Watch an interesting Borders interview with Meyer about Host and Twilight. The thing I keep seeing in her interviews is that this woman follows her passion. She follows the story that wows her. It’s nice, of course, that millions of fans want to share that wow with her. But I don’t know that a writer can be successful doing anything else.
Nobody was looking for Twilight. A Mormon housewife writes a young-adult novel about a love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire?
Is this Anne Rice lite? Not in the eyes of the teenagers—and their mothers—who have embraced the book.
But Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight does raise some questions, and I’ve asked them. “You really want your teenage daughter to live inside the story of a girl who lies to her parents, invites a boy to sleep in her bed and trusts him not to take advantage of her?”
These women look at me as if I’m insane. “But she can trust him. He really loves her. He’s…perfect.”
In an era when much of the romance genre has been given over to soft porn, and dark fantasy is peopled with one-dimensional characters bent on grim violence, many readers have become hungry for pure romantic fantasy—lots of sexual tension, but as decorous as Jane Austen.
Meyer, 34, did not calculatedly reach for that audience. Instead, she wrote the story she believed in and cared about. She writes with luminous clarity, never standing between the reader and the dream they share. She’s the real thing. Still, who’d have thought it? Today Mr. Darcy is a vampire.
Card is author of Ender’s Game, Empire and Women of Genesis
What are the biggest factors influencing which book a person will read next?
Many surveys have been conducted over the years to answer just that question. I’ve pasted one on the right and summarize the results of others here. One factor sits at the top of almost all of those surveys. Did you look at those other surveys? According to these surveys, folks tend to buy books by authors they already like.
This phenomenon is called a lot of things. One of the most common is “brand loyalty.” Some might be wondering how you define a brand and what could be branded in publishing. KKR has a great piece here that answers those questions.
So brand loyalty. How does it develop? Well, any time you please readers, their loyalty grows and inches them toward the loyal fan end of the spectrum. Your brand may not have the power of a Dean Koontz because you don’t have near the number of loyal customers as Koontz, but you still have a brand. And people who like your stuff are going to be loyal to some degree, but not the same degree.
I think that last point is important to remember: readers that know and like your brand won’t all have the same degree of loyalty.
You have hard-core fans who are totally dedicated to you and make an effort to know what’s happening. You’ve pleased them so much, your brand is gold to them.
You have others who will buy your book the minute they hear it’s out, but don’t make an active effort to keep up to date on things.
There are others who will mark it to be read when they hear about it, but don’t make a big effort to get it unless it’s convenient.
You have others who like your stuff but are still in that period where they like but haven’t yet committed to being a fan. That sometimes may take a few books.
That’s how it was with me and Lee Child. I read the first and liked it. Some time later I saw another and was predisposed to like it. I read that one and liked it too. I wasn’t a Child fan yet. But then I read the third. And that’s when I became a true fan. I’m not hard-core. But I now read everything he puts out within a few months of the release.
From what I can see, branding and brand loyalty matter no less in publishing than they do in any business where you’re relying on repeat customers.
I see the effect of brand loyalty all over. It was the force behind the dramatic explosion of sales when it was revealed that Robert Galbraith, the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling, was J.K. Rowling. It was the force behind the midnight book store events when Stephanie Meyer would release a Twilight book (and the Twilight balls). And other similar events with many other authors. It’s the reason why publishers make the names of a lot of authors so prominent on the cover. Good grief, sometimes that’s all you need. Look at some of the Nora Roberts or JD Robb covers. On many of those the name, the brand, takes up 75% of the cover. You can see customer loyalty blossoming in reviews on GoodReads and Amazon and elsewhere where readers say in essence, “I loved this author and I will be looking for the next book.”
Building a base of loyal customers is they goal in businesses that rely on repeat sales. Because not only do those folks come back for more, but the also tell other folks about the product.
Go back an look at those surveys. What was usually the number two reason someone selected a book?
Word of mouth.
Word of mouth comes in many forms. Recommendations from folks you know. Recommendations from other influencers–folks like Rush Limbaugh or review sites you frequent. Recommendations from some other type of social influence mechanism like a bestseller list on Amazon.
The key takeaway for me is that top two factors driving book sales all stem from a loyal customer base. Which means building that base should be one of my main goals as a writer.
So how do you do that?
The same way everyone else in a repeat customer business does it. At a general level, you:
Create a product (a book in this case) that’s likely to delight a certain set of consumers (readers).
Let those consumers (readers) know about it.
Make it enticing for them to give it a try.
Make it easy for those who liked it to know when they can get another.
Get more product (another book that’s similar to the last) out the door so your repeat customers can come back for more.
I’ll be sharing more of my ideas about aspects of those five steps in upcoming posts. And I’ll be wanting to hear what you’ve found that works. Because ultimately we’re all testing various strategies. And the more we share with each other, the more we’ll each benefit.
While you’re waiting, you might want to look at an awesome book on customer loyalty called The Loyalty Effect by Frederick F. Reichheld.
I found these two interesting, and, as always, entertaining to listen to. However, while their focus on limitations and ramifications is excellent, I’ve found asking “what does the magic cost” to be counterproductive. Here’s why: “cost” leads people to think ONLY of magics where you trade x thing for y power. Blood, memories, vitality, years of life, your children, etc. The problem with this is that while magics that use fuel (cost something) can be great, it isn’t necessary to do it that way. There are many stories with wondrous magics that don’t cost a thing.
For example, Heroes shows a lot of magic without cost. What does it cost Hiro to time travel? Nothing. It’s free. What about the painter? He can do it at will. Same with the guy who goes invisible, the cheerleader who regenerates–all the other characters there. What about the magic in Elantris? It costs nothing to draw the runes. What was consumed? Nothing. What about Orson Card’s Hatrack world? Alvin can doodlebug until doomsday. There’s no fuel required.
Some may say it’s semantics, but it’s not. It affects the paths taken in the invention of the magic. I’ve seen it in my invention sessions and those of groups I’ve been in. Don’t trust me, do a group magic brainstorm session where you ask the cost of magic question and then another where you ask about limitations instead.
I’ve found that it’s MUCH more helpful to ask these questions but NOT necessarily in the order below.
What is a cool power?
What are the limitations to it?
What are the ramifications and conflicts of using it?
Costs are simply ONE type of limitation. In magic, limitation and ramification are the key things. By opening up the question, we can use costs or MANY other types of limitations like genetics/bloodlines, intelligence, scope of power, duration of effect, sources, scarcity of ability, morals, geography, times when it’s effective, mysteries, etc.
Listen to the wonderful podcasts and then focus on powers, limitations, and ramifications, and use costs only if they are limitations that jazz you.
Alan Peterson runs the Meet the Thriller Author podcast. He recently met with me to get my advice for new writers. The interview is now up on his site. After that, you’ll want to listen to some of the others. He’s talked to some great authors.
A cracking good story idea requires five critical elements.
Until you have all five, you’ll struggle to plot. You’ll write a few scenes and run out of gas. You’ll feel like the story just isn’t going anywhere.
And that’s because it isn’t. It can’t. A story isn’t a story without all five elements.
However, once you develop these five things, your story will suddenly roar to life. There are a few other elements that are important as well, but these five things form the core of the story setup.
In this course you’re not going to merely learn about all of those story elements. You’re going to go deep and learn what can only be learned by actually doing the work and developing story idea after story idea with personal one-on-one feedback from someone who knows what they’re doing.
When you finish, you won’t just know story theory. You will be a story idea machine. And you will be that because you have put in the work. The right work.
Again, this is not a course full of lectures and videos. This is a course where you’re going to work. And develop the insights and skills that only come from doing the work.
You’re actually going to:
Come up with story setup after story setup after story setup
And improve them with one-on-one feedback.
It’s going to:
Eliminate years of you wandering about in the story wilderness trying to figure things out on your own.
Put you miles ahead of other writers who have no idea what’s really at the core of story.
You are going to learn how to develop killer story ideas on purpose instead of on accident. Which means you’ll be able to do again and again. Reliably. Like clockwork.
Course details
The focus of the class is not on learning about story, although you will do that. The majority of your time will be spent on developing stories.
You can’t become a carpenter by watching videos and reading books about it.
You have to get out on the work site, cut wood, and pound nails. You have to make the mistakes all beginning carpenters make, get feedback, and improve.
The same goes for writing.
And you’re going to work in this class. You develop 21 story setups. In fact, you develop more because the 21 are just the ones you turn into me. And with each one your skills, insights, and abilities grow.
In the beginning, your setups will be bare bones. By the end, they’ll be fully developed setups that beg to be written. Setups you can use to immediately write the first draft of your novel, whether that’s in outline or chapter form.
Here’s what you do each week.
Week 1.
Uncover the secrets of what’s really at the heart of story and how to generate ideas.
Define your genre requirements
Create story setups 1-3
Week 2.
Uncover the secrets to compelling characters
Create character sketches
Create story setups 4-7
Week 3.
Uncover the secrets to formidable obstacles
Create story setups 8-11
Week 4.
Uncover the secrets to interesting casts
Create story setups 12-15
Week 5.
Uncover the secrets to managing multiple storylines and series
Create story setups 16-19
Week 6.
Create story setups 20-21. These are your capstone projects where you apply everything you’ve learned and take it to the next level
In this class you develop story idea after story idea after story idea. You are going to be marinated in the work of developing characters, THOMs, goals, obstacles, settings, casts, and more. And because of that, each week will not only bring an explosion of insights, but new skills and abilities.
Every week you get two private, one-on-one, live sessions with me where you get encouragement and feedback on what you’ve developed. And you’ll have access to a private Facebook group where you can apply the principles to brainstorm even MORE ideas for each other’s stories.
At first you might feel a bit shy and worried about your ideas and abilities. But you’ll soon get over that. By the end of the course you’ll be one of those people that can generate terrific ideas easily. And you’ll be able to do that because you will have put in the work to become a different writer.
What’s the price?
Hours of one-on-one instruction from a professional editor or author costs thousands of dollars. An MFA program can cost $25,000 to $30,000 or more!
But this course won’t cost anywhere close to that.
Plus you’re going to learn things here you’ll never get in an MFA program (I know. I was accepted into a top-ranked program).
The cost of this course is $799. And I personally guarantee your results. You’ll be totally oh-my-gosh-I’m-so-happy-I-took-that-class satisfied, or I’ll give you your money back. No questions asked.
Now’s your chance to stop spinning your wheels. I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d had something like this when I’d started:
The secrets about the true core of story.
The secrets about how to come up with ideas.
Actual work with personal one-on-one feedback.
Laser focused on what actually matters, not a bunch of ridiculous writing rules.
When you finish, you will be a story idea machine.
You won’t know plotting. That’s a different course and set of skills. You won’t know how to write chapters. But you’ll know how to create the engine that powers all the rest of that. You’ll know how to create the core that makes awesome plots and chapters possible.
If you want to take this course, click the button below and contact me. I will tell you exactly how to apply.
I’m not going to be able to accept everyone who wants to take the class. I have a very strict limit on the number of students I can work with. So you need to get your application in before the deadline of midnight, December 11th.
Author Mette Harrison writes a column on writing for Orson Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. I think you can read them without a subscription. This month’s column had some great insights. Here’s one fab example.
I also recommend that if you want to write a book that readers will not be able to put down, focus on one really good story (more on this next month). I am not saying that you can’t have sub plots or minor characters. You can. But I urge you to make sure that your page count does not obscure which characters are the main ones or what their main goal is. If you have lots of different characters who are in different parts of your world, that is fine. But make sure that they are all working at different ends of the same thread, that they all end up being part of the same story. If you cannot figure out which character is the one you want your readers to care the most about, to root for most desperately, you may have too many characters.
Because you’re mind auto-corrects eorrs, and fills in missing punctuation or words like “of” “the” and “a”. And often doesn’t care or know the house rules for capitalization. Etc.
(Did you catch all the errors in that paragraph?)
Except the brains of copy editors play this trick as well. That’s why some read the manuscript backward and others use arcane WordText code to suss out issues. And some change the font face. And some make multiple passes over a section, looking for dialogue issues the first time through, capitalization the next, and something else the third time. And despite all their work, you still find errors in the text.
I’m not saying editors aren’t any good. I’m just saying that our brains, for the most part, don’t care about the details. They just care about the communication, and they’re very good at ignoring the rubbish. And when it’s just the brain and the eye working together, the brain makes sense of the text, even when something’s wrong or missing.
So one trick to force the brain to see what’s actually on the page is to read your text out loud to yourself. It’s an excellent practice, except a human brain is still involved, and it sometimes still plays tricks. And sometimes we get lazy and start to read too quickly, and the next thing you know we’re subvocalizing and whipping along, missing all sorts of stuff.
So what can you do?
Well, a few book releases ago, I stumbled onto something. I invited an electric lady to help. And she was dynamite. (You can invite a man if you prefer the sound of those voices.)
I’m talking about inviting your computer to read aloud every word of your manuscript to you. And highlight the words as it goes.
I can tell you I’m never going back. These ladies have simply helped me see too many errors that were invisible to me and my beta readers who had editorial chops.
I use WordTalk, a free plugin for Microsoft Word for this kind of reading. The University of Edinburgh created it to help kids learn how to read. It allows you to select from the text-to-speech voices you have on your computer, set the reading rate, and it highlights the word it’s reading so you immediately see where the error is.
I set it at a slightly faster reading speed so my mind cannot wander during the reading and use the quick keys so I can start and stop and make my edits easily. And I always, always, always have my electric friend re-read any fixes I make because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve adjusted a sentence or paragraph and introduced more errors that I didn’t see, even though they were staring me in the face.
I must admit that the electric ladies can’t do everything. Having them read to you cannot help you spot errors you don’t know are errors in the first place. If you don’t know, for example, the conventions for capitalization of personal titles or the conventions for numbers (is it a “.44mm” gun or “forty-four millimeter”?) If you don’t have your own house rules for the many areas where you have a choice like in an epic fantasy (do you use “Dreadman” or “dreadman”?) If you don’t know any of that, you’ll blithely skip over a host of errors and only see the issues you know like the misuses of “rise” and “raise” or “lie” and “lay.”
So you have to learn the conventions or find someone who does (an editor). Or both.
Also, doing this type of reading will not help you see if what you’ve written is actually translating the scene in your head clearly and vividly to the page for someone new to your story. Only a fresh set of eyes can tell you where your story isn’t clear, believable, or interesting (at least to that one reader).
But for helping you spot the issues you do know, I haven’t found anything better. Give it a try.
Oh, and the update on Awful Intent–Zira and I are almost finished with the copy edit! Which means the release is only days away.
