Anna David is a NY Times Bestselling and her new company, Launch Pad Publishing, is all about helping business owners position themselves as leaders in their industries by launching bestselling books.
Likewise, my goal for Let’s Get Published and the upcoming online Writer’s Mastermind is to help fiction writers position themselves for success in the fiction market.
But first, dear writers, you must get past everything that’s holding you back from realizing your best work.
I wrote this list for anyone who’s ever dreamed of creating something new but always talks themselves out of it.
(You’ll also get the scoop on how honestly scared I am about launching the Writer’s Mastermind!)
Where I live in the mountains of Panama, the only change of season we see is from rainy to dry. This begins to take place in November. There’s a shift in the wind and the town braces itself for the Fiestas Patrias (Panama’s Independence Days). Strings of small plastic flags crisscross the streets and flap as if applauding you whenever you drive beneath them. Grey clouds hover above the town as barjareque, (not quite rain, but heavier than mist) falls on the tourists and marching bands, covering them with a sparkling layer of microscopic droplets.
November also signals National Novel Writing Month, which I first participated in 2012. I had been wanting to write a novel my whole life, and the only thing that forced me to get a book started and finished was NaNoWriMo.
I completed my first ever book, surprising myself and triggering an addiction to finishing books ever since. Now when the winds of November change and I hear the echoes of the marching bands practicing for the Independence Day parades, I feel like a horse at the starting gate ready to race to my word count with all the other bucking writers.
I think anyone who’s participated in National Novel Writing Month start to look forward to it as a yearly tradition. It’s something to get excited about, and you are not alone in your enthusiasm and anxiety. You can connect with other writers who are on the same crazy train. NaNoWriMo helps to stop the usual procrastinating and put writing first for a whole month.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to participate in the last few years. My job consists of mostly writing now and my writing fuel and tolerance for sitting at the computer are wiped out by the time I finish my work for the day. I’m often traveling during this time for the holidays, which makes it difficult to scurry off to some quiet place to write.
I also don’t allow myself to participate because have to stop piling up manuscripts. It’s becoming a problem. I wrote three novels in a mad dash and they are still left rumpled up and tossed aside like piles of dirty laundry on the floor. I have no business writing more Nano novels until I clean these up, right?But I wonder… just because I wrote them, does that mean they should be published? Is it worth salvaging them? These were my first practice novels, before The Sick Series, when I had no idea what I was doing. Hell, I still don’t know.
Then, I decided to revisit the books to do a damage assessment. The story is about two artists – Antoni, who can’t stop the creative outpouring of his soul, and Ona, who is creatively stunted. They frequently talk about the reasons behind making art and what it means to them.
Their wisdom baffles me (did I actually write that?). In the very book I was going to chuck to the side, I received message from my characters. My voice came through them to tell me that maybe the world doesn’t need these books, but that doesn’t matter, because I do. I must finish what I started.
NaNoWriMo has taught me to get the book out. I’m so used to making the 50K a month word count that to this day I write in 1,667 word spurts. But it’s time to face reality and learn how to clean up the messes. Those of you who’ve followed this blog are sick of hearing it. I know a few of you are ready to clobber me over the head if I keep dragging on about The Sculptor.
Believe me, I attempted to revise several times. I did a lot of work and still didn’t get the desired results. I’ve realized that the most important part of writing is rewriting. No matter how experienced a writer is, no one writes a perfect first draft (or second … or third).
All the rewriting and revising methods I’ve tried helped so much, but they still left something missing. Even worse, sometimes I over-rewrote and the story it lost its raw core. That’s because I was trying to control it. Then I ended up completely lost.
Update Nov. 2019:
Another two years has passed since this original post above. November is here, with its cloudy, breezy days and the sound of snare drums ricocheting through the valley.
And no, my NaNoWriMo Novels are still not published.
And yes, I have new ideas for books that I’m dying to put on the page.
But I am restraining myself from NaNoWriMo this year again. No more new novels until my work on The Sculptor, which will resume in 2020.
In the meantime, I completed three new short stories which I am happy to announce will come out in an anthology with three other super-talented writers. It’s called Lost Voices and will be published by The Writing Collective.
As writers, we all have times of confusion, self-doubt, and setbacks. The important thing is to adapt as circumstances change, keep moving forward, and never give up on a story you believe in.
Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?
What are your plans for the NaNo novels you wrote?
Let’s Get Published is community of writers, and we’d love to get a conversation going. That’s why we’ll be posting a Writers Share every now and then to keep a pulse on the writers working their wordly magic all over the world.
Today we want to know about what you’re working on right now.
Tell us about yourself and your work-in-progress by responding by email, leaving a comment, or posting on our Facebook page.
Tag or share with your writing friends so they can join too.
1. What have you written?
2. What are you working on right now?
3. What do you plan to do with your current work-in-progress?
4. Where are you feeling good about your path to becoming a successful writer?
5. What are you struggling with?
As for me, I’m in the middle of Richard Thomas’s Contemporary Dark Fiction Class. Since the beginning of September, I have finished 8 short pieces of fiction, two 3,500-word short stories, and 2 essays analyzing books we read for the class. I have crammed more short fiction writing in the last two months than I can believe.
Yes, my brain hurts, but I’ve realized that I can make things happen even when I’m pressed for time and feeling uninspired.
I also feel empowered. I used to wonder why my work is not getting accepted. Rejection letters rarely come with an in-depth report about what’s not working in a manuscript. It’s a writer’s job to know that themselves. This class is teaching me the secret language of good writing (there is a language under the language).
Of course, now I want to take down everything I’ve ever written and rewrite it.
My article about author platform mistakes was featured in The Writing Cooperative, a writing community and publication focused on helping each other write better.
I develop author platforms for a living and have worked with all kinds of writers — from paranormal romance, to literary fiction, to children’s picture books. No matter the genre, the same basic rule applies.
The goal is to be found by your readers, and your author platform must make it easy for fans to engage with and share your content.
The issues I’m going to share with you might seem obvious, but I come across them daily, even with established writers. The smallest holes in your author platform cost you big time. The worst part is, you won’t even realize the connections, opportunities, and sales you’re missing out on.
Go through this checklist and make sure your author platform is working for you…
A professional Facebook Author page is a must-have for all writers. Though Facebook doesn’t offer the same organic results as they did in the past, they’ve created one of the greatest advertising platforms that is excellent for selling books.
You’ll want to make sure your page is complete before running any ad campaigns. Set up or optimize your Facebook Author Page with this tutorial.
1. Facebook Cover
Your Facebook cover is a billboard where you can create a cover that promotes you and your books.
Design your own cover image according to the Facebook page cover dimensions. You can use a mobile app or web-based graphic designer like PicMonkey or Canva. Make it even easier by hiring someone on Fiverr to do it for you.
Otherwise, browse freelance sites for a video production specialist.
2. Use the Shopping Template
Facebook’s Shopping template will allow you to host a store on your author page. It’s the perfect place to showcase your books.
If you’re setting up your author fan page for the first time, you will be prompted to select a template.
If you already have an author Facebook page, you can change to the shopping template in Settings under Templates and Tabs.
3. Fill out Your Page Info and Story Sections
I can’t tell you how many authors pages fail to include vital information, like bio and website. Fans are going to want to visit your blog, website, or Amazon page so be sure to add as much information as you can.
Page info settings
More free promotional real estate is offered in the Story section located in the right sidebar of your Facebook author page. This area features another image and a text area where you can include a live link.
Edit your Story Section
4. Activate Call to Action Button
This call to action button can be used to encourage fans to contact you, watch a video, shop for your books, and more. Click edit button and a box will pop-up with button options and settings.
5. Add Your Books to the Shop
The Facebook shopping template is perfect for authors because you can feature a little bookshop right on your page.
What your shop area will look like.
Click Shop in the left sidebar menu. You will see a box where you can Add Product. Click that area to add your book cover, buy link, and toggle the Share this product to your page if you’d like your book to be posted to your timeline.
Adding books to shopping template.
6. Embed a Mailchimp form
If you’re a Mailchimp user, you can grow your email list straight from your Facebook page. However, this must be done through your Mailchimp account.
Log in to Mailchimp, click your username in the top menu bar to activate the dropdown menu. Click account and then click integrations. This is where you will find the option to add a tab with a Mailchimp form to your Facebook Author page.
Locate the Facebook signup for option in your Mailchimp dashboard.Offer a free download with a Mailchimp form in a Facebook page tab.
You can reorder your tabs by returning to the Templates and Tabs section under Settings. Click and drag them to the desired spot.
7. Invite Your Friends
Use the handy Invite Friends button to get the first likes for you page. Click this button ever few months as you add new friends to your personal profile.
Invite friends!
8. Claim Your Facebook Username
Once you get 25 likes on your Facebook author page, you can choose a username.
Try to find a username that is closest to your writing name or the same as your social media handles.
Choosing a username will also set the URL for your page, making a nice, neat address instead of the default jumble of words with numbers.
Check your username in the About tab.
9. Connect to Your Instagram
Connecting your Instagram account allows you to share Instagram posts to your Facebook Author Page. It also makes it possible to configure Instagram ads via Facebook in your browser, which is easier than doing it from a mobile phone.
Make sure your Instagram is connected by visiting the Instagram tab in Settings.
10. Use Offers
Whenever you want to promote your book, you can use Facebook Offers to stir up interest and urgency. Click offers in the left sidebar menu or in the posting options on your timeline.
You can then add a photo, choose what kind of offer you want to post (coupon, discount, promocode, or other), and set the expiration date.
Offers tabCreating your offer
11. Create a Group That’s Connected to Your Page or Link Your Existing Group
Groups are an extremely effective way to stay engaged with your readers. Each time you post to a group, your members will get a notification, so unlike page fans, group members are more likely to see your posts.
A private group can also be a way to give members exclusive access to you. Just make sure you are prepared to invest time and thought into your group to make it a worthwhile endeavor.
If you already have a group, link it to your page so your brand is connected.
Link groups in the Groups tab.
Now You’re Ready to Go!
Your page is ready for using, sharing, and advertising.
Subscribe to Dear Writer for future posts on Social Media Optimization for authors, including Facebook Advertising for books. CLICK HERE.
When we don’t purposefully and deliberately choose where to focus our energies and time, other people—our bosses, our colleagues, our clients, and even our families—will choose for us, and before long we’ll have lost sight of everything that is meaningful and important. We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people’s agendas to control our lives.
Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
When it comes to becoming a successful author, planning is 200% more valuable than writing. I’m not talking about outlining your stories and novels before writing them. That is important too, but I’m talking about planning on both macro and micro levels to reach your big picture vision of your life as a writer. Without planning ahead, we get distracted, sidetracked, and stray off task.
Aspiring writers are especially susceptible to writer’s drift, a state when we feel like life always gets in the way of our writing. There are several reasons we allow this to happen on a conscious or subconscious level.
1. Because we don’t earn a steady paycheck from writing yet, so we can’t justify spending time and energy on it.
2. We usually don’t have writing deadlines, except those we impose on ourselves. When we fail to meet them, who cares? No one knows but us. We have no one to hold us accountable.
3. We don’t know exactly what to do next, leaving gaps to be filled with interruptions, distractions, or someone else’s priorities.
We’ll get up for a job we’re not crazy about. We rearrange our schedule for our kids or significant other. We even drag ourselves out to walk the dog no matter how tired we are.
But how often do we take a stand for our writing?
The first chunk of time to be sacrificed when some unforeseen issue comes up is our writing time. Writing time is vague and unconvincing. People don’t respect it. Even we’re not sure what it is we’re not getting done when we’re not able to write. So it’s easy to dismiss it as no big deal.
The one person we fail is ourselves. And we don’t realize the impact it makes on our wellbeing when we’re constantly letting ourselves down by pushing aside our heart’s dream.
What would happen if you treated your writing with the same priority as other aspects of your life?
And how do we put ourselves into position to do that?
How do we do it without feeling guilty or self-indulgent?
Planning out your writer’s path to the smallest details will keep you committed to your writing. This means breaking things up in 5-year, 1-year, quarterly, weekly, and daily goals.
It’s not about finding time to write. It’s about making time to write.
Making sure you always have something scheduled to do next will ensure that you avoid wasting time, overwhelm, and paralysis. This will help you keep moving forward no matter what.
You’ll be able to ignore your fears and push past rejection. You’ll always be able to put one foot in front of the other by executing the next step in your plan.
Start Here
I’ve created a planning guide to avoid writer’s drift. You can download it for free using the link or form below.
