don’t send sample writing off to an editor that doesn’t have all your through-threads cleaned up. True, sometimes these threads can be difficult to see, but if you’re answering the questions you set out for yourself at the beginning of the journey then you shouldn’t lose your way.

4. Transparency. This includes honesty, truth-telling, and being vulnerable. For some people this comes so naturally that it’s a nonissue. For others it’s like pulling teeth. Many writers don’t realize how much you have to put yourself out there until they’ve delved into some memoir writing. Most memoirists, other than those who don’t even know the meaning of the word shame, will freak out at various junctures. This probably means you’re writing a good memoir. We live in a tell-all culture and if you don’t want to tell all then you should consider writing a novel. It’s important to distinguish the difference, however, between telling everything about yourself and telling everything about other people. I’m not suggesting that you sacrifice family relations for the sake of your memoir (though many people do), or that you bash all your exes for a good laugh (though many people do). (As a side note, I know lots of writers who have waited till certain family members were dead to be able to tell the truth of their life story, and there are some horrible people out in the world who don’t deserve to be spared. It of course depends on what kind of story you’re writing.) You don’t have to alienate everyone you know to tell the truth, but you do have to take risks. If you’re being transparent and telling your story as it happened and providing insights and nuance, then even those people who lived through the experience with you will likely, some day, understand why you wanted or needed to write your story.

Until next month.

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Breaking Down Self-Publishing

2009-09-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

Since my June newsletter I’ve gotten a handful of requests from writers looking for a quick rundown on self-publishing costs. Whether self-publishing is worth it for you depends on a lot of factors. If you have a niche book and known audience, it can be a worthwhile endeavor. You can sell books directly from your website, or you can partner with companies like Lulu, Amazon, and other printers/distributors to sell your book.

This is going to be a long post, but if you’re considering self-publishing, there’s lots of valuable information in here. I’m comparing four possible routes you can take with self-publishing:
1. Lulu
2. CreateSpace
3. Lightning Source (LSI)
4. Traditional printing company (two examples below)

Our hypothetical book, for the purposes of this study, is a standard paperback. A trade paperback is generally 5.5 x 8.25 or 6 x 9, and approximately 250-300 pages (generally 80,000 words). Our list price is $16.00. Any variations on the traditional trade paperback model can cause your costs to fluctuate quite a bit.

LULU

The Basics
•It’s free to use.
•$99 if you buy their distribution package (there is a free alternative—which requires that you provide your own ISBN)

Charges and Fees
20% of the profit from a purchased item. The purchase price of all products includes a base cost for raw materials and printing service, which they calculate out for you and presumably they hold against royalties. Royalties on Lulu vary depending on your list price. The higher you price your book, the higher the royalty, but be careful not to price yourself out of the market! Royalties for our standard book are going to be approximately $2-$3 per book.

Pros
•Most value for the money, even with less royalties
•They offer assistance and have an active and helpful forum
•Good options on trim size and packages

Cons
•Their distribution relationship with Amazon is not very clear and seems to need to be better articulated on their site. If customers are buying from Lulu it’s a great set-up. If your consumers are Amazon worshippers, you might be better off with CreateSpace.

What you pay for:
•$99 for the distribution package (optional)
•proof copy + mailing = $30
•approximately $6/per standard trade book
•shipping

AMAZON CREATESPACE

The Basics
•It’s free—no set up, no charge for one of their ISBNs
•They offer a Pro Plan for $39 per book, which seems to offer a pretty good savings if you’re buying more than a handful of books.

Charges and Fees
•Without pro plan
Fixed Charge: $1.50 per book
Charge per Page: $0.02
$6.50 per book

•With Pro Plan
Fixed Charge: $0.85 per book
Charge per page: $0.012
$3.85 per book

Other costs:
•Proof copy of your book + shipping = $30
•Shipping costs for however many books you order

What they take:
If sold in the CreateSpace eStore: 20%
If sold on Amazon.com: 40%

If sold in the CreateSpace eStore:
Their share: $7.70
Your share: $8.30

If sold on Amazon.com:
Their share: $10.90
Your share: $5.10

Pros
•Their relationship with Amazon means that they take less royalties than Lulu to sell through Amazon. This can be reason enough to go with them, though the consensus is that Lulu is the most user-friendly service available to date.

Cons
•Less variation than Lulu where trim size is concerned
•No assistance—you have to know what you’re doing

LSI

Charges and fees
•$75-$150 title set-up fee (average out at $100)
•$1.30/unit + $.018 per page, so for our 250-page book = $4.50
•Total cost per book = $5.30
•Distribution fee: $12/year per title
•ISBNs from Bowker at $245.00 for a block of ten
•One-time fees: $112
•Another good option for ISBN/barcodes is Bar Code Graphics, which allows you to buy single ISBNs.

Pros
•They’re great if you’re ready to be a business rather than an author. They provide distribution relationships with third-party distributors like Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc., and so it’s easier to get into bookstores with LSI than with Lulu or CreateSpace.
•Good variety/options for trim sizes.
•Best consideration if you're printing color interior.
•Respected in the industry since they’ve been around for a while and have long-standing relationships with traditional publishers. They’re owned by Ingram, which also owns a major distribution company.

Cons
•It’s more complicated, no question. They don’t offer assistance and you have to figure out the distribution situation, which aren’t such big considerations on Lulu or CreateSpace, in part because the major distribution on those sites is online venues.

TRADITIONAL PRINTER
I talked to two different authors whose experiences I’m going to share in this section. If you go this route, the biggest thing you’ll need are the printer’s specifications for printing, and with this option you will gain by ordering larger quantities of books. Printers won’t set you up with distribution relationships like the other options will, so this is a better choice for people who are planning on selling their books through their website, or who are interested primarily in corporate deals.

Author 1 is Annette Fix, author of The Break-Up Diet
Annette chose to establish her own imprint, which entailed getting a resale license and business license and working out a distribution arrangement to get her books into bookstores.

Annette’s costs:
•Block of ISBNs: $245
•Editing and design: $6,000 (with some admitted missteps)
•Printing costs: 2,100 copies printed by McNaughton & Gunn for approximately $2.14 per unit on a 285-page trade paperback that retails for $16.95.
•Shipping costs for stock sent to her (600 units) and to the distributor (1500 units).

Annette’s word of caution: “If I had known then what I know now about paying monthly storage fees to my distributor, and shipping costs and the invoicing/accounting/paperwork nightmares of maintaining my wholesale account with Baker & Taylor, I would’ve set up my book POD through Lightning Source.”

Author 2 is Rosie Sorenson, author of They Had Me at Meow Rosie wrote that she decided to go with a traditional printer because: “I wanted a special size (7.5 X 5.5) and I also wanted it in all color (cover, photos, and some colored text on each page.) I also wanted the photos placed near the text where each particular cat is mentioned – it takes a seasoned designer to do that. I looked at POD options and I couldn’t find anyone who could produce a book to my specifications.” She printed with Vaughan Printing in Nashville and had a great experience with them.

Rosie’s costs
•Because of the fact that her book is four-color throughout with lots of spot photographs and design elements, she paid a lot more than Annette per book. She paid approximately $8 per book and ordered an initially quantity of 1,000 books.
•Editorial: approximately $200-$300
•Design: $865.00
•1 ISBN/barcode with Bar Code Graphics
Rosie’s word of advice: “One thing which should probably be highlighted is that self-publishing is a whole lot more work than anyone could ever imagine—getting all the details right, developing a marketing plan, implementing the plan, etc. It's definitely not for shy, introverted writers! The writer has to want success more than anything and be willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

*Note here that next month’s newsletter will cover the marketing side of self-publishing and will include Annette’s efforts to promote herself by sending out ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) and getting her book modeled at B&N, and Rosie’s tremendous success at getting her book reviewed and partnering with corporations who support her cause—cat rescue.

IMPORTANT OTHER COSTS TO CONSIDER
When you self-publish, you are not just sending your Word files to the printer. Besides having your work copyedited and proofread, you also want to have your book professionally designed. If you have any images in the interior that you do not own, make sure you secure permission to reprint those images. If you’re excerpting anything over 50-100 words from another source, make sure you get permission to excerpt. Other costs are nontraditional bindings, buying your own ISBN, getting barcodes made, and fulfillment if you choose to do your own fulfillment rather than partner with a distributor.

BREAKING DOWN EDITORIAL COSTS
Editors and proofreaders can range in cost from as low as $20/hour to as high as $80/hour—and I’m sure there are those who charge more than that. you can estimate how many hours a copyediting and proofreading job should take with the following formulas:

Copyediting
Word count divided by 310 divided by 5 for heavy copyedit
Word count divided by 310 divided by 6 for medium copyedit
Word count divided by 310 divided by 7 for light copyedit

So a heavy copyedit for a 80,000 word manuscript would run:
80,000 ÷ 310 = 258.06 ÷ 5 = 51 hours

Proofreading
Word count divided by 310 divided by 8 for heavy proofread
Word count divided by 310 divided by 9 for medium proofread
Word count divided by 310 divided by 10 for light proofread

So a light proofread for a 80,000-word manuscript (running approximately 250 pages or longer) would run:
80,000 ÷ 310 = 258.06 ÷ 10 = 26 hours

BREAKING DOWN DESIGN COSTS
There are lots of freelance designers out in the world, and you can find them through MediaBistro or by looking at the back cover of books you love. Designers’ names and even their websites are often on the books they’ve designed.

The Book Designers are a one-stop shop for everything from creative consultation to design samples to cover and interior design to helping you find a printer if one of the abovementioned options isn’t right for you. They do standard text-driven books and four-color design-heavy books, too. I got on the phone with them to ask about their pricing, and the basic range for our straightforward 250-page book is going to run in the $3,000 range. Sounds like it could be more or less depending on how many passes are needed on cover and/or interior—and design-heavy and color books are going to naturally be more expensive. They’re very responsive and samples of books they’ve worked on can be found on their site. Check them out.

You might be wondering why Rosie, author of They Had Me at Meow, only paid $865 for her design. It’s possible to find designers who charge less, and her book is very short. Although it has spot illustrations, she has a fairly simple design and she knew exactly what she wanted. The more you’re clear on your design expectations and the better you can convey this to your designer, the less money you’ll spend. Most design costs get ratcheted up when you need to see multiple variations of the interior and/or cover design. Knowing what you want in advance and prepping your designer with a cover memo and an interior design memo is a very good idea!

So what are your total costs going to be and can you really make a profit?

Lots of people say don’t go into self-publishing if you want to make a profit, while others would never touch a traditional publishing deal because they’ve had great success in marketing their work to their audience.

So, yes, it’s subjective and dependent on who you are and what you’re writing.

If you like to market yourself and feel comfortable in that role, self-publishing can be a good thing. If you don’t, you might want to reconsider.

If you know you have a built-in audience and you know where to find them, self-publishing could be a great option. If you have no idea who your readership is, or think your readership is “everyone,” don’t self-publish.

If you know upfront that you are going to be super invested in having your book look exactly the way you want it (ie, have specifics about the trim size, must have color photos), then self-publishing might be a great option. Publishers will often opt for the cheaper option and certain things you desire that are cost-prohibitive, meaning that you need to be prepared to compromise if you go with a traditional publisher.

Until next month.

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

What Exactly Am I Writing?

2009-08-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

I attended the PNWA writers conference earlier this month, where I sat on the editors’ panel and answered questions (along with six other editors) from an audience of 400+ writers and aspiring authors.

I was inspired to write about this topic this month because of how many questions were about trying to get to the root of how a project ought to be labeled. Among them: What’s the difference between high-concept and low-concept? What’s the difference between commercial and literary fiction? Am I writing creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction? What’s a hybrid?

This has everything to do with category, which is a critical thing you need to know before you approach a publisher with a book idea. If you don’t know what category your book falls into, walk into your local bookstore and figure out where your book would be shelved if it were there. If it straddles two categories, that’s okay. You might well be writing a hybrid.

But back to the questions asked by the audience, which I’m going to answer here because I think the answers are worth sharing.

What’s the difference between high-concept and low-concept?
The answer to this one came from Rose Hilliard* at St. Martin's Press (and I’m paraphrasing all answers). Rose gave the example of a novel she acquired about women who get sick of doing all the work at Christmastime and decide to go on strike. That’s an example of a high-concept book. In a single sentence you can imagine how this novel will capture its intended audience’s attention.

So what’s low-concept? Rose followed up with an example that went something like this: The protagonist commits a crime and so he has to go back to his hometown and connect with his family, and from there he meets a bunch of guys who are up to no good. And then those guys decide to go to France and take the protagonist with them, where he gets mixed up in some stuff he shouldn’t be mixed up in because he’s trying to get away from all that. You get the picture, right? After two run-on sentences, we’re not hooked. There’s no sense of what the book’s about.

So is it important to have a high-concept book if you want to get a publishing deal? Not necessarily. Some low-concept books are simply too complex to be captured by a quick get-to-the-point pitch. And that's perfectly okay---and a beautiful segue into the section question:

What’s the difference between commercial and literary fiction?
The answer to this one came from Katie K. Gilligan* at Thomas Dunne Books. She’s a runner, and so she told the audience that this is how it breaks down. If she’s able to read a book while running on the treadmill and it keeps her attention, that’s a commercial book. If there’s no possible way she can read on the treadmill because she needs to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine to really enjoy the prose, that’s a literary book. I loved this distinction.

As a side note, there’s also such a thing as commercial and literary nonfiction. It’s a little different only because commercial nonfiction is usually high-concept. These are books you might find at Chronicle Books, for instance. A book like The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is a great example because it’s fun, full of cool and funny anecdotes, and it makes you want to pick it up and buy it as a gift. Commercial. A good example of literary nonfiction is almost always going to be a memoir, or a biography that’s beautifully told. Examples of literary memoir abound, but as an example I offer The Story of My Father, by Sue Miller, who’s a novelist. And a literary novelist at that.

And so to the next question:
Am I writing creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction?
This was the one I took. I said there was no difference, though some disagreement followed. The biggest issue where creative nonfiction is concerned is the word “creative,” which really, when you think about it, doesn’t jive with “nonfiction.” Creative implies creating things out of your mind while nonfiction implies truth. Of course, memoir is creative nonfiction because no one is capable of remembering the exact details of what happened to them when they were five years old. If you think Running with Scissors and The Glass Castle are examples of authors will phenomenal memories, well…. I’ve heard Augusten Burroughs does have a fantastic memory, but even still. For an in-depth read on the variations of creative nonfiction, I highly recommend “The Meandering River: An Overview of the Subgenres of Creative Nonfiction,” by Sue William Silverman.

And finally, what is a hybrid?
A hybrid is a book that straddles more than one category. Practical nonfiction is often hybrid in nature because it’s prescriptive nonfiction, but the narrator’s voice is key. Oftentimes these books are memoir in nature because they tell stories about the authors’ experiences. Smart Women Finish Rich is a good example of this. It’s clearly a prescriptive book meant to help women understand their finances and money issues, but it’s also very full of the author’s personal story, as well as the story of women he’s helped. Eat, Pray, Love is another. It’s memoir, but it’s shelved in travel. This oftentimes happens because publishers want to keep books out of memoir whenever possible. Why? Simply because it’s an overcrowded shelf. If you’re writing a memoir, don’t despair. It’s not a bad thing. But if you’re writing a memoir about sports, travel, food, a personality disorder, you name it, you’re better off positioning yourself in the sports, travel, food, or psychology category when pitching your book to an agent or publisher. It’s just another one of the quirks of this industry.

That’s it for now, though hey, if you have a question about category or terminology, leave it in the comments section and I’ll happily respond.

*Editor bios for those of us who attended the conference can be found here.

Until next month.

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

too many cooks!

2009-07-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

It's July, so I'm keeping it short as I prep for my upcoming week off.

Being that July is a season of BBQs and outdoor eating, this month's topic takes a look at what happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen. This is a common creative trapping, one I see all the time with my authors who show their chapters, book covers, titles, catalog materials---you name it---to their friends, family, writers' groups, and other trusted allies.

Having too many cooks in the kitchen only works when you know who the kitchen boss is. And when you're writing a book, you're always the kitchen boss. Last month I had at least four writers realize that some essential ideas and concept for a piece of their writing had gotten lost in the overwhelming rewrite that followed a critique or feedback from one of the aforementioned trusted allies. Whether these people have your best intentions at heart is inconsequential. If you want to write, you've gotta know when to take feedback and when to say no thank you.

This particular knowing is just like cooking a burger. Leave it on too long and you'll have a burnt-to-the-crisp patty that no one wants to touch. Don't leave it on long enough and you're gonna have a bloody burger that's probably not fit to eat. It's the same with writing: Let it be overcritiqued and reworked to the degree that you don't recognize it anymore and you've gone too far; don't accept any editorial feedback and turning the other way when someone offers you legitimate advice, and you're left with something that could have used a little more cooking. It's not easy. It takes practice. And it takes working with people you really trust to give you consistent, solid feedback that's not about coopting your work or turning it into something it was never meant to be in the first place.

The first step toward getting those perfectly cooked burgers, though, is remembering who's boss.

Until next month,

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

new media and the future of book publishing

2009-06-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve been going to BookExpo America for close to a decade. It's a huge convention filled---for one weekend every year---with people whose life pursuit is all about The Book. Once you've gone for a year or two (particularly if you're working), it's easy to forget how glamorous and intriguing it seems to the outside world. (After all, Kathy Lee Gifford and Eduardo Galleano were in our booth this year.) For the past few years I’ve suffered through BEA rather than really enjoy it. A fellow editor captured the typical mood for those of us who spend the whole weekend working the convention floor when, in response to my question, “How was BEA for you this year?” he answered, “Both invigorating and depressing---as usual.”

This year, I have something different to offer. A bit of hope. The book business is still thriving and getting published doesn’t need to feel like an elusive dream. However, for those in the business, comfortable with a certain model and hoping against hope that we can turn this tide and go back to the old ways of doing business, the news is not so upbeat. Publishing is changing. But in my mind, this is a good thing.

The most interesting part of the Expo to me, aside from scoping out the competition, was new media. There are amazing services that promise to revolutionize publishing. (And yes, threaten the status quo and upset paper-lovers who think the Kindle is the Devil.) I have a Kindle, and I love it.

One cool new Amazon service is Create Space, a self-publishing tool that looks like a good alternative to Lulu. Self-publishing, in fact, was the most improved service offering at the show. No longer is it the maligned pitiful creature it once was----in part because of online marketers like Amazon that allow you to distribute your book on their sites. With print-on-demand (POD), no one has to warehouse your book. No one is going to inform you that they’re pulping your entire inventory unless you can buy all the stock at cost. Not only are these services smart, they’re offering another small step toward saving the planet.

I will say this: I am an optimist. There are people in publishing (and lots of everyday Luddites who fear that the printed word will disappear) who don’t like what new media promises to do to the industry. There are authors, too, who wouldn’t dream of self-publishing---and I understand that. DIY publishing is no small undertaking, after all. Self-publishing is to book publishing what blogging is to the news industry. Anyone can publish, and some stuff is better than others and so it falls on the consumer to figure out what’s good and what’s bad. Which is an exercise in subjectivity, clearly. And this model takes control away from the Decision-Makers (people like me who make our living deciding what’s fit to be published on our respective lists). Lots of Decision-Makers do not like it and want it to stop. In an April decree on Publishers Weekly, Jonathan Karp, celebrated publisher of Twelve, wrote about all the ways publishers need to do publishing better so that Decision-Makers like us can continue to control what gets published. The article is an excellent example of paternalism at its worst in that he exerts it’s the responsibility of the publishing industry to undo what’s not ours to control. (To me it also echoes the CBS exec who offered his assessment of the bloggers who were damaging his news team as a “guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks.”) And he doesn’t take into account all that’s brilliant about the changes in the industry. Just as the music industry has summarily freaked out over the impact of the Internet on music, so too has the publishing industry reacted to new media.

New media has been featured at BEA for years, but never has it been so front and center, occupying good floor space and commanding a different type of attention. Maybe it’s Amazon and their ability to convince readers (even book lovers who like to stick their noses in the spines of new books) that they can and want to read on e-readers. Or maybe it’s just the sea change in the public’s attitude toward self-publishing and POD and e-products. Bottom line: There’s more digital everything. And for writers, this is a good thing. It opens up the possibility for you to say yes before you say no---or to say yes after you’ve heard no---and encourages you to be open to all the possible roads you might walk down when exploring your publishing options.

I left BEA this year feeling invigorated, like my colleague in Seattle, but far less depressed than I’ve felt in past years. Maybe it’s my own shift in perspective. A reframing that’s been needing to happen. That instead of buying into the idea that we’re somehow witnessing something in dire need of fixing, perhaps we’re instead experiencing a new beginning that we can only truly understand when we stop reacting and start asking ourselves what's possible.

Until next month,

Brooke

GO BACK TO THE WARNER COACHING HOMEPAGE

Going Back to School

2009-05-11T20:37:00.001-07:00

Getting published doesn’t have to be hard or scary. The easiest way to understand it is to think of it like schools---and like getting into school. Not everyone expects to get into Harvard. Similarly, not every writer should expect to get a six-figure advance and get published with a major New York publishing house.

When you’re trying to figure out what school to go to, you have your long shots, those programs you really want to get into because they’re a perfect match, and your back-ups. As is the case when you apply to undergraduate programs, what you want is probably going to vary dramatically from your peers and colleagues. For instance, just because Dartmouth has an excellent reputation doesn’t mean that that’s the school for you. For instance, maybe you knew you would benefit from smaller class sizes, so you really wanted to go to a liberal arts school. Publishing has these tiers, too: they’re called small presses.

So how do you mentally prepare yourself for diving into all of this? After all, when you were in high school you had guidance counselors to help you navigate the college system. You probably had a sense of where you could and couldn’t go based on money, GPA, and/or SAT scores. But now you’re an adult and you want to shop your book project. So where to start?

Make a list of what’s important to you. Is it money? Acclaim? Having a say? Just getting published anywhere?

Next answer this: Were you the type of student who was willing to pursue your education no matter what? If you couldn’t get in to your first- or second-tier schools, were you willing to accept junior college as an alternative? If so, you might be a candidate for self-publishing. Sure, you might not want to consider this until you get back notice that you haven’t been accepted into the big leagues. But it’s good to know before you even get started whether or not it’s an option.

It’s also important to consider these questions before you’re too far along in the process in part because of a little thing called managing your expectations. There’s a whole industry out there, and then there’s you. You might be talented and feel like this article doesn’t even apply to you. You might catch a lucky break. You might sign with an agent who loves your work. They might sell your book straight out the gate for five figures or more. Or they might not. They might sit on your project, unable to sell it for years. Or, you might pursue a publisher yourself and get immediate feedback that your work is directly in line with what they do and they can’t wait to sign you. Or you might receive rejection letter after rejection letter and feel like you want to give up.

The reason I include the worst-case scenarios here is because I firmly believe that if you have the conviction to get published, you can get published. Just like schools, there’s a place for everyone. And just like undergraduate programs, not everybody can get into Harvard or Yale. But that doesn’t lessen the value of state schools or junior colleges.

So hang in there if you’re contemplating shopping a book. Aim for the stars, but have your back-ups, too. Having an action plan in place before you start can help you better deal with the inevitable rejections and keep you in the driver’s seat when you’re pursuing this important dream!

If you found this post interesting and want to learn more about how publishing works, check out Putting Your Passion Into Print, by Arielle Eckstut and David Sterry. Or comment below and start a conversation about what you’d like to know. With ten years in the industry, I’m happy to lend insight to this very subjective and complicated-to-navigate industry.

Until next month,

Brooke

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Enneatyping Your Way to Being the Best Writer You Can Be

2009-04-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a huge enneagram fan for a few years now. It first blew my mind because of how closely my own type description mirrored the way I am. Then it helped me in my understanding of others and the way each of us is driven---and similarly paralyzed and triggered---according to the virtues and passions of our type. According to Sandra Maitri’s The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues our virtues and passions are both motivating forces that stem from our inner attitudes. They are the light and the dark, in that our virtues are driven by feeling into our true nature, our sense of who we are when we’re aligned with Soul, while our passions are driven by attempts to fill a void and are present when we’re aligned with Ego.

Understanding your virtues and your passions is a crash course to beginning to understand what motivates you and what keeps you stuck. If you don’t already know your type, you might be able to determine it just by seeing which type listed below most fits your sense of who you are. If you’re intrigued, I encourage you to take the test.

One (The Reformer): "I perfect, therefore I am."
Ones are dutiful, principled, self-doubting, see things in black and white terms
Virtue: Serenity
Passion: Anger

Two (The Helper): "I love, therefore I am."
Twos are emotional, empathetic, proud, lose self by taking care of others
Virtue: Humility
Passion: Pride

Three (The Motivator): "I succeed, therefore I am."
Threes are workaholics, driven, vain, succeed at any price
Virtue: Veracity
Passion: Deceit

Four (The Individualist): "I suffer, therefore I am."
Fours are passionate, desire to be authentic, moody, stuck in melancholy
Virtue: Equanimity
Passion: Envy

Five (The Investigator): "I think, therefore I am."
Fives are observant, independent, self-depriving, reserved
Virtue: Nonattachment
Passion: Avarice

Six (The Loyalist): "I doubt, therefore I am."
Sixes are loyal, suspicious, self-doubting, fearful
Virtue: Courage
Passion: Fear

Seven (The Enthusiast): "I enjoy, therefore I am."
Sevens are enthusiastic, self-indulgent, dilettantish, scattered
Virtue: Sobriety
Passion: Gluttony

Eight (The Leader): "I dominate, therefore I am."
Eights are leaders, forceful, impulsive, power-seeking
Virtue: Innocence
Passion: Lust

Nine (The Peacemaker): "I connect, therefore I am."
Nines are accepting, generous, distractible, indecisive
Virtue: Action
Passion: Indolence

Your virtues are those things that bring you into alignment. They are the calling of your Soul. So a One will be operating at an optimal level when he or she is in touch with their Serenity; a Nine may realize that consistency of practice---Action---is needed in order to realize their potential; a Six will see great movement when in touch with Courage.

Alternately, your passions are “deficiency-motivated drives,” according to Naranjo, which, for many of us, are default modes. The Seven operating from a place of Gluttony can never get anything done because there are too many other things to distract her; the Two, flipping between her paradoxical belief that she’s better than others and not good enough, will never take the necessary steps to show her writing and to grow by exercising what she most needs: Humility.

This is profound work to consider, especially when you’re stuck. So go forth and familiarize yourself with your enneatype. It’s amazing personal-growth work, and it will help your writing.

Until next month,

Brooke

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Three Ways to Invite Balance

2009-03-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

Balance is elusive in our culture—particularly for those who aspire to create. I work with lots of writers who write every day, focused intently on the doing of writing. Lots of writers write obsessively, getting caught or addicted to the momentum of their creative process. You might fall into this category of writers even if you’re a person who obsessively thinks about your projects, regardless of whether you actually sit down to write every day. Perhaps you’re one of those writers who is plotting scenes in your head, or one of those who’s beating yourself up when not writing, thinking about what you could or should be creating.

Let’s say the balance/imbalance spectrum looks like a seesaw. The middle represents a place of balance. At the extreme left are those of us consumed by “doing” our writing. You’re a lefty if you find that you’re consumed by your work but dying for a break; if you find yourself overwhelmed by your project but not knowing how or when to give yourself space; if you find yourself thinking that you should be writing when you’re going about your day; if you beat yourself up for not accomplishing what you set out to do. At the extreme right are those writers who want to live their process, often so much so that they’re not very productive. These are the rare artistes that our culture doesn’t value as much. They’re the artists who embody their art, who live for nothing but their art.

So where do you fall on the balance spectrum? I’m going to venture to guess that almost everyone who’s reading this falls somewhere on the left side. Why? Because we live in a culture that values doing—even when the doing is just thinking about what we should be doing, or wondering how we could be more accomplished than we are.

I would argue that most of us need to bring a little of that right energy into our lives. To embody a little more of our own inner artiste. But how?

1. Start by scheduling your time. Set aside certain times of the day for writing. If it’s 9 to 11, sit down and write from 9 to 11. Don’t skip it just because you don’t feel inspired, and don’t think to yourself, If this goes well, I’ll pull another four hours tonight. Limiting the hours you write, or forcing yourself to adhere to scheduled time is an invaluable practice.

2. Consider meditating for 10-15 minutes before you sit down to write, or listening to music that puts you in the mood. This will settle you into a creative space and sets the tone for the work you want to get done.

3. Start to get curious about what motivates you. Are you motivated by money or power? Are you motivated by validation and accolades? Are you motivated by the feeling of creating and being moved by the emotional energy of something you’re giving life to? It might be a combination of things, but it’s good to get real about what’s bringing you to your desk every day, or what’s causing you to be stuck in not doing. Don’t choose to be in denial about what you want from your project. Understanding what you’re attached to can help you move into a new perspective. It can open doors and allow you to loosen the hold the writing has over you. Simply acknowledging what exists here can allow your shoulds to disintegrate.

Give it a try. And breathe!

Until next month,

Brooke

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Befriend Your Daemons

2009-02-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

I was prompted by one of my writers to go check out Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk, “A Different Way to Think about Creative Genius."

I was not a fan of Eat, Pray, Love, but this talk gave me new respect for Gilbert herself. Here’s a woman who understands the “freakishness” (her word) of her own success. And she eloquently addresses something I see ALL THE TIME, which is the way we approach writing—and many creative pursuits—from a place of fear.

She poses this question: “Is it rational to be afraid of the work we feel like we were put on this planet to do?”

In the talk, she shares how so many people, in response to her “freakish” success, approach her with their own fears about the inevitability of future failure. They wonder if she’s afraid that she’ll never be able to live up to the success of Eat, Pray, Love. And, refreshingly, her answer is of course she’s afraid!

Our creative pursuits scare us because nothing is guaranteed. When Gilbert asks why no one ever asked her father if he was afraid of being an engineer, the answer is obvious enough. There’s stability and assurance in certain jobs. Even if I lose my job tomorrow, I can go out and find another job. But if you write a book, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to be able to sell it. This is why so many creative pursuits are passions of the heart or soul. You have to have incredible stamina and perseverance to make a living in the creative arts. There’s actually good reason why parents worry when their child decides they’re going to major in Poetry.

I know, however, that creative pursuits are not solely about making a living. For Gilbert, this is not the case. But many many many creative people are holding down fulltime jobs and writing or creating after hours and on the weekends. And many of these people are still scared of their creative pursuits.

What if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What if I don’t get published? What if no one likes what I’m doing? All this before they’ve even begun.

Gilbert tells of the moment when she decided that she needed a protective psychological construct to guard herself against the inevitable backlash or failure she too feels is inevitable as she realizes that her greatest success may indeed be behind her. And the constructs she finds, which I loved, are Daemons and Geniuses.

Daemons and Geniuses, in ancient Greece and Rome, respectively, were the entities or gods or voices that were given credit for successes or blamed for failures. Gilbert talked about how, in these societies, the people didn’t believe that creativity came from human beings, but rather from these distant entities—people’s daemons or geniuses. She then calls on her audience to take heed here, and to reject the current belief, which is around “being a genius” rather than “having a genius.”

Here’s where I disagree with her, however. Here’s where Gilbert is playing to her own fear daemons. Because in saying she would rather be credited with “having” a genius—her own entity upon whom she could assign blame or success—she in fact distances herself from her own genius. I believe that these geniuses or daemons are part of us. The Greeks and Romans, brilliant as they were, didn’t have the modern psychological sophistication to articulate the complexity of the human personality construct. These daemons and geniuses were simply ancient names for the parts of us—or saboteurs, gremlins, superego, whatever name you wish to give them—that sit in our head and alternately fuel the flames of our creativity or knock us down and tell us we can’t do it.

Learning to harness the power of your daemons, saboteurs, geniuses is where the solution lies. The connection to our creativity can be blocked or promoted by our daemons. But they are absolutely a part of us. We “are” them; we do not “have” them. The trick is in deflecting their power by inviting them in. Ask them what they need in order to stop blocking you. Invite their insight rather than fighting against them. That’s the way to ensure a different path to connecting to our creativity. And connecting to it without fear.

For those of you who are interested in delving into this idea a little deeper, check out Feeding Your Demons, by Tsultrim Allione. And watch Gilbert’s talk. It’s a good jumping off point, and I certainly encourage everyone who has creative aspirations to make their daemons their allies.

Until next month,

Brooke

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tenacity versus talent

2009-01-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

Just do it!
---Nike

Most writers, at some point, find themselves wondering, Is this worth it? Anyone who's ever practiced a sport or an instrument and ran into that nagging voice that wonders about effort expended versus value gained knows exactly what I'm talking about.

More times than I can count I've been confronted with writers' doubts about what they're doing, what they're producing, whether they're good enough, and whether their efforts are ever going to pay off. These are the nagging voices of our saboteurs, whether they're telling us that we could be doing something more fun, something more worthwhile, or perhaps just that we don't have what it takes, and that the people who are getting what we want---getting published, recognition, kudos---are just better than we are.

Writing talent is not something to be underestimated. I know writers who have very little discipline who have gone pretty far in their careers because of their talent. But there are far more writers who struggle to produce every day, who treat their writing as a discpline and find pleasure in the results, and more seldomly in the process. For writers who have "always written," the flow of good writing can be a little bit like chasing the dragon. It can be that elusive space that you strive to get back to, and yet the very fact that you've been there makes the day-to-day that much harder.

Writing is hard. It is a passion and a hobby and a beautiful expression of self. But anyone who thinks you don't have to work your butt off to create, especially something as massive as a book (or a screenplay---to honor my script-writing client) is operating under an illusion that stems from some romanticism about how writing is supposed to be. Writing is not supposed to be easy or seamless or always a pouring forth from our souls. Sometimes that happens. And those of us who know that zone may think that it's the norm. I liken this to my yoga practice, though. There are probably one day in twenty or even thirty when it's amazing, when I leave thinking, That was an awesome class. More often I feel like it was the hardest class I ever had and I don't know how or why I keep on doing it. But I go back, time after time, because I love the way it makes me feel.

I told one of my writers recently that tenacity was more important than talent. I think this is true in life. There are those lucky few whose talent propels them along, but for most of us the desire to create and achieve and give birth to our dreams is the foundation upon which those very dreams are manifested. The dictionary defines tenacity as "seeking something valued or desired." I wish for myself and for all of us that we be the type of people who seek out what we value or desire rather than the type of people for whom everything we desire comes easily. It's the truism that nothing worth fighting for ever comes easily. And when it comes to builidng and manifesting your dreams, persistence is the thing that's going to serve you above all else.

Until next month,

Brooke

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Join me for my January workshop

2008-12-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

Start Close In
A Workshop by Brooke Warner
Sponsored by: Fremont Area Writers Club

When: Saturday, January 24, 2009
What: All Day workshop from 10 am-4pm
Where: The home of Evelyn La Torre, 45 Dolerita Court, Fremont, CA 94539
Cost: $65 includes materials
Bring: Comfortable clothes and your lunch
Register: Email fremontareawritersclub@yahoo.com to register, and an invoice will be sent to you from Paypal.

This workshop will work with writers around the power of starting with what you know. As all writers know, writing is a layered process that includes powerful self-discoveries. Too often we want to skip ahead to the next thing. We want to be farther along than we are. We want to have our story flow exactly as it should and we want our reader to have the perfect experience of our work. The hard part—and yet so often the most rewarding—is slowing down and enjoying the process.

Start Close In is taken from David Whyte’s poem by the same name. It encourages writers to start with what they know. Don’t take the second step, or the third, he writes, start with the first. The Start Close In workshop will encourage readers to explore what they already know, and Brooke Warner will lead the group in uncovering those nuggets of truth and insight that are just below the surface, waiting to become that first step. Often these insights and truths are things we have at our ready disposal, and yet we overlook them—perhaps they seem too obvious, or perhaps we’re sick of this story and have judgments about writing about the same old thing.

All of this and more will be explored through a profound and intuitive process called SoulCollage. Brooke will guide you through the process of creating small collage cards that are like windows into your psyche and soul. With these cards, you will discover those insights that are already right there, ready to be plucked. You will leave this workshop armed with what you need to take that first step.

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great gifts for writers---or for yourself

2008-12-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

This year I'm encouraging everyone I know to buy books for the people on their gift list. The book industry is in a scary place right now, and so for all of us who love books, and especially those of us who want to get published, what better way to show support than to use your purchasing dollars to boost up the publishers you love.

I have a couple suggestions to run your way:

The first is that you check out the WOW! Holiday Gift Guide.

WOW! Women on Writing is a great resource for women writers, and their holiday gift guide is full of cool gift ideas.

The second is that you consider sharing with your loved ones the fact that you might love to have a book to help you with your writing. If you don't have any of the following books, I highly recommend you ask for one, or put yourself on your gift list this year:

Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg

Ready, Aim, Specialize! by Kelly James-Enger

Bird by Bird, by Annie Lamott

On Writing, by Stephen King

How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead, by Ariel Gore

This is just a short list to get you started, and inspired to start thinking about how writing might fit into your New Year's Resolution.

Until next month,

Brooke

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live your creativity

2008-11-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month we witnessed history. Worldwide, people have been calling Barack Obama’s election to the presidency an historic event. What Obama has done, really, is harness the energy of the people. He has a deep capacity to inspire confidence and hope. He’s dared people to dream.

How is it that some people have this capacity to inspire us to dare to dream? And how can we get some of that for ourselves? How do we harness our own energy and momentum when we’re feeling stuck in a rut? How does each of us find our own Obama energy to pull us out of the holes we dig for ourselves?

Most of us are completely unfamiliar with the depth of our own inner resources or our capacity to inspire ourselves. We’re too consumed with our to-do list, the priorities of others, the shaming voice that tells us that dedicating time to our creative pursuits is selfish, the all-consuming power of what you “should” or “could” be doing instead of writing or creating.

If you’ve been inspired this month, if you were moved on election night, if you have found yourself pinning your hopes on the possibility of change, consider how you have the power to inspire, move, and change yourself. It’s not out there. It’s in there. In you. Step into your greatness. Take a deep breath. Challenge yourself to believe, Yes You Can. You are your creativity. But living it takes more than just doing it. And doing it takes believing you can be it.

A simple request: Think about one thing you can do this week that would challenge you to live your writing. Perhaps carry an eraser in your pocket, or wear a rubber band around your wrist. Or tell three people that you’re a writer or an artist. Start to be what you’re doing. See how and if choosing to do one small action like this allows you to live your creativity. And if that doesn’t work, perhaps you need to challenge yourself to something bigger: get a tattoo, send out ten query letters, send an email to everyone in your address book that you are a writer and see what the responses are like. Brainstorm. Have fun. But live it.

Until next month,

Brooke

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the power of voice

2008-10-13T12:32:00.001-07:00

Lately a lot of my writers have been talking about their voice. What is it? How do they find it? How much does it matter? Do they have one even?

It's interesting that the question of voice should come up so much now, during a time of chaos and unease in the economy, with the election around the corner and with so many doubts about where we're going as we stare into an uncertain future.

Why?

Because voice is authenticity. When writers question their voice, they're often asking, Am I being me? or Am I being true to me? A particularly resonant question during times when we're confronted with so much inauthenticity. People who write and talk about writing often tell writers to write what they know. And there's a reason for that. There's truth and authenticity in what you know, after all. And those writers who feel at ease with voice are usually writing from a place of truth.

So how do you find your truth, or your voice, if you're looking for it? The answer to this question lies in feeling into your writing and paying attention to when you're in the groove. Do you recognize the difference between writing that feels effortless and writing that feels forced? Do you sometimes get lost in the flow of your writing and experience a connection to what you're doing that feels like faith or grace or even just spaciousness?

Writing is in fact a sacred act, one that requires much more giving over of yourself to your prospective reader than most people imagine when they decide they want to write. It requires presence. It requires authenticity and integrity and desire. Whether you're writing memoir or self-help or fiction, writing with authenticity is a discipline that can be elusive, perhaps only attainable in certain moments on certain days for certain little periods of time.

Practice becoming aware of it and see if you can start to gauge the factors that cultivate truth in your writing practice: morning versus evening? state of mind you're in when you sit down to write? ability to clear the clutter of your mind or your to-do list and be present with the task at hand? writing in the living room in the middle of family conversation versus at your dedicated writing space?

Consider it. It's elusive, but you have the ability to harness it.

Until next month,

Brooke

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So you want to find an agent?

2008-09-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of writers are so excited when an agent shows interest in their work that they might ignore what seems like common sense: Ask this person questions about the nature of the relationship your about to embark upon. Signing with an agent is as big a deal, or bigger, than signing with a publishing house, because this person (if all goes well) could be representing you for years to come. You don’t want to sign with someone just because they say they like your work and they can sell your book. Find out more. Have a conversation. And work these questions out before you move forward:

5 Questions Every Writer Should Ask Their Would-be Agent

1) What’s your agency fee?
The standard is 15% of the author's take, including advances and royalties; it might be as high as 20% if the agent is selling subrights (foreign, film, etc.) Find out if this is done by the agency, or whether they work with a third party. If you want to keep certain rights, such as merchandise or film/tv (many authors do), bring that up early on.

2) What’s your preferred method of communication?
Find out whether your would-be agent is more of a phone or an email person. If you’re a first-time author and you know you’re going to have a lot of questions, ask them how they feel about that. If it’s important for you to have an agent who returns your calls, you’ll be better off knowing if you’re dealing with someone who works exclusively over their BlackBerry.

3) What do you envision for my book?
Always assume that some work will be needed on your proposal/manuscript. Ask your would-be agent what they think your projects needs and where they think improvements might be made. This is not the time to fish for compliments, but you should be listening for whether or not you feel like they get your project. Does their feedback resonate with you? If not, it’s probably not a good fit.

4) What’s your strategy for shopping the book?
Find out how this agent shops. Will they only approach big houses, or will they consider small houses if you have a lead or an idea you want them to try? What kind of timeline do they have in mind in terms of when it might be ready to shop to publishers?

5) Do you anticipate any costs on my part in order to get the manuscript to a shoppable place?
Find out whether your would-be agent expects you to hire a freelance editor at your own cost. Find out if there are any out-of-pocket expenses they are thinking about before you sign—and make sure you can live with that before you move forward.

5 Questions Every Writer Should Ask Themselves about Their Would-be Agent

1) Is this would-be agent someone you can imagine working with through the good and the bad?
Remember, agents are mediators and advocates whose job requires not only fighting on your behalf, but also pushing back on you at times. Is this someone you can work with when the going gets tough?

2)How quickly does the agent respond to you?
This is an important one for people who are quick responders and expect that everyone else should be too. It may be enough just to ask for clarification so that you’re not living with some expectation that will never be met. But ask yourself, realistically, if you can work with someone who might be slower to respond than you might prefer.

3) What kinds of clients/projects do they represent?
Do your homework. Go to the agency website and find out what they represent and whether you like the books. Ask if they’ll let you talk to one or two of their current clients. This is not out of line or even remotely inappropriate. The worst thing they can say is no.

4) Are you interested in working with this agent on just your single project, or do you want the would-be agent to represent your for your entire career?
Make sure you sign on for something that makes sense for where you are in your career. If you want to take it book-by-book, that’s okay, and it’s okay to ask for that. It’s also okay to voice your expectations that you want to work with someone who wants to be with you for the long haul.

5) Do you understand the terms of the contract?
Make sure the payment provisions make sense to you and don’t hesitate to ask questions about things you don’t understand. You don’t want to find out post-signing that you’re not okay with some of the language. Take your time and go through the contract slowly and deliberately.

If you just finished reading and are thinking, yeah, but where do I start looking for an agent to ask these questions to? Here are a couple good resources to start your search:

The Guide to Literary Agents

www.1000literaryagents.com

Good Luck!

---Brooke

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rest & recuperation

2008-08-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

This month my own coach encouraged me to stop and think about the real value of rest and recuperation. In our goal-driven society, with all the demands and obligations and aspirations we have, rest and recuperation is vital, but it's also something that can be hard to really give into. Sometimes what's even harder, though, is giving in and then having to come back! Which is what I experienced on my one-week vacation in late July.

Now as I prepare to go to Mexico for a week, it's as if everything feels accelerated, as if stepping away from it all feels at once like the most impossible and the most important thing I can do for myself. With my own clients, I work hard to cultivate balance and to honor where the writer needs to be. But I also strive to be tough, to hold people accountable, and to keep myself and my writers beating to the rhythm of a fairly steady drum. But all of us reach burnout. All of us get to a place where the only solution is vacation, stepping outside of our day-to-day, allowing oureslves to s l o w d o w n . . .

Because it's August, the summeriest of the summer months, I want to take a moment to honor rest and recuperation. We all need it, and where creativity is concerned, stepping away from our lives can bring much needed perspective. Away from email, phone, blogs, and television, we can disengage. Whether or not you're vacationing this month, consider that next time you go out of town. Make it a goal to disengage, as completely as possible, from all the things you're plugged into. For those of you who already make this a priority, excellent; for those of you who don't, don't underestimate its value for even a second. It's when we're away from the things that distract us where we can allow ourselves to get in touch with our deepest sense of self.

Happy End of Summer!

---Brooke

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how to be free

2008-07-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Independence Day. Happy Fourth to all!

What it got me thinking about, though, was freedom. Because it's so easy to take freedom for granted, I feel like Independence Day is a good day to reflect on freedom, just like Thanksgiving is a good day to reflect on what we're thankful for.

This summer has been busier than any summer I can recall. It feels difficult to make time for the things I want to do. And even when I do have time, it seems even harder to slow time down enough to breathe and enjoy it all.

One of the themes of my coaching this past week has been about harnessing life and living the life we're all capable of living. And the connection to freedom doesn't escape me. How can we breathe into our bigness if we don't allow ourselves to be free---free from the voices that tell us we can't, free to believe we can manifest our own biggest dreams, free to live as large as we can possibly imagine.

I thought I'd leave my readers with a summer poem for July, and ask you all to reflect on what you'll do with your one wild and precious life.

“The Summer Day”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
The one who flung herself out of the grass,
The one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
How to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
Which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

---Mary Oliver

Until next month,

Brooke

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how to make the most or the least of your writing this summer

2008-06-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Make the most:

•Set specific times to write. The days seem longer in the summertime, so there's ample opportunity to allocate time during your day to your writing. Consider two- to three-hour slots. Set up in a cafe, or in a window seat in your house so you don't feel so shut in. Allow yourself to be inspired by the weather rather than making a list of all the other things you'd rather be doing.

•Get up early. It seems easier to get up earlier when it's light by 6 am, so try writing in the morning. If you live with roommates or family and you're craving quiet time, morning can be a huge make-the-most opportunity. Hell, why not try getting up at 5 am? Set your coffee timer and gift yourself the morning.

•Take a writing retreat. This might sound impossible if you have kids to attend to, or if you feel broke. But consider the possibility of going away, even just for a weekend. You can book yourself a weekend in a secluded bed and breakfast, or consider checking out Craigslist listings and see if you might find a housesitting gig. It's amazing how effective a single weekend of writing can be in jumpstarting your motivation and enthusiasm.

•Make your summertime goals known. Yes, this is a common accountability structure, but you need to tell someone what you hope to accomplish this summer. Maybe you need to finish your book proposal. Maybe you want to write five short stories. Perhaps your goal is to write three chapters of your memoir. Whatever it is, tell someone. Ask them to follow up with you every few weeks for a progress report. It might feel scary, but it's scarier to think that come fall you might not be a single step further along in your project than you are now---right?

Make the least:

•Tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow! A sure way to make the least of your writing is to procrastinate or NOT have set writing days. If you're telling yourself that a vague "I'll do it when I have time" schedule is going to work for you, believe me, it won't. There are always a million better things to do---especially in the summer when you can spend time outside and there are extra little voices in your head beckoning you to step away from the computer. Ignore them! Set your times and stick to them, and then you can indulge your voices on your non-writing days all you want.

•Don't prioritize your writing. Here's a fact: There are more important things than your writing. Your relationships, your family, keeping your house clean, your day job. Yes, it all ranks higher on the priority list than this thing that's your hobby or your passion, I know. So it's easy to turn to everything else before you turn to your writing. Write out your priority list and see where your writing falls, and if it's lower than, say, cleaning the bathroom, ask yourself why that is and if there's any way to bump it up a bit this summer. Maybe with enough practice it will be up on the top tiers by fall.

•Assume responsibility for everything. A lot of us have a ton of things to manage over the summer, particularly those of us with kids out of school. The more involved you get in scheduling and assuming all responsibility, the more of a guarantee it is that September will be here and you'll have done very little toward making progress with your writing. Each of you will have to handle this particular hurdle your own way, but consider asking for help. Don't be a martyr. Don't assume that no one else can handle what needs to be done. If you set aside your two hours, tell your partner or children what you're doing and allow them to be allies in your goals rather than distractions from them.

•Convince yourself that summer equals rest. If you treat your writing as work or a burden or an obligation that's hanging over your shoulder, then of course you'll believe that you deserve a break! If this is true for you, try thinking about your writing differently. Reframe your relationship with your writing this summer and consider all the ways in which it brings you alive. It's easy to feel lazy in the summer, and to justify that. So think of your writing as something like exercise or eating healthy. It's easy to feel lathargic and out of it, and sometimes we just need to change our habits a little bit to realize how much our day-to-day doesn't actually have to feel that way.

So go for it! Make the most of it, and consider the ways your sabateurs might be encouraging you to make the least of it. Happy June. Just days until summer!

Until next time.

Brooke

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who needs an author platform anyways?

2008-05-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

This month I'd like to talk about what an author platform is, why it's important, and who needs it anyways. There's a hell of a lot of talk in the publishing industry these days about the importance of the Almighty Author Profile---the AAP.

The AAP is important, it's true, but I know how confusing it is for writers who have aspirations of getting their books published.

First of all, what is an author platform?

The answer is not clear-cut. If you're a memoirist writing a book about your childhood, your author platform might include your blog, your MySpace page, and evidence of some readership. If you're a first-time novelist, an author platform is actually surprisingly less important than you might think. If you're a life coach, your platform might include your network of other coaches or your affiliation with a larger coaching program you're involved with. If you're writing a book about Alzheimer's, part of your platform is going to involve reaching out to specialists and networks of people who work with people suffering from Alzheimer's.

The shorter more universal answer is that a platform is anything that shows your future publisher that you have the potential to reach a wide readership. That said, if you're writing a cookbook, there's no sense in detailing your connections to the martial arts community you've been involved with since you were a child. The AAP must be focused and concise, and if you're smart, it will detail things the publisher won't have thought of. For instance, I've worked with an Asian American memoirist who listed all of her contacts to Asian American magazines and community groups. I've signed writers who have successful blogs and a proven readership. Even if your contacts and networks are minimal, start putting together a list now. See what you have to get a gauge on what you might start doing to bolster your AAP.

So what should you be doing if you want to be known as a writer with a great platform?

1. Start a website: If you don't already have one, get one. There's really no way to understate the importance of a website. If it makes sense, you should be blogging, too. But at the bare minimum, get yourself a simple site that gives information about who you are and what you're writing, and that includes some sample writing, particularly if you're writing a novel or a memoir.

2. Start doing outreach: If you're writing nonfiction, particularly prescriptive self-help, start identifying your target readership and making contacts with those people and their organizations. If you're writing about addiction, for instance, start researching the groups online that are recommending addiction/self-help books. Figure out which organizations might support your book. I had an author who wrote a marathoning book and she contacted all the national marathon training groups to tell them about what she was writing. Certainly if you can get on people's radar, you're on your way to building your author platform.

3. Get published: It doesn't matter whether it's an op-ed or a feature piece---consider getting your work published. If your a poet or a fiction writer this is actually more important than if you're a nonfiction writer, but it's important for any aspiring writer. The more bylines you have, the greater your profile. End of story. If you can say you've been published, you have a leg up on the competition. Start small. Publish for free in the beginning if you have to. Start researching where stories or articles that are relevant to your book might get picked up. This is hard work, particularly if you're more focused on writing you're book than you are on building you're platform. But if you can manage to hold both things at the same time, this is a sure-fire way to get publishers' attention.

4. Contact your friends (or friends of friends) in high places: Yes, if you can guarantee a foreword or a blurb by a high-profile person that can actually tip the scale. So work your contacts, and be shameless if you have to. It's hard for writers, particularly those who prefer to be at their computers writing rather than engaging with the public, to understand that publishers love the authors who have the charisma to TV and radio and to be out there engaging with their readers. And it's not for everyone. And it doesn't mean you can't get published if you're not a social butterfly. It's just to say that it's no longer possible to be a successful author who refuses to give interviews or who lives in relative obscurity or who's too shy to ask their friends who they know, and hey, for that matter, if they'll buy your book once it's published.

5. Consider public speaking: Nothing builds the AAP quite like public speaking. Again, it's not for everyone, and if you're a novelist this doesn't necessarily make sense. But once you're published, you might start getting calls to talk to groups of aspiring authors, and then that does absolutely make sense. But if you're a specialist, and you're writing a book about being bipolar or about Latino solidarity or about the generation gap or about the struggle to balance motherhood and career, then you need to find out groups you can speak to. Oftentimes it's the book deal that generates the speaking gigs, but if you can figure out ways into speaking engagements, this is something that publishers love. Why? Because it shows a demonstrated and preexisting audience. So consider what you're writing and what you have to say and whether you might be able to break into the speaking scene and add another notch on the AAP.

That's it for this month. Super practical advice stemming from my clients' questions and confusion. The author platform is basically a creation of modern-day publishing, but it's one you can't ignore. If you want to be published, you have to be dazzling. Some of you will be able to do that with your writing alone, but unfortunately those writers are few and far between. So start thinking about the big picture, and consider getting started with at least one of the ideas I've laid out here. And don't stress. Even one of these things counts as a solid start. The good thing about book publishing is it will always be there, so those of you who have the foresight to build your platform slowly and steadily are going to benefit in the longrun.

---Brooke

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spring cleaning: a writer's ritual

2008-04-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

This month's topic is all about Spring Cleaning Your Writing. For those of you who don't think you need to spring clean your writing life, consider how good actual spring cleaning makes you feel. This year I had a very profound experience in getting rid of junk. About two weeks ago, within days of each other, I unloaded two carloads of books I've been hauling around with me over the years since college, made a trip to the electronic recycling center and even rid myself of a working computer, and cut off six-plus inches of hair. It wasn't intentional doing all this stuff at the same time, but the results were dramatic. I felt as if I'd lost fifteen pounds. I felt lighter, newer, and freer. Sound dramatic? I assure you it's not. Spring cleaning is cleansing, which is why every writer needs to incorporate it as a spring ritual.

Spring cleaning, as we're approaching it in our workshop, will be a metaphor, a goal, and an intention. It can be actual spring cleaning, and should be, especially if you're writing in a cluttered office space---or worse, a nook in the corner of one of your bedrooms or living room. It can also be spring cleaning of your creative space, a washing out of old ideas that are weighing you down, or which are simply not serving you. We all hold onto things, but we oftentimes don't understand why. I was growing out my hair, but for what purpose? It was nice in the beginning, when it was still healthy, but after a certain point I was growing out my hair because I was attached to the idea of having long hair. Once I chopped it off, I had to ask myself why I waited as long as I did. The same is true in writing, only finding out the things you're holding onto can require a little more inquiry.

Even if you can't attend the workshop, I urge you to do one spring cleany thing thing this month as it pertains to your writing. Clean your desk or office space. Get rid of books you haven't opened in more than three years (and which don't hold significant sentimental value, of course). Or journal on some or all of the following questions:
1. What do I love about being a writer?
2. Which of these things are about what brings my soul alive?
3. What kinds of risks do I take in my writing?
4. What would it mean to truly risk myself in my writing?
5. What one thing am I unwilling to let go of when it comes to my writing?
6. If I had to let go of this one thing, what would happen?
7. How does that actually make you feel?

These questions could be part of your daily pages or personal journaling. I encourage it as a way of digging deeper into the question of what maybe needs to be cleaned and cleared out versus the places where you know you have a tendency to be cluttered and stuck. Take a chance here and see what reveals itself. Maybe it will be so effective that you'll feel compelled to ritualize the experience for yourself.

---Brooke

SoulCollage and the writer in you

2008-03-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

As Krista and I get prepared for our second SoulCollage workshop, I've been doing a lot of thinking about all the ways in which SoulCollage can help writers tap into their inner creativity. SoulCollage is amazingly intuitive. Sometimes, completely unexpectedly, I'll be thinking about some profound connection I've just made and realize that I've made a card that depicts exactly the emotion or energy I'm feeling in that moment. SoulCollage--or more broadly, allowing space for visual support in your life---can be a gift to writers who are willing to explore the full potential of what images have to offer you when it comes to your writing. They're there if you're open to receiving them.

I often encourage my writers to think about visual imagery as a friend to help them with focus, or intention. If you're writing memoir, for instance, there might be a particular image from your book that grounds you in your work. Or it might be more general. Lots of people identify with the natural world: soil to represent growth and the planting of the seed of creativity; water to represent the fluidity and forward motion of creativity and unfolding; trees to represent the grounding nature of the writing process.

Allow whatever images come up for you to be your friend in your writing process. Give an invitation and see what happens. I suspect that any of you who've never heard of SoulCollage before imagine that you need some sort of workshop or experience in order to do it right. But the reality is you don't. You can cut out or print or save any visual image that appeals to you. It might be something from an old calendar, or a photo you love from a website, or an image you see in a magazine. The point is having an awareness about the power of visual imagery to be a guide and a muse. If you're sitting stuck at your computer, confronted by the power of the blank page, imagine the power of an image that reminds you of your sense of purpose, that puts you directly into a space of ease and mindfulness.

I encourage you to be on the lookout for that image. Give it a try. Next time you're flipping through a magazine, stop when you see something that you're drawn to. Don't ask yourself why. Cut it out and hang it in your workspace.Or if you see something online, save it to your desktop and set it up as your wallpaper or screensaver image. Allow yourself to contemplate why you were drawn to it in the first place. It's amazing the insights that come when we just allow ourselves to meditate on the simple act of being present with something that captures our attention. And if you think about it, that's exactly the discipline you need to be cultivating for your writing: curiosity, presence, unfolding, and the possibility for alternate and additional meanings to reveal themselves over time.

---Brooke

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radical simplification

2008-02-04T20:57:00.000-08:00

I've written here before about David Whyte, who's an amazing poet and genius at articulating simple truths of life in ways that you allow you to hear and understand things you already know in a deeper and more full way. What he's able to do is take the small details of our everyday lives and remove them from their contexts, apply them to bigger contexts, and thus simplify them and universalize them.

Though he's wonderful to listen to and is certainly a brilliant man, this ability is not a talent. It's a learned and practiced skill that all writers should learn to pay attention to. The recurring theme of my coaching over the past two or three weeks has been the need to simplify. Certainly this applies to me, too, but I feel like all I'm seeing lately is the ways in which my writers and clients are complicating their writing, making their own creative journeys more difficult and more convoluted, and in that creating all kinds of obstacles to their goals that didn't exist when they set the goal in the first place.

The solution to this? Radical simplicity. David Whyte wrote: "… we understand that though the world will never be simple, a life that honors the soul seems to have a kind of radical simplicity at the center of it." What is radical simplicity and how do you bring that to your writing (or your whole life if you're aiming high)? Certainly it takes practice and slowing down, but there's a real discipline to radical simplicity. It's trusting yourself. Trusting that you know the words that belong on the page and that you know the story that needs to be told. If you feel like you're trying too hard, chances are you are. If you feel like your writing lacks focus, your reader is probably going to feel that way too. If you can't see the forest through the trees, consider taking a giant step away from your current perspective and approaching your work from a fresh one. What ten adjectives would you use to describe the project you're working on right now? If someone asked you what it is, would you be able to describe it in three sentences? Writing---whether it's a short story, a novel, a nonfiction project, a screenplay, or even a speech, must come from what you know. It must be delivered from a humble place, and from a knowing place. As writers you must learn to trust yourselves, and you must learn to honor your writing by allowing it to have a kind of radical simplicity at its core.

Do yourself a favor in February and take a long walk when you feel frustrated with your writing. Explore what it would mean to you to approach your work from a place of radical simplicity. Consider what your attachment is to the complexities that are weighing you down. And then see if you can start shedding unecessary layers, and try to write those three sentences again and see if what you have looks any different. It's not unlike a business plan. The more simply you're able to articulate what you're writing the easier it will be to sit down at your computer with a sense of ownership over your work. You own the work. The work does not own you.

---Brooke

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setting your intention for 2008

2008-01-21T21:32:00.000-08:00

January is a favorite time to set new goals, to create new resolutions, to think about all the things you haven't been doing but should be. Most of us create resolutions that are fairly vague. They're usually about things we want to get done during the year, but more often than not we have zero to little structure around the ways in which we might accomplish these goals. If your goal is weight loss (perennial favorite), for instance, you'd be best to go about it by starting a regular workout schedule, eating better, and all the rest. But how much easier would this be if you hired a personal trainer and chef to keep you on track? A lot. Most of us don't have the money to hire other people to help us see us through our goals, but there are smaller things you can be doing to follow through with the things you want to accomplish this year.

First, I encourage you to go beyond goal-setting. New year's resolutions need to be more than a goal. They need to have some kind of energy attached to them. They require passion. Or they just won't get done. Setting an intention is going a step beyond goal-setting. It's seeing yourself in that next phase. It's visualizing yourself achieving the goal and being in a new place, a step or two beyond where you are now.

One you've done the visualization and figured out where you want to be, consider getting into group settings that encourage you, that help you bring your intention into a more public space. You can do this by joining a group. If you're a writer and you don't already have a writing group, join one. Go to workshops. There are day-long workshops and weekend workshops on every topic under the sun. One of my own personal goals for 2008 is to hold four workshops. Beyond that, I want to attend at least that many. I kicked off this year by attending a David Whyte weekend at Mount Madonna Center last weekend. David's weekend promised to illuminate the invisible. It's important to take time away from your routine, to join others in a space that celebrates getting in touch with your inner intentions and your inner greatness. Sometimes spending a weekend outside of the pressures that you're feeling just to start, to be creative, and to get going with your goals is exactly the thing you need to allow the space for those things to happen.

Lastly, set up accountabilities. I believe that the best accountability system out there is actually having a coach who you're talking to on a regular basis, checking in with about whether you're on track with your own goals. But if you're struggling with the idea of whether you need or want a coach, then consider telling people (someone you trust to hold you to your commitment) your goals or your intentions and asking them to check in with you about it from time to time. It's a baby step toward more intense accountability, but it's a good start. And it might help you realize the value of accountability. There's a reason why lessons work. You have a lesson and the teacher expects you to practice during the week. If you never practice and there's no progress then the teacher will expect answers. You might start questioning why you're taking lessons in the first place. Every goal you're serious about, therefore, should be treated as something you'd be willing to take a lesson in, to have a teacher hold you to your intention to make progress.

If you're serious about tackling a new project or creating an ongoing writing practice, I encourage you to start with step one and move through to step three, or to tackle all of these over the course of this year. It'll change your life. I promise.

Until next month.

---Brooke

procrastination: the source of so many excuses

2007-12-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

Procrastination is the theme of this month's newsletter. Yes, it's the 27th, and yes, I'm just now getting to this. We all do it, but what is it all about and why do we succumb so easily?

There are lots of reasons. Some of us are just plain overwhelmed. Some of us need deadlines and accountability to be able to make progress with our goals. Some of us have amazing ideas and creative juices flowing, but it's just too much going on in our heads all at once and we don't know where to start.

Procrastination is the key reason why many writers aren't making progress on their articles, their novels, their screenplays, their book proposals. And a lot of times the more you procrastinate the more burdened you feel. It's like the friend you were supposed to call last month. With each passing week it gets more and more pressured and more and more awkward until you feel that pressure cooker feeling and just try to squeeze it to some nether region of your brain. But it always has a little hold on you, doesn't it? And when it comes to your passions, the things you're not doing for this reason or that, it's a lot worse, because that shoulding---no matter how far back you try to push it---crops up over and over again.

So December was a month for procrastinating. And we have such good excuses. We're Christmas shopping. There are more family demands than usual. Work feels crazy. I had my own personal excuse: I moved. Or I got sick. And I did, but even I know that that shouldn't mean the whole month has to go down the toilet where my goals and forward-movement is concerned.

So January. Sweet January. We have such high hopes for you. A month predicated on ringing in the new. Out with the bad old habits. In with the resolutions and promises to dedicate more time to the things we love to do for ourselves.

If you're a bad procrastinator, a king or queen of excuses and reasons why you're not getting to all the side projects you have and things you love, do consider getting a coach. Try a free session. It's amazing what accountability can do for you. And by this time next year you'll be reading this post and thinking to yourself, That's not me.

Until next time. Happy New Year.

---Brooke

November: Tell Your Saboteur to Take a Hike

2007-11-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

The saboteur goes by many names, and most of us have more than one. In fact, most of us have a whole committee of saboteurs---the voices in our heads that tell us we're not good enough, or that we don't have enough time. Saboteurs like to say things like, "If you can't sell your book for $50,000 then why bother?" Or, "What in the world made you think you can write? That paragraph sucks!" Yeah, they're nasty little devils.

Saboteurs are very sophisticated, though. It's not like you can just take notice and then move right along into a space of creativity, joy, and massive output. No. They generally have the upper hand. We usually believe what they say because they know how to reach into the places in our hearts and minds where we're most vulnerable. They're always in attack mode. They like to guilt us, put us down, condescend. The biggest achievement a saboteur can claim is making you feel anxious, stalled out, and empty. Sound familiar?

There are strategies for dealing with saboteurs, though. The first step is noticing them and being aware that these are in fact saboteurs, and that you can tell them to go take a hike. You do not have to put up with their insults and destructive behavior. One really cool thing to do is visualize your saboteurs. You know that one who tells you not to worry about writing? You can do it tomorrow. Or hey, why not this weekend? There's an interesting show on TV tonight. Let's call this one Patty Procrastinator. She's a real gem. Super helpful, isn't she? If we took a moment to visualize her she might be decked out in week-old pajamas. She'd have a bag of chips in one hand and a Supersize soda in the other. She'd be ready to hit the couch and veg out in a serious way. Maybe your own procrastinator looks a little different. Maybe yours is super busy cleaning the house, so much so that she's convinced you that that's a way better use of your time than sitting down to that damned computer and trying to punch out a few lines that could always be written tomorrow. And they'd probably be way smarter and better tomorrow anyways!

If you can learn to notice, name, and visualize your saboteurs, you're well on your way to having a more productive writing practice. There are all sorts of ways to deal with them that are really fun. One of my recurring saboteurs is a real jerk. He's not nice to me. Makes me feel bad about myself. He's got a big mouth. I decided to set up a little prison for him on my desk, and if and when he appears I visualize myself putting him in the box and closing the hatch. I can't hear him when he's in there and it's great. I have to admit that he can still get to me sometimes, but this little imprisonment thing has been really effective. Saboteurs do not give up easily, though, so don't beat yourself up if you are having trouble containing them. They have strategies, and they know us as well as we know ourselves. They know our weaknesses and how to hold us back or down. It takes practice and dedication to get to the place where you have more control than your saboteurs, where you are making active choices not to listen to what they have to say.

One of my preffered books on the saboteur calls the little brats Gremlins rather than saboteurs. Taming Your Gremlin is a fun and short book, with lots of pictures and good strategies for getting out of your own way.

It's not easy, this taming of your saboteurs, but it's an important thing to start to incorporate into your day-to-day routine. It's good for anything you've set as a goal, anything that feels big and scary and hard. Keeping your saboteur in check is also good for your health. They really can make you anxious, sad, and angry. And they're really nothing but self-defeating behaviors with loud mouths and ugly little faces.

Working to name your saboteurs can be hard, but it can also be the most freeing thing you can do for yourself. So give it a go. Write down your top five saboteurs and give them names. Try to visualize what they look like, what they might say, what they're doing, and where you might send them off to when they reappear. It can be a fun exercise, and next time they show up you'll know exactly what to do with them, and then you can continue on with the important tasks at hand.

Until next month....

Brooke

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